I’ve been looking for a theme song for this blog for a long time when one came to me over the in-store music system. I heard it when my eldest son and I were grabbing the fixings for dinner at a natural foods grocery in Dallas a few days ago. As the infectious beat thumped down around me, I hustled to position myself under a speaker so I could hear better. I listened and was taken back to what was probably my social awakening as a gawky, pimply teenager.
My father had been transferred to Detroit, Michigan when I was just starting junior high. We drove from our home state of Missouri to Motor City, as it was later to be called. Prior to this, I had grown up in small towns and had just been living with my parents, two brothers and two sisters in an old army barracks in Jefferson Barracks, MO, which was on the Mississippi River near St. Louis. There were eight families living in each one of these barracks, and each living space had a living room, kitchen, two bedrooms and one bath. Needless to say, the seven of us were in cramped quarters.
We moved to a blue-collar suburb of Detroit and I started junior high. I met a girl in one of my classes who invited me to a party at her sister’s boyfriend’s house. We went to this party – my very first teenage party experience – and I thought I had hit the big time. My date and I were the youngest ones there – all the other kids were in high school. I couldn’t believe that I – a real social neophyte – was there hanging out with actual high schoolers. And not only hanging out with them, they acted like we were a part of their crowd.
Read more »
