Nancy Drew

 I have been working my way through my eldest's small collection of Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew lately.  I read these series, along with the Bobsy Twins, voraciously in my elementary years.  Recently I seem to have looped back around.  Though written and re-edited across a wide swath of decades, they all belong to a set of slower times wherein letters, phone calls on answering-machineless land lines, and "calling on" people were the possible modes of communication.   Nancy frequently consults the phone book to call a stranger or acquaintance, and used the same to find a street address to "call on" people.  I put her old-fashioned methods to good use this week....

My Kindergartener made a Best Friend at school this year.  The two kids created extensive plans to visit frequently over the summer.  Their teacher Mrs. W** suggested the parents trade phone numbers to expedite the process.  In the last couple weeks of school I made a plan to catch the other mother at pick up.  But it seemed that she was always earlier than we were or that a sibling was picking up Best Friend.  We sent a note home with Best Friend hoping to gain a phone number.  My Kindergartener asked Best Friend for a phone number or address as well, but Best Friend didn't remember those strings of numbers.  

After school on the last day (Tuesday), Kindergarten Graduate and I walked down the street she has seen Best Friend depart from school on.... No great clues popped up.  I told Kindergarten Graduate we would go home, but promised not to give up on finding Best Friend.  At home the next evening I looked at the Kindergarten class photo and found the two last names belonging to Best Friend.  I wished for a physical phone book, but I have not laid eyes on such an object in at least ten years....I remembered that online white pages exist, so I looked up the first of the two family names in our town.  I found two addresses associated with that name in the target area of the neighborhood. As I have walked our greater neighborhood extensively in our seven and a half years of living here, I am familiar with the various housing builds and sizes. One target house was a one- or two-bedroom duplex in our 1942 government housing development, and prior data that Best Friend lives with five other family members made that option seem less likely.  The second option was a larger house of at least three bedrooms in a 1980s development atop a former gravel pit, so that one seemed more likely.

Thursday morning, Kindergarten Graduate and I set out walking to this ex-gravel mine address, carrying a pen, a sheet of paper, and high hopes.  Upon arriving at the designated house, we arranged ourselves presentably on the front porch and rang the bell.  After a bit of a wait, a very confused-looking man in his 30s opened the door.  He was clearly not the right ethnicity to be an immediate part of Best Friend's family.  We told him we were looking for a child the size of Kindergarten Graduate by the name of ****.  He did not know her but said he thought some little kids lived next door.  We thanked him but did not take him up on his unconvincing lead.  

As we started up the street, I suggested to Kindergarten Graduate that we could walk around some more of the nearby streets and look for clues.  Kindergarten Graduate then informed me that Best Friend has a large, black dog.  This was helpful data, so we decided if we found a yard or front window containing a large, black dog, we would knock.  After strolling around another four blocks here and there, we rounded a corner and saw a large, black dog in a fenced front yard.  As we approached, we saw that Black Dog was accompanied by a small child, who was none other than Best Friend!  The two kids started screaming in great excitement,  and an elder sibling came out to check on the commotion.  Simultaneously, their mother pulled up in her car from work.  She gave us permission to take Best Friend home with us for a couple of hours, and I used the mitgebracht pen and paper to leave her with the parental names and phone numbers as well as our home address.  So the two small besties are started on their summer play dates.

Upon returning Best Friend home on foot two hours after her discovery, my own Kindergarten Graduate was feeling lots of big things about the end of a fun time, and I was mentally preparing to ride along with caregiving through the emotional storm.  Upon returning to our own alley, I heard the odd honking of a hand-squeeze horn, such as one might have heard on an early automotive or a bicycle from a century ago.  I expressed wonderment at the noise.  Kindergarten Graduate enlightened me right away: it was the woman with the pushccart covered by the rainbow umbrella who sells shaved ice out of her cooler.  Kindergarten Graduate had saved her five dollars, because this cart had frequently been parked under a large tree across from the school, and she had planned to buy herself a treat after school on the last day.  Unfortunately,  the shaved ice cart was elsewhere that day, so this was a perfect full-circle moment for Kindergarten Graduate.   Kindergarten Graduate ran down the alley, into the house to grab her cash out of her backpack, and then out the front door to catch up to the pushcart....

...Along with the old-fashioned methods of Nancy Drew, I first drafted this story in a lined notebook, writing in cursive with a black, ballpoint pen and editing with small scribbles, symbols, and arrows, the way we learned in second grade.  It is my faint hope that this historical method of creation during the process has lent charm to the finished story in some vague way.  I wish I were typing the final draft on a mechanical typewriter like the one we had stored in a case at home during my childhood, but alas, I am typing on this tiny little phone screen with my thumbs. 🙄

June Day Off

Today is Juneteenth, and I am so glad the kids have a day off from school.  We all needed the sleep,  for one thing.  And it is also a chance to think and muse...

Growing up in Texas, I had heard of Juneteenth, but it did not strike my brain with any force.  But when I spent summers in Oberlin in my 20s, I saw it celebrated with my own eyes.  Oberlin is a tiny town with a long civil rights history.  The large African American population hosts a large and celebratory Juneeteenth right in the town square each year.

...I think about how messy war is.  Things coalesce behind two sides, but there are so many more positions and possibilities represented in the combatants.  There are good people and evil trapped on both sides.  Many wars have one side aimed more ge generally toward justice and one more generally towards injustice.  The agressor is usually aiming for greed or acquisition. But nothing is clearly delineated; waste and abuse and senseless death happens on both sides.  Always.  War forces simplicity and abitrariness- for better and for much worse -- onto the complexities of being and greed.  Are there any wars without greed?  I cannot imagine otherwise.  Greed enough to maim and kill to get what we want.  Timelines end up being tragic and accidental.  

These humans in Galveston were kept in bondage beyond the end of the unjust laws holding them there.  The war was over.  But not for them.  Though it was a new start, it was not the end.  People whose history had been erased and who worked far harder than anyone else around them had little to show for it beyond some skills and endless a abilities of diplomacy - no homes of their own, few assets, mostly just exhaustion and poverty and discrimination.  And so they continued on in "freedom" while others benefitted from their labor still.

Centuries of African slavery in North America hurt the families of the slave holders, too.  It taught them that they should see themselves as better than others - true humility was shut out in the dark.  It taught them that rape and abuse and power-over dynamics were normal, acceptable... that favoring some of their own children over others, that selling their own children was good.  That amassing wealth at the expense of others was the way of wisdom.  The cup was golden and polished on the outside, encrusted with sparkling gems, denoting nobility.  On the inside it held a lethal draught of poison, drunk sip after sip and refilled from large ewers.

My history is tainted like so many others.  It is the work of a lifetime to unlearn the subtle and deeply imbedded lessons of falsehood and lies and to work toward righting the wrongs of centuries of treachery....

Data Analysis: Rock Concert

I have attended a rock concert once, when a family member gave me a ticket they couldn't use after all.  It was some sort of Christian band, and I don't remember a lot, other than taking in ear plugs and a water bottle (which they only let me bring in on account of my being visibly pregnant), and sitting on really uncomfortable wooden folding chairs in a giant arena.  Almost everyone was standing the whole time, and I had to sit most of the time, so I couldn't see much.  I think there was some craziness with the lights, but mostly I just remember being in a sort of mental fog, and in retrospect,  that is a side effect of the overwhelmingness of situations where I need to wear earplugs plus the weirdness of inner vs. outer sound balance while wearing the same.

Over the years, I have been to other "rock concerts" which were supposed to be worship services at evangelical churches.  They were largely the same as the afore-mentioned rock concert, though in most cases a bit less intense.  But only a bit.

Last week, I played in a rock concert for the first time.  I was a member of the orchestra playing back-up to a six-piece band who was on tour with music of Queen.  I was supposed to be paying attention to playing the right notes at the right times, and sometimes I got a bit too creative with my fingerings to make it work, but the stakes were pretty low.  Whenever I could be, though, I was in analysis mode, watching how the band operated and did their thing.  I was curious to observe them up close and make sense of how they ply their craft.

Drummer.  He was a clean cut middle-class looking fellow who was probably around sixty.  He had the largest drum set I have personally witnessed, and he looked like a kid who has always love banging on things, living the dream: getting paid to bang on things into his retirement years.  He was the loudest person on stage, and even with ear plugs firmly in place, I am sure his music was well above 90 decibels from where I sat.

Keyboardist.  He was the youngest fellow - probably late forties.  Definitely a music geek - standing at the large electric keyboard and singing occasional back-up vocals, he was very physically involved - often bending and dipping his whole body, while his chin-length, layered, wavy, dark brown hair fell across his face.

Guitarist.  Shoulder length, kinky grey hair on a thick body.  Serious about his work.  Also in his 60s, I presume.  Back up vocals.  He was furthest from me so I saw the least of him.

Electric bassist.  Probably 70.  Very tall, thin, athletic, and unassuming.  Back up vocals.  He was close to me, but I only saw him from the back.  He played his notes without any drama.

Conductor.  50s.  Balding.  Portly.  He, like the rest of the group, has done this show a ton of times, and he knew precisely what he needed from the orchestra.  Which is mostly just to start each tune at the speed he counted us in.  He didn't need to rehearse everything.  Just sort of talked us through it, very business-like. It's a gig, and he's got his part down pat, even to the banter he makes at the orchestra. He also worked as the back-up MC during the show.

Lead singer.  He had to be in his 50s.  But also, his name was Brody,  which is unknown in US name census data before the mid-late 1970s, so he had to be one of the first Brody's.  (I know this because I looked it up - the age/name dichotomy struck me right away.) I wonder if the name says anything about his parents or upbringing?  Or maybe he adopted the name himself later?  Like all the other band members, he was dressed all in black.  But he gave off the vibes of being very appearance conscious, unlike the others.  Black skinny jeans.  Black boots.  Black T-shirt (and he ran offstage during an instrumental solo one time and came running back on with a different lack T-shirt with the word Queen printed on it in gold.) Black leather jacket, which he occasionally took off and threw offhandedly and/or dramatically on the floor or on the speaker stack.  Brown leather wrist cuff on his right.  Lots of small black friendship-style bracelets on his left.  Some sort of flames/waves armband tattoo around his right bicep.  Dark brown, slightly wavy hair moussed into a short and "cool" style.  He embodied Queen during the rehearsal even though he didn't sing everything, as he was wisely saving his voice.  He was one with all the lead singer gestures and dance moves.  He was one with Queen. 

During the concert, he embodied Queen, but at times he put off Queen to become an MC.  This MC version of him reminded me of a politician, working to whip up the audience at a rally or a preacher during a long evangelical alter call.  It felt calculated and put on, so it made me question his fabulous Queen-ness.  Was it also an act, rather than something he really channeled?  He also "spontaneously" interacted with orchestra members at various points, and it felt like he was trying to amuse himself and make inside jokes.  It also rang inauthentic, and kind of manipulative, and somehow a little self-referencing.  He liked to be the center of attention, which is sort of a lead-singer way of being, I guess.  Something about the way he switched back and forth felt too practiced and it really bothered me.  This member of the band was both the most interesting and the most irritating to my analysis.

The orchestra.  All the strings were on the right side of the stage.  Winds and brass were on the left side.  Strings all hooked up to the PA system with tiny clip-on mics.  The whole sound system and the mixing board and the audio technician were part of the touring group.  

The lights.  The sound shell had been hauled off the stage, and the wings were open with black curtains, just like how they do for ballet or theater.  The moving, colored lights were a little overwhelming during the rehearsal.  During the show I was wearing more comfortable ear plugs than at the rehearsal, so I had more bandwidth to deal with it.  But because I was more comfortable,  I took more risks and played more out of tune.  I was disappointed about this for myself, but I comfort myself with thinking we were really mostly there for appearances, and no one could hear us much.  At one point I had a coughing fit (aspirated some saliva for no reason), and I can only hope that the sound technician took that opportunity to mute my personal mic.

The audience.   I was quite surprised that the theater wasn't sold out.  Was it not well advertised?  I thought people would have driven in from Olympia and Seattle, and even points east, to hear this Queen reincarnation.   They were very good at the music and super experienced.  The audience was mostly white, and compromised of people ages 50-75.  That make sense based on Queen's original demographic.

I debated for a few days after I was asked whether to take the gig, as it wasn't the sort of thing I was going to be passionate about.  Jared convinced me to do it with the idea that it would be an interesting experience,  and I wouldn't ever have to do something like it again if I hated it (the freedoms one has as a freelancer!!!)  I didn't hate it.  I didn't love it.  I put no judgement on it at all.  I was just there observing and learning.