The Sunday Memory Drawer - The Music of My Mother

I just looked at that title.  It sounds like my mom was Rosemary Clooney.   Or Rhianna.  And the latter would mean I have no idea who my father is. 

But, I digress...

It's Mother's Day and those of you who are missing your moms today are probably doing your own version of sensory perception to bring her near to you one more time.   It might be a perfume or the scent of something good cooking in the kitchen or the aroma from her favorite flower bouquet.

For me, it's always music.  Indeed, every Saturday, I indulge a bit in bringing back the sense of the past.  Back when I was a little tyke, my grandmother would bake a cake or a pie every week.  I now do the same and the same flavors waft throughout the house.

And the soundtrack while I do this every week?  The 60s Channel on Sirius/XM.  Because nothing brings my mother back to me more than some big hits of that decade.  It's not aromas that spark these memories.   It's the music.

My mother was a rarity back in the day.  She listened almost exclusively to Top 40 radio.  The countdown surveys.  The sure shots.  The #1 hit of the land.  My mom was all this.  And it played completely in the background of our lives.

When I got up for breakfast and got ready for school, it was either WMCA (The Good Guys) or WABC on the radio.  Giving us the weather and the latest hit from the Beatles.  My mom actually called in once and won a Good Guys sweatshirt.  I might have been the only kid in the neighborhood with a mother wearing this.

It didn't stop with the radio.  If my mother really like a song, she'd make sure to stop at Brodbeck's Record Store on Fourth Avenue in Mount Vernon, NY, to buy the 45 RPM platter.  Then she'd take it home and play it on our record player.  Over and over and over and over.  Mom had a record case with probably over 200 of those little vinyl coasters.

One that predated me by a lot of years still found its way to that turntable at least once a week.  Not that it was played once.  My mother listened to it at least ten times in one setting. 


I can hear my mom singing along.  I can also feel cavities taking root in my teeth from the sickening sweetness.

Another popular song that ran through our house endlessly came from Bobby Rydell.  I knew him from "Bye Bye Birdie" but, admittedly, I was focused on co-star Ann Margret.  I accidentally sat on this record and was punished.  I also had to replace it with my own allowance money.
My mom had no language skills beyond English.  Yet, that didn't stop from amazingly singing along to "Sukiyaki."

This song was hot on the radio during a summer road trip.   On a rare moment where the car radio wasn't being commandeered by my dad, this tune came on.  And my mother sang it perfectly in Japanese.  The look on my father's face was priceless.  It asked one burning question.

"What the hell have I married?"

Okay, and whose mother danced while vacuuming the living room to this little ditty?
Yeah, mine did.  And I confess that quite uncomfortably.

Now, there was a bit of a music rivalry between my mom and my aunt, her sister who lived out in Deer Park on Long Island.  They were the first relatives to get a "high fidelity" console.  While my mother was spinning the platters on a crappy little record player, Aunt Anne was blowing the windows out every time we visited.  And the one song that they played over and over was a Lawrence Welk record.
On one visit where "Calcutta" was played over and over and over, there was one of those parental "conversations" in the car going home.  Mom started it.

"We need to get a hi-fi."

"What the hell for?"

"So we can play records like they do."

"What the hell for?"

"You could play your Polka records on it."

Mom won.  Dad had no rebuttal.

We didn't get the big contraption that my aunt and uncle had on Long Island.   Our stereo was portable.  And my mother took it more places than she took me.  To peoples' houses.  To work.  To parties.

We were now one bitchin' family.

That used the new stereo to play nothing but Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. 

There we were.  My family all the way up in the northeaster part of the United States.  Playing nothing but music from the opposite end of the country.  Mexico, which might as well have been on the moon.  Even my father got into this genre.  So, whenever my folks went out with the portable stereo, they now brought along their own records as well.  As if nobody else had them.

I can't say I didn't like the music myself.  It certainly made homework go by a lot faster.   I sure did like one of the Tijuana Brass album covers best.
At some point in my house, the music died.  Not like when Elvis or John Lennon or Buddy Holly died.  It's just that the house became divided.  Everybody went their own separate ways.  And, once my mom went back to work and started commuting downtown to Manhattan, it got very quiet. 

All that was left were the memories of my mom.  Wearing a Good Guys sweatshirt.  Vacuuming and twisting her hips.  And getting annoyed over the fact that her sister had a better stereo than she did.

Dinner last night:  Early dinner of a sausage and peppers sandwich at Dodger Stadium.