A "National Women's Month" Monday Morning Thought...

If the 45 skipped, put a quarter on the tone arm... and play!

 Good "National Women's Month" Monday Morning, all bodies.

We were on our way back from the hospital late about a week ago. It was dark, it was foggy, and it felt like driving into an abyss. We were traveling in our Honda Fit which didn't have a cd in the player, so Therese, put on the radio and found an oldies station on the AM dial.

Maybe, searching for a distraction or some music, she felt the same way I did!

It was a scratchy AM connection most of the way until we reached "radio free Folsom" where it suddenly came in loud and clear. That first clear sound that emanated through the fog was the 1959 top ten song called, "Teen Beat" by the artist, Sandy Nelson... a drummer!

To my knowledge, it is the only song, short of the mid-sixties classic by the Surfaris called, "WipeOut," that featured almost exclusively drums. It all put a smile on my face and brought me back down to earth... Sort of.

I was nine years old. My big sister was twelve. Adele was the more feminine of the three sisters. There was no rough housing around her which my middle sister, Becky and I, loved to do. There was always a "wrassle,"a fake brawl or western saloon scene she and I would recreate receiving fake punches and falling all over the bed only to roll a classic death scene onto the floor.

Adele, who, in her teen years, loved to be called, "Mickey" didn't like sports especially baseball which was something nobody else in the family, at that time, understood. I'm not sure, but I'd have to assume she had no idea who the real Mickey was. Probably, that Disney character.

Mom, in all likelihood, sent her to dance classes and recitals. "Mickey" had all the moves. And she used them when we danced. It's not like I hadn't seen them all when I'd occasionally catch her posing in front of the mirror. The "come hither stare", the coy look, the disinterested smirk, the ecstatic smile, the studious look with a pair of glasses ever so lightly, nipping at her nose, you know. Even so, as a nine year old, it was one of those things I didn't understand. Or didn't wanna!

Those moves, so different, so natural to a girl becoming a woman, would hijack my "sock hop days!" It was easier and safer in my letter jacket to stand in front of the band and watch the guitar players play.

But, in her room, "Teen Beat", oh yes, "Teen Beat" had Mickey and I pounding away on our air drums, hitting the cymbals, and rolling the floor toms, at just the right time. I'm sure shaking her hair wildly with an occasional "Shimmy, Shimmy, Ko Ko Bop", embarrassed all of her statuesque heroes, Buddha, Napoleon, and the Virgin Mary as they reluctantly rattled to our snare drum "paradiddles".

If you know the song, it opens purely with drums, but when the guitar and piano jump in, Mick and I would go crazy even playing a little air guitar long before it was a big thing. Oh man, and each time the music modulated to the next key, our moves got even more intense, working each other and our imaginary drum kit into a real sweat. Higher and higher the song goes as no African beat can comprehend with spins, and twists, with dizzying revolutions enough to send us teeter-tottering on the brink of disaster.

Thankfully, it is only a two and a half minute song.

Snare and bass drums, high hat and ride cymbals, tom-toms, and floor toms, we both played ourselves to a frenzy pounding out in a rhythmic heartbeat that is luscious and sensorial!

Exhausted and out of breath, with the song's final crash of the cymbals, we'd laugh and both collapse on her bed, or the floor...whichever came first.

Yeh, I learned a few things about girls with that song. I also learned how to play the drums!

Copyright 2023/Ben Bensen III