1972: Confirmed; or, Surviving a Lutheran Childhood

by Corinne H. Smith

1972:  I turned fifteen years old.  I was in tenth grade at Hempfield High School.  Daddy was 43, and he worked as a research chemist at Armstrong Cork Company in Lancaster, Penna.  Mom worked as a nurse at a local clinic.  We lived on Dale Avenue in West Hempfield Township.  The #1 most popular song on my fifteenth birthday was “I Can See Clearly Now” by Johnny Nash.  Mom snapped this photograph.

     My parents and I attended church on most Sundays at the Holy Spirit Lutheran Church on Columbia Avenue in Lancaster.  It was a relatively new church.  My parents weren’t charter members, but they joined the congregation soon after it was established, in the late 1950s or early 1960s.  Before the actual church was built, the group met at the Hambright Elementary School, a few miles east on Millersville Road.

     Both of my parents were born and raised as Lutherans.  Mom had been a member of Christ Lutheran Church in Allentown.  Daddy was part of the small family parish at St. Matthew’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Macungie, where nearly everyone in the congregation was related to one another.  Neither one of my parents questioned their roots.  We were a Lutheran household.

     Each Sunday we’d drive the two miles to get to the church.  The ride took all of five minutes. But it was long enough for my pain to begin.  On a regular basis, I’d lie on the back seat and moan that my stomach hurt.  As I recall, I was really only halfway making this up.  I simply did not want to go to Sunday school.  I didn’t see the point.  I didn’t care about or see any relevance in the stories that we were told.  The little arts and crafts activities that we did when we were younger were mildly entertaining but hardly educational.  I didn’t like the place or the experience.  And the repetitive and meaningless church service was even worse.

 

     My revulsion renewed itself each time Sunday came around, and it grew exponentially with every passing second in the car.  At times I even felt myself getting physically sick.  I suppose I had the whole mind-body connection going.  I complained.  Loudly.  But my protests were ignored, and we continued on to Holy Spirit anyway. 

     We were moderately involved in the organization.  Daddy played the flute for occasional services.  Mom sang in the choir, and when I was deemed old enough, I joined her there.  Once I even had to portray Mary for the Christmas program -- promoted from my original part as a walk-on second angel -- when a sudden snowstorm prevented the girl with the leading role from getting to the church in time.  Ick.  This was the penalty for living too close to the place.

     To myself, I’d been questioning the whole operation for a number of years.  I realized that I was going through the motions of the weekly liturgy without understanding or accepting any of its basic tenets.  When I finally took the time to think about the symbols and their underlying meanings, I decided that I didn’t believe in any of them.  It then seemed ridiculous to recite or sing words that I rejected.  So I stopped.  I didn’t bow my head, I didn’t mumble the responses or the creeds or the prayers.  When the hymns came up, I moved my lips but just hummed the alto parts.  I made sure that the actual words didn’t come out of my mouth.  With these coping mechanisms in place, I could be true to my own feelings, and still acquiesce to my mother’s wishes.  I hoped that no one would notice.

     Somewhere along the line, an adult who led our Sunday school classes asked if we had any questions.  I decided to speak up and to go for the big one.  I asked for proof that God existed.  As I recall, he didn’t hesitate a second.  He opened his arms wide and said, “Just look at our wonderful world!  Who but God could have created it?”

     Well, that was no answer for me.  I think I mustered up an “Oh, right,” and turned away to shake my head.  I was disappointed, but not surprised.  He was just someone else who was going through the motions without thinking too deeply about what he was doing. 

     By the Spring of 1972, I had turned the magic age to get confirmed in the church.  I went along with the scheme.  My parents, especially my mother, expected it of me.  We had no discussions on the subject.  My participation was just assumed.  We were steeped in a German and Pennsylvania Dutch heritage.  We didn’t talk about these kinds of things.  Well, first of all, we didn’t talk about these kinds of things.  And second of all, I knew I would be opening a gargantuan Pandora’s box if I voiced my concerns and objections.  So I kept quiet and went along.

     There were four of us in the confirmation class: two boys and two girls.  We attended a few sessions in combination with some fellow confirmees at another local Lutheran church.  I remember that we were assigned to read the beginning of Genesis and had to understand all of its “begats.”  Why?  I don’t remember why. 

     At the end of the process, we each had a one-on-one office meeting with the minister who would confirm us.  Once again, I was asked if I had any questions.  Once again, I decided to speak up and to this time go for number two.  I asked for proof that the stories in the Bible were true.  As I recall, the minister pointed to the overflowing bookshelves on the opposite wall.  He began to ramble about all of the volumes that had been written about the individual books in the Bible.  Would I like to borrow any of them?

     I scanned some of the titles on the spines.  I sure didn’t see anything that looked as if it would give me the explanation I wanted.  I shook my head and said No.  Once again, I was disappointed by getting a non-answer.  If two of the top administrators of this outfit couldn’t sufficiently summarize the basics of Christian faith to my satisfaction, why should I go along with it? Was everyone just going through the motions?  What kind of gig was this, anyway?

     Alas, I had misjudged the confidentiality of the minister’s office.  Soon after this meeting, my mother casually mentioned to me that the minister had spoken to her.  He told her that one of the four confirmees had doubts about joining the church.  With a plummeting stomach, I tried to look innocent as I replied, “Really?  Who?”  I expected her to say me.  Instead, she named the other girl in the class, Vicki.  “Oh,” I said, with inner glee.  And I thought to myself, How cool is this?  It turns out that I’m not the only one with questions.  And I went on my merry way.  Mom never continued the conversation.

    It’s only been in recent years that the truth has dawned on me.  The minister would only have shared with my mother any concerns he had about me.  He wouldn’t have told her anything about his meetings with Vicki or the others.  Mom knew all along what question I had asked him.  And yet she never confronted me about it.  Germans!

     On March 26, 1972, the four of us were confirmed at Holy Spirit Lutheran Church.  We each got a copy of the then-current Lutheran hymnal (The Red Book!) with our names embossed on each cover.  Yes, I still have it.  It’s difficult to donate a book anonymously to any library sale or used-book venue when it’s got your name printed right on it.  

"The Red Book," complete with my name on the cover

     I continued to suspend my disbelief in organized religion for the benefit of my mother.  Then, wouldn’t you know it, a higher power intervened.  A handful of years later, in the late 1970s, my father and I both got kicked out of the Lutheran church.  I could not believe my good fortune!

     Here’s what happened.  Holy Spirit was between ministers at the time, and a lay committee gained control of the parish.  Its members decided that anyone who had not taken communion in a while would get a letter saying that they would be removed from the church register unless they came forward and acquiesced or repented.  Today my father and I can’t remember the particulars:  whether it was three months or six months that the committee used as its cut-off point.  I was at a college five hours away, and I rarely went home during the course of a semester.  I got one of the letters, because I hadn’t taken communion within the expected time period.

     My father got a letter, too.  But Mom didn’t.  Why?  Because a week earlier, both of my parents had attended what was then the once-a-month communion service.  Mom had taken communion.  But my father was playing the flute that Sunday, and he and the organist kept a steady stream of music going while everyone else filed up front.  The two musicians never took communion that day.  So my father didn’t fill out one of the little slips of paper you were supposed to hand to the usher after the wafer and wine bit.  And that’s why Daddy got a letter, too.

     Mom was outraged.  She was livid.  She vowed to never set foot in that church again.  How could she ever go back to a place that treated her husband and her daughter so callously?  I was at college, so I didn’t witness the ensuing commotion firsthand.  But I know there was a lot of it.  The committee was deemed to have had no power to issue such declarations.  When Holy Spirit eventually got another minister, he spent some time back-pedaling, apologizing, and trying to win my mother back.  I’m not sure he ever did.

     I saw the situation as My Way Out.  Finally!  “Well, I got kicked out of the Lutheran church,” is all I would need to say to anyone who would ask me about any religious affiliations.  I wouldn’t even have to supply details.

     And that was my last formal affiliation with a church.  Oh, there have been a few digressions in the intervening years, but only a few.  The biggest one was being married for eight years to a musician who happened to also be a choir director. I was rather forced to sing in a Presbyterian church on most Sundays because of him.  Eventually I came to my senses, exerted my authority, and said I couldn’t and wouldn’t sing there anymore.  A mutually agreed-upon divorce followed not too long afterward.  (To be fair:  Singing in church was only a minor issue involved in the break.)

     In 1993, we held my mother’s memorial service at Holy Spirit Lutheran Church.  I’m not sure she would have wanted it that way, but my father and I had few other choices to consider.  Technically, she was probably still a member.  Or were all three of us still members?  I don’t know.  I’d been kicked out, remember?

     I’ve probably sat in on fewer than two dozen church services in the last 20 years.  There have been a few weddings, a few funerals.  I still refuse to aimlessly recite any words I don’t believe in.  So don’t be surprised at my non-compliance, if you find yourself sitting next to me in such situations in the future.

     If I wasn’t a Lutheran, or even a Christian, what was I?  An atheist?  Agnostic?  I knew what I didn’t believe.  What did I believe instead?  Of this, I was not sure.  I was still thinking.

     1972 marked a variety of confirmations for me, and the most public one was a sham.  But don’t cry for me, Argentina.  Other mentors with brimming bandwagons would soon come my way, and I would be a willing jumper.

1971: Mary Tyler Moore & Minneapolis

By Corinne H. Smith

1971:  I turned fourteen years old.  I was in ninth grade at Hempfield High School.  Daddy was 42, and he worked as a research chemist at Armstrong Cork Company in Lancaster, Penna.  Mom worked as a nurse at a local clinic.  We lived on Dale Avenue in West Hempfield Township.  The #1 most popular song on the radio on my fourteenth birthday was “Theme From Shaft” by Isaac Hayes.  Mom snapped this photograph.  It must have been taken on New Year's Eve, and Daddy must have been on his way to performing somewhere.  We obviously still had our tree up and most of our opened presents beneath it.  Once again, we missed taking the photo on the exact day of my November birthday.

     My mother was an extrovert:  a boisterous and often opinionated person who freely spoke her mind.  She had recently returned to the nursing profession and was working at a local clinic for women.  She may have been a registered Republican, but she was a moderate conservative.  She was in favor of most women’s rights, including the availability of birth control pills and legalized abortion.  I’m not sure what path her life would have taken if she hadn’t had a husband and a daughter to attend to.  We were hardly high-maintenance housemates, but still.  My mother lived within some self-imposed and cultural limitations.

     For inspirational role models of younger and more independent women, I had to turn to the ones I saw on TV.  When I was turning fourteen, That Girl was just ending its five-year run.  Marlo Thomas’s character, Ann Marie, was somewhat interesting to watch because she was making every attempt to succeed on her own as an actress in New York City.  I never wanted to live there, or to live in any big city -- or to become an actress -- but I certainly could identify with the way she still called her father “Daddy.”  And his name was the same as my father’s was, too. (Although technically, the writers spelled his name as “Lou,” and my father’s given name is “Lewis.”)

     But Ann Marie seemed to get only so far in her escapades.  Then she’d have to confront her father, who usually complied with a gruff version of “tough love” before the practice even had a name.   And then he’d soften.  Or worse:  Ann would go whining to her boyfriend, Donald Hollinger.  “Oh, Donald!” she’d exclaim with a pout, at least once during an episode.  Why couldn’t she solve her problems on her own?  Whenever I see these shows repeated now, I think less of her than I used to.  Really, Ann.  Grow up.  Trust your gut.  Rely on your own instincts.  You shouldn’t have to be rescued by these guys.

     By the time of my fourteenth birthday, The Mary Tyler Moore Show had been on for more than a year.  It was set in Minneapolis.  Since many of our favorite TV shows were based in New York, Minneapolis by comparison seemed … exotic.  They got snow there, lots of snow, and large annual snowfall was something I always longed for.  And Mary Richards was certainly a far more independent woman than Ann Marie was.  I immediately liked her.  I admired her.  When I grew up, I wanted to be pretty much like Mary.  Land a decent job in a nice place that gets snow.  Pal around with great people at work.  Have a quirky friend living upstairs in an attic apartment.  Maybe go out on occasional dates.  Maybe not.  And it wouldn’t matter, anyway.  I would be able to take care of myself just fine.  I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to hang a big letter “C” my living room wall, though.  But I put Minneapolis on my shortlist of cool places where I would consider living, along with Buffalo, New York.  Because of snow, of course.

     At fourteen, I was only a month older than Lisa Gerritsen, who played Bess Lindstrom on the show.  What a lucky kid she was!  She was able to hang out with Mary and Rhoda on a regular basis.  She just had to put up with Phyllis’s nonsense as a progressive mother.

     I loved The Mary Tyler Moore Show and was sorry to see it end, even with its classic finale when everyone in the newsroom got fired except for Ted Baxter.  I am sure that the show’s portrayal of a successful independent woman had an influence on me and what I expected of women’s roles in society.  Back then I wouldn’t have considered it a landmark series in the history of television, but I’m glad that people see it this way now. 

     I recently read Jennifer Keishin Armstrong’s terrific book, Mary and Rhoda and Lou and Ted: And all theBrilliant Minds Who Made The Mary Tyler Moore Show a Classic.  It’s a behind-the-scenes look and analysis of the show.  You learn a lot about the writers – especially the female writers – and the intricacies of launching a sitcom and keeping it going.  You even find out how they filmed the orange-tiger shelter kitty (“Mimsie”) to portray the meowing MTM logo at the end of the credits.  A fun read.

     I finally got a chance to visit Minneapolis for myself in December 1996, when I drove seven hours north from my apartment in northern Illinois to see John Denver’s Christmas concert at the Orpheum Theatre.  (This was the last time I saw John in person.  It’s a story for another time.)

     I was busy walking from my downtown hotel to a restaurant and then to the theater, when it dawned on me:  I’d forgotten to wear a hat!  How could I walk into the middle of a Minneapolis street and toss a hat into the air when I didn’t even have one to throw?  Mary Richard’s hat toss was the iconic symbol of the independent woman.  Like her theme song said:  by smiling and twirling around and flinging that hat in the air, she showed that she was gonna make it after all.  And here I was, sans hat!  How could I have failed this crucial test? 

     I passed another one, though.  I was already armed with directions on how to find the house that Mary and Rhoda were supposed to live in.  That weekend I drove past the house twice and stopped to take photos of it.  Back then in 1996, it was painted dark brown.  That’s why I drove past it twice.  Other than the distinctive attic window, the house didn’t really look quite right.  I wasn’t sure it was the same building.  In the opening credits of the 1970s show, the exterior was bright white.  (Just like the snow that appeared in some of the shots.)  Here’s my really grainy photo from that day.  It’s a photo of an inkjet printout.  I couldn’t find the original.  I usually have this paper tucked inside a customized snow globe that sits on my bedside table.  That’s real snow in the picture, too.

A really grainy photo of the Mary Richards house in Minneapolis, on a day in December 1996.

      As I prepared this piece, I looked online for better images of the house.  Surprise:  it’s for sale!  The property at 2104 Kenwood Parkway was listed with a local realty office in June 2012, and as of this writing (September 2013), it still hasn’t sold.  Its current price is $2.645 million.  The price tag is not due to its TV connection, but because of its size (7 bedrooms) and the excellent neighborhood it sits in.  It’s not far to walk from there to Lake of the Isles and Cedar Lake, just like Mary did in the opening credits of the show.  Click here to see the Realtor’slisting, which includes lots of interior and exterior photos.  The house is now beige and looks much more inviting.  And yes, if I had a few more dollars in my pocket, I’d be tempted to finally take the plunge and adopt this trendy Minneapolis address.  I’d have to find a quirky chick from New York to rent the upstairs apartment.

     Naturally, I had no clue that Minneapolis would come back into my life in a different way.  I’ve since visited the city a number of times during my research following Henry David Thoreau’s 1861 trip from Massachusetts to Minnesota.  I’ve spoken on the topic in the city and its suburbs a few times.  And even though a statue of Mary tossing her hat was installed on a downtown Minneapolis street in 2002, I still haven’t had a chance to fling my own hat in the air at that spot.  I almost always wear a hat these days, however.  Next visit, for sure. 

1970: Collecting Rocks vs. Singing in Chorus

By Corinne H. Smith

1970:  I turned thirteen years old.  I was in eighth grade at Centerville Junior High School, where Mr. Simpson was my homeroom teacher.  Daddy was 41, and he worked as a research chemist at Armstrong Cork Company in Lancaster, Penna.  Mom was beginning to work as a nurse for a local clinic.  We lived on Dale Avenue in West Hempfield Township.  The #1 most popular song on the radio on my thirteenth birthday was “I Think I Love You” by The Partridge Family.  Mom snapped this photograph. (Obviously we were a little late with the November birthday photo this year.  You can see the edge of our Christmas tree on the right-hand side.)

     When we were in junior high school, our class schedules included a club meeting period on Wednesdays at the end of the day.  Ninth period.  Picking a club was a way to avoid a 44-minute sentence of sitting in homeroom for a study hall instead.  As a result, most students were in clubs.

     Our options were printed in our trusty student handbooks.  Here’s the list.

from Handbook, 1969-1970, Centerville Junior High School, pp. 25-26

     I chose to join Rock and Mineral Club.  I’d been picking up pebbles and rocks for years, especially while I was riding my bicycle around our neighborhood.  Daddy encouraged me, since he was a scientist and liked rocks, too.  Pieces of common ordinary white quartz were my favorites.  Where we lived, it was easy to find.  So was limestone.  So I littered our basement with favorite chunks of quartz and limestone.  Half of the gravel in our alleyway probably ended up in our house.

     I thought that it could be fun to talk about rocks with other people.  I found it amazing that enough students were interested in rocks that an entire junior high club was dedicated to the subject.  Basically, the meetings were just okay.  I always sat in the background with another girl – I can’t remember who she was -- while some of the guys – yes, the membership was almost entirely male – chattered with our advisor Mr. Eckert about breaking into local abandoned quarries and finding trilobites, little bits of fossils.  And geodes!  Where in the world did they find crystal-filled geodes around here?  Why didn’t these goodies land in my bicycle path?  Still, it was an interesting experience.  It was certainly better than sitting in homeroom, doing homework at the end of the school day.

     But deciding in favor of rocks had a consequence that involved music.  I played flute and piccolo in the junior high school band.  Our band rehearsals were worked into our schedules.  I believe that the regular girls’ and boys’ choruses met at the same time, and that you couldn’t be in both band and chorus in junior high.  But I'm pretty sure that at least one choral group met during the Wednesday club period.  If you wanted to sing in this group, you couldn’t be in a club at the same time.  By saying Yes to rocks, I was saying No to chorus.

     This probably doesn’t sound like a big deal.  But our school district had a terrific reputation when it came to music.  One of the jewels in its crown was the high school’s spring musical, put on by the Hempfield Singers, the esteemed chorus for 11th and 12th graders.  If you were in this group, you’d at least be in the chorus for the musical.  You’d be on stage.  You would also get to perform at school concerts and for private singing appearances around the area.  You would wear a choral robe of the school colors.  You would have prestige.

     And if this was your goal, then you and your parents would already be planning ahead when you were in junior high.  So on the page following the list of clubs, the school authorities conveniently outlined a process for reaching it.

  

from Handbook, 1969-1970, Centerville Junior High School, p. 27

     The choral track was clear.  Start singing in junior high and audition for the Intermediate Singers (for 9th and 10th graders) at the end of 8th grade.  Or join one of the lesser choruses in 9th grade, and audition for Intermediate Singers at the end of the year.  Then you would be in line to seamlessly advance to Hempfield Singers in 11th grade.

     Armed with this information, I reassured my parents – probably primarily my mother, who would have been concerned, expectant, and insistent – that I had a way of reaching Hempfield Singers in 11th grade even though I chose to meet with Rock and Mineral Club in junior high.

    And that’s what I did.  I sang alto with the Singing Ladies in 9th grade.  At the end of the year, I auditioned for Intermediate Singers.  One of our try-out songs was “I Could Have Danced All Night” from My Fair Lady.  Having perfect pitch gave me an advantage during the audition … but that’s a story for another day.  I succeeded.  I made it.  I was in Intermediate Singers in 10th grade, and in Hempfield Singers for 11th and 12th.  I was in the chorus (and also on the scenery painting committee) for Annie Get Your Gun and Half a Sixpence.  I got to wear the red robe, much to my mother’s delight.

     I can sing if I have to, though it’s been more than 20 years since I sang in any sort of organized group.  But I still collect rocks, just about anywhere I go.  I have jars of them.  Many jars of them.  Quartz is still my favorite.  I’ve even found a few fossils along the way.  No geodes, though.  And I still believe I made the right decision in junior high:  Rocks over Chorus.  It was once a nonconformist’s route to the stage.  Now picking up rocks is one of my favorite things to do, while traveling around the countryside.  I'm sure I'll do it for the rest of my life.

a small portion of my rock collection

Blog EXTRA: Perfect Pitch

By Corinne H. Smith

     When I was growing up, our house was always filled with music.  Daddy’s specialties were (and still are) the flute and the piccolo, with the occasional saxophone and rare clarinet thrown into the medley.  He has played with local community bands, big bands, musical pit orchestras, and small combos nearly non-stop since he found his first piccolo under the Christmas tree at the age of nine.  One of his main teachers and influences was Berthold “Bert” Wavrek, a piccolo player with the Allentown Band, and a man who had performed and toured with John Philip Sousa.  Daddy still plays in church every Sunday and has done so since about the mid-1990s.

     Mom sang alto in the church choir and also played the piano.  She had a trick that she unveiled whenever she and my father entertained friends.  She turned the piano bench so that it was perpendicular to the instrument.  Then she lay down on it, with her face nearly underneath the keyboard.  She put her hands on the ivories – upside down, backward, and over her head -- and played a bouncy version of “Somebody Else is Taking my Place.”  I wish we had been able to film her in action.

     I began taking piano lessons when I was in kindergarten.  Mrs. Hiestand in Salunga was my piano teacher.  So it was from her that I first learned scales, key signatures, and how to read music.  Once I hit fourth grade, I took flute and piccolo lessons from my father instead, so that I could be in the band.  I still played the piano afterwards, but just for personal enjoyment.  A lot of this came later than the story I’m about to tell.

Me and Daddy: An early duet, before I even started taking piano lessons

     One day my mother sat at the piano in our dining room, practicing for the voice lessons that she was taking.  She played a note on the piano and then sang “mah-may-mee-mo-moo” on it.  Over and over, on various notes, moving up and down the scale. 

     I couldn’t understand why this exercise was so important.  I was busy in my toy corner at the opposite side of the room, playing with Barbie and Midge and Ken in their dream house.  I was quiet and could certainly hear what my mother was doing.  She ended by focusing on one particular note, singing “mah-may-mee-mo-moo,” again and again and again.

     When Mom finally paused, I said to her, “That’s a whole lot of Gs you’re singing.”  I made it as a casual remark.  I certainly didn’t think anything of it.  I was more focused on rearranging Barbie’s cardboard furniture to accommodate Skipper and Scooter.

     Mom stopped short.  “How did you know I was singing a G?” she asked.

     I shrugged.  “I don’t know.  I can just tell.”

     She didn’t believe me at first.  She began to hit other notes at random, testing me.  I recognized each pitch and told her what each one was.  By this time I had been taking piano lessons for a while.  I knew what the notes sounded like.  I played them whenever I practiced.  I didn’t see what the big deal was.  Couldn’t everybody do this?

     Here began a new parlor game, added to the repertoire of Mom’s party trick with the upside-down piano playing.  Strike a note and ask Corinne which one it is.  To their credit, my parents didn’t do this very often.  The uniqueness didn’t wear too thin.  After all, having perfect pitch isn’t exactly a marketable skill.  It doesn’t make me a flawless musician.  It merely means that I can identify the notes just by hearing them.

     It’s been rare when I’ve admitted having this ability, even to friends.  However, I do remember the issue arising in one session of Mr. Nolt’s seventh-grade music class at Centerville Junior High School.  We must have been studying Mozart, who famously had both perfect pitch and a photographic memory.  Mr. Nolt must have asked if anyone in the class had perfect pitch.  Unbelievably, I felt the need to raise my hand.

     “You have perfect pitch?” he asked.

     “Yes,” I said, nodding.

     “I do, too!” shouted the boy sitting right in front of me, thrusting his arm into the air.  Let’s say that his first name started with S.  S had been in some of my classes at Farmdale Elementary School.  We were not friends; we were more like wary adversaries.  I could not believe that S was claiming to have perfect pitch.  I was sure he didn’t.  Evidently Mr. Nolt doubted it, too.

     “OK.  What’s this note?” he asked.  Without looking, he dropped his hand to the piano keyboard, and his finger landed on the two tones that most people use to start the ditty called “Chopsticks.”

     “That’s not a note!” quipped S.

     “Yes it is,” I said.  “It’s F and G together.”

     The bell rang, and we filed out of the classroom.  As I stepped into the hallway, Mr. Nolt called out, “Don’t touch her, she’s Mozart!”  That was pretty cool of him to say, that day.  It made me feel good.  Naturally, in the end, it didn’t really mean anything.

     We wondered how I’d gotten perfect pitch.  Was it inherited?  Daddy said that he had relative pitch, and that he could get close to identifying tones, especially when hearing flute music.  For decades now, he’s been prodding me, showing me notices advertising the “Genetics of Absolute Pitch Study” at the University of California at San Francisco.  Researchers want to pinpoint the exact gene that is associated with this ability.  They want to collect as many DNA samples as they can so that comparisons can be made.  No thanks.  I refuse to donate mine to the cause.  They’ll have to compile their statistics without me.

     I never read anything about perfect pitch until I picked up the book Musicophilia:  Tales of Music and the Brain, by Oliver Sacks.  It’s a terrific read.  Dr. Sacks devotes a whole chapter to perfect pitch, seemingly because it’s one of several music-related anomalies that he’s dealt with as a neurologist.  Hmm.  Yes, it was an invaluable talent that gave me an advantage in music theory class in high school.  And it sure helps whenever I sit down to figure out how to play popular songs on the piano just by listening to recordings of them.

     I’m still thinking that it may be even more fun to learn how to play a honky-tonk tune upside down and backward, while lying on a piano bench. 

Blog EXTRA: Straw Paper Caterpillars

By Corinne H. Smith


     When I was a child, my mother showed me how to make straw paper caterpillars.  The first part of this exciting discovery was that it happened during our inaugural visit to a department store lunch counter together.  The second was the fun in learning how the item was crafted and put into action.

     I believe this event first took place at a lunch counter at one of the department stores in downtown Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in the 1960s.  At the time, the three local stores were Watt & Shand, Hager, and Garvin’s.  In my memory, the unveiling took place at Garvin’s.  I’m not sure that the other two had lunch counters.

     Anyway, once she showed me the trick, we did it again any time we went out to lunch or dinner, either with just the two of us or in the company of my father.  Without fanfare, one or both of us would manipulate and activate our straw papers.  Sometimes we had a contest to see whose paper caterpillar moved best.  I haven’t met many people who have heard of or seen this phenomenon.  So even though it’s a simple feat, I offer illustrated instructions here.  I apologize for the brightness of the camera flash on the straw paper.  But you should get the idea.

1. Order a drink that the wait staff will deliver with a paper-encased straw.  Or, get your own at your favorite fast food outlet.

2. Tear open the straw paper at just one end.  Do not remove it from the straw yet.

3. Grasp the straw in your dominant hand and hold it vertically against the table top.

4. Tap the straw on the table.  Keep your hand on the paper covering, and lightly push the paper down the length of the straw, toward the table, with each tap.

5. With any success, you’ll end up with the paper looking very much like a tiny accordion.  Or a caterpillar, if you will.

6. Now, here’s the fun part.  “Do you want to see the caterpillar crawl?” my mother asked.  Naturally I did.  So she took her straw and placed it into the drink – just far enough to allow about an eighth of an inch of beverage into it.  She put her finger over the open end of the straw to keep the liquid inside.  Then she held the straw over the caterpillar and eased her finger up.  The beverage dampened the paper and caused it to expand, looking as though it was indeed a crawling caterpillar.

7. Helpful hint #1:  Straw papers aren’t made as loose as they used to be.  Creating a caterpillar may be impossible with some of them.  They’ll tear before you have a finished product.  If you meet with disaster at first, keep looking for an eatery with more suitable straw papers.

8. Helpful hint #2:  Don’t lift too much beverage into your straw; otherwise, you’ll end up with a soggy mess in the middle of the table.  And when you let it drip over the paper, aim first for the tightest folds of the caterpillar.  Go for the drama.  Don’t be afraid to put more liquid on the other folded portions.  The caterpillar will then move in various directions.

Good luck!  Have fun!

1969: The Kansas City Chiefs

By Corinne H. Smith

1969:  I turned twelve years old.  I was in seventh grade (section 7FL) at Centerville Junior High School, where Mr. Bailey was my homeroom teacher.  Daddy was 40, and he worked as a research chemist at Armstrong Cork Company in Lancaster, Penna.  Mom was beginning to work as a nurse for a local clinic.  We lived on Dale Avenue in West Hempfield Township.  (Did you notice the change in scenery?  We moved to a brand-new house a few miles from our first one.)  The #1 most popular song on the radio on my twelfth birthday was “Wedding Bell Blues” by The Fifth Dimension.  Mom snapped this photograph.

     My father taught me about music.  My mother taught me about football.

     Mom was the youngest of four, and she had two older brothers.  Maybe that’s why she knew about sports, specifically about baseball and football.  She grew up within walking distance of the Allentown High School stadium, so she probably went to games there when she was a teenager.  She definitely used to go to the college football games both when she was a student and then when she began working as registered nurse at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.  She once even witnessed Penn daring to tie Notre Dame, much to the chagrin of her Irish-supporting date that day.  (The 1952 home opener, 7-7)  He was so upset that he had to throw up.  She was overjoyed, and spent the rest of her days madly cheering on every one of Notre Dame’s opponents.

     Daddy played in the marching bands at Emmaus High School and at Lehigh University, so he spent eight years in a row on football fields.  I followed in his footsteps and did the same at Hempfield High School and Clarion State College.  Daddy had seen enough football in person, and he understood the game.  He just preferred participating in or watching the halftime shows.

     So it was Mom who explained the rules of the game to me, as we sat down to watch football on TV each weekend in the Fall.  College ball on Saturdays, the pros on Sundays.  Four downs, the line of scrimmage, the difference between offsides and illegal procedure.  When to go for it and when to kick.  The beauty of the downfield spiral.

     Based on mere geography alone, we should have rooted either for the Philadelphia Eagles or for the Baltimore Colts.  Mom had been a Phillies baseball fan when she was young, but for some reason her loyalties to the City of Brotherly Love never extended to the Eagles.  And the Colts?  Well sure, Johnny Unitas was a talented player.  But how could we ever cheer for a Southern team?  We were firmly entrenched Northerners.  A full 30 miles of buffer-zone landscape lay between us and that crucial Mason-Dixon line.  Was that all?  It sure seemed like a lot more.

     By the late 1960s, the two of us were scrambling for a good pro team to root for.  The NFL and AFL were still separate entities.  We gravitated toward the AFL teams, which then consisted of the Boston Patriots, Buffalo Bills, Cincinnati Bengals, Denver Broncos, Houston Oilers, Kansas City Chiefs, Miami Dolphins, New York Jets, Oakland Raiders, and the San Diego Chargers.  Mom thought that Joe Namath was too much of a showboater, even though he was a native Pennsylvanian and therefore otherwise could have won our favor.  But after eliminating the Jets, we still weren’t sure who “our” team could be.

     Then during one broadcast in 1967 or 1968, Kansas City quarterback Len Dawson was lined up at center and shouting the count.  He turned toward us:  well really, to the line-of-scrimmage camera.  “Wow, look at those beautiful blue eyes!” Mom said.  And that was that.  We started watching the Chiefs.  OK, so I’ll admit that at first, we were attracted to Len Dawson’s eyes.  But we liked his leadership style, and the way he lined up his teammates in two rows instead of in a huddle.  And the Chiefs had a number of other great players then, too:  Bobby Bell, Willie Lanier, Otis Taylor, Curley Culp, kicker Jan Stenerud, and a rookie running back named Ed Podolak.  I loved it when Otis Taylor leapt up to catch one of Len’s passes.  And what wasn’t to like about Hank Stram, the quintessential pro coach?  Coincidentally, we made this choice in time to follow them all of the way to the Super Bowl during the 1969 season.  What a great ride!

 

My honorary contract with the Kansas City Chiefs, for the 1972 season

     In 1972, I spent a few dollars to become an “official” Kansas City Chiefs fan.  I got an honorary contract (“signed” by Lamar Hunt himself), a felt wall pennant and a few other gim-gaws that I may still have in a box in the basement.  I taped a Len Dawson poster to the back of my bedroom door.  We watched and cheered for the Chiefs whenever they were on TV.  In high school, I checked out a football manual from our school library.  It had a photo of Hank Stram on the cover, and he may even have written part of the book.  Yes, I was quite proud that the Chiefs were my team.  It was even more fun that they weren’t local, and that not many people around us shared in our support.

     Of course, loving the Chiefs meant that we had to hate the Oakland Raiders, their natural rivals.  These guys turned out to be easy to hate.  That’s why I was watching the Raiders-Steelers game on TV on December 23, 1972, and why I was hoping the Steelers would win.  My mother and I were at a friend’s house; and as the clock wound down on the game, we got ready to leave.  It was all too obvious that the Steelers weren’t going to be able to prevail against The Enemy.  Mom was already out in the kitchen, goading me to get a move on.  “Wait a minute,” I said, as I watched the TV screen for what was sure to be the last play of the game.  That’s when it happened.  Franco Harris made a shoe-string catch – The Immaculate Reception – and ran for the touchdown.  I screamed and drove everyone back into the living room to watch the replay.  Steelers 13, Raiders 7.  Take that, John Madden.

     When I went off to college in western Pennsylvania in the Fall of 1975, it was in the middle of the Steel Curtain run of the Pittsburgh Steelers.  Everyone on campus was wearing Black and Gold.  This wasn’t a bad bus to jump onto.  I still liked the Chiefs, but I didn’t get to see their games very often on local TV.  I turned into a Steelers fan.  I also grew to have a soft spot in my heart for the Buffalo Bills too, especially once Jim Kelly started playing for them.  Gosh, if he’d only gone to the college closest to his home, we would have walked on the same sidewalks of the same campus and would have been able to share that same football field…

     When I lived in northern Illinois from 1995-2003, I had difficulties sustaining my AFC allegiances.  The Bears-Packers tension of the region gave preference to NFC games on TV.  I kind of liked both teams.  (But you can’t say that in public out there.  Or anywhere, really.)  I eventually became more of a fan of the game in general instead of donning specific colors, one way or another.  I will admit that I bought and wore a foam Cheesehead to a pro game, however.

     I have attended five pro games.  Bills-Oilers at the Liberty Bowl in Memphis, Tennessee, 1997.  Packers-Lions at the Pontiac Silverdome in Detroit on Thanksgiving Day, 2001.  (Both were my birthday presents to myself.)  I’ve been to three or four games at Orchard Park, N.Y.:  Bills vs Colts, Bills vs Patriots, Bills vs Steelers, and perhaps one other.  I’d have to check my ticket stubs.  Yes, I have had lake-effect flakes fly off of Lake Erie and into my face, and I have sat in snow to watch the Buffalo Bills play ball.  Life is good.

     I have made four visits to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.  One was just to see the place and to take the tour in 1994.  The other three were to watch my favorite players get inducted into the Hall:  Lynn Swann and Marv Levy (2001); John Stallworth and Jim Kelly (2002); Rod Woodson and Bruce Smith (2009).  At one of those ceremonies, I saw Len Dawson from a distance and waved to him.  He must not have seen me.  I guess I blended in with the rest of the crowd.  He’ll never know what he started.

     I gave up watching college football long before the BCS system was created.  But I still have to watch the pros on Sundays in season.  I still cheer for the Bills and the Steelers, and still root consistently against the Raiders, the Cowboys, the Eagles, the Dolphins, and the Browns (in both their current permutation and their previous one, now known as the Ravens).  I believe the cities of Tampa Bay, Jacksonville, Seattle, and Charlotte (i.e. “Carolina”) host merely untested expansion teams that don’t really account for much in the grand scheme of the game.

     When I moved to Massachusetts in 2003, I additionally became a New England Patriots fan.  Again, this was not a bad bus to jump onto.  I mean, really.  Tom Brady?  Mom never got to see him play, but she sure would have fallen hard for him.

     As we were saying our goodbyes for the last time, a former boyfriend once quipped:  “At least I know where you’ll be every Sunday, every Fall.”  Yup.  Sitting on the living room couch, watching the big boys pass the pigskin and run for touchdowns.  I would have been insulted by his remark, if I hadn’t known in my heart that it was all too true.