When I was a kid we listened to The Beach Boys. We envisioned ourselves as cool surfers, despite the fact that our local beach was nothing like the California beaches, we tried anyway.
The Beach Boys were hot stars and girls had crushes on them variously. In my gaggle of girls, it was a debate between Dennis and Brian – sometimes Mike Love. But when the hit “Caroline, No” came out, that was a game-changer for me. It was Brian I fixated on. Of course, this faded over time, but I still felt like he was an incredible influence on music from then on, despite the band itself going in and out of popularity.
Brian Wilson is a musical genius I followed not for his rock star typical groupie appeal, but for his inner poetic harmonic over the top genius. The guy behind it all – beginning at an early age, that sound – the lyrics – the haunting ones in some of those songs that are hidden gems – he was truly amazing in his life achievements.
It was also so sad to see him essentially destroyed by what is reportedly having taken one too many acid trips – a situation which I personally understood having had an extended family member who fell into the same fate – but never had the same care that Brian had. My cousin lived rough, and was finally saved by some really nice people so that he could live the rest of his days in some semblance of normalcy. Brian on the other hand lived under care from the time he began to struggle. Fortunately for him, he had those means of support that enabled this.
Susceptibility to developing schizophrenia conditions is still under study, although more is known now that was back in the 1970’s and 1980’s. It is however understood that it is not just one condition – it is more than one and the causes are still not well understood as to what triggers these conditions to just turn on or gradually come on. Drug use of psychedelics is one of those that was an early recognized trigger back in those decades.
The profiles of my cousin and Brian are similar – the abusive dad – the rebellion – drug abuse – and having studied psychology as a major in university, I know that those components go hand in hand in causing major issues down the road, especially with the father-son dynamic.
What is especially tragic is that both of these people had gifts that they shared with the world, but could not fulfill their full potential because of the handicaps imposed by abusive overzealous fathers who thought they knew better about everything and used a stick to make the point.
Fathers take note, mothers, too. You can really screw up things if you think you know everything and feel entitled to dominate. Look inside and figure out why that is. Insight is everything because hindsight is usually 20/20.
Back to Brian Wilson, it was especially sad to see him go. As long as he was still here, we knew he was still here. The passage of time and people with it is a constant reminder that we should live and love every day because tomorrow is not guaranteed.
When I was a kid, my mom used to sing the song, “Que Sera, Sera” as it was popularized by Doris Day, a then well loved actress and singer. We had the recording, and Mom played it often. It was one of those songs that basically said, “stuff happens, and it will happen” – along with a “whatever” underlying message in the backstory.
I don’t think that this relaxed philosophy was adopted in our household. I think that it was actually the opposite. Nobody was relaxed and in our family, there was always the underlying contention of subtle disapproval of all sorts of things due to unrealized expectations, dashed hopes, and the like.
In fact, once my dad was promoted into a new job with more responsibility, and we were transferred away from our “hometown” (Mom’s and mine), that came with a slew of mandates from my mom. Her dreams of building a house with my Dad, near ready to break ground when the promotion came about, were suddenly harpooned. The lot had to be sold. The move was eminent.
Upon getting to our new home town, the choices of where they would rent or buy a house very much went many directions as they evaluated available houses and locations based on schools, proximity to Dad’s work, etc. It was the usual dilemma for transplanted families.
We ended up pretty far out of the town center, by the metrics of the day. Dad had a long slog to work. I attended school in a “top” school district, which meant that they saved bucks on my having to attend a private school, because inner city public schools were apparently not fit to attend. That is not necessarily the case everywhere, but economics had to be right for wherever we lived.
It was not my old school. But, as far as me adjusting to school, that had been an ongoing process. From the time I started attending any sort of group learning, I was likely a handful for the teachers. I colored outside the lines a lot. One early preschool experience involved Mom being asked to visit with Miss Harvey, the owner of Miss Harvey’s School, to discuss my tendency towards “not coloring inside the lines”, literally, when we were in the coloring activities she carefully designed and provided for us. This put Mom in a spot.
She had encouraged my free association coloring and drawing.
Now we had this situation where she would have to explain that sometimes I had to color inside lines, and sometimes not. I was four. Imagine explaining this to a four-year old, somewhat precocious, little girl who was quite imaginative and very busy… and very stubborn. Now I know how stubborn I was based on raising my own children. Likely genetics plays a part in all this.
Referring to past posts, dear reader, you might understand that my Mom was at times challenged with carrying the load of motherhood. She relied a lot on my grandmother (her mother) to help, and on my father when he was off of work, which most families do in some sort of variation. She would have to enlist everyone to help with this situation of teaching me that I had to follow rules, and “color inside the lines” at selected times.
Non-conformist? Moi?
The need for me to begin conforming was apparent.
Whether it was coloring outside the lines at Miss Harvey’s or doing whatever I did in first grade that landed me in the dark closet (time out) for a spell with Mrs. Keys, who was a strict disciplinarian, levying her punishments for breaking the rules, or by second grade, my chatty nature got me in the hot seat… by third grade and our move with Dad’s promotion, I started working on the conformist part of my adaptations.
However, without even realizing it, I was at that time, also at the beginning of my non-conformist development. Later on in life, I discovered that I had to conform, just enough, yet underneath was always the non-conformist base, struggling to get through.
The music did it.
When I follow the thread from these early days throughout my life tapestry, I can see where those days of being an “only” and allowed to just free associate and imagine living in a mostly adult environment at home with bright parents, one very practical, one kind of “out there”, but nonetheless very interested in architecture, engineering, art, and science – my days were likely a montage of watching Captain Kangaroo, going to Miss Harvey’s, then real school, and imaginative play and “artsy craftsy” activities with a healthy serving of being outdoors doing whatever – swinging on the swing set, hammock in my grandparent’s yard, or playing in the water hose.
Gotta ask, why my music preferences are more eclectic bordering on edgy, when I grew up hearing Doris Day? I love rock and roll, but really don’t like bubble-gum pop.
I listen to music from my grandparent’s time especially the old blues and the masters of jazz, and even those tunes and bands that my parents so dearly loved, if not just for the nostalgia. But, skip the fifties, my true roots are embedded in the beginning of the sixties revolutions in rock, psychedelic music, then hop-scotching into the new wave and indie/alternative genres. But, oddly, the Texas roots, and the Texan-folk-rock – that Americana vs. country and western genre. Gotta throw those in.
Roky Erickson, and the 13th Floor Elevators. The early 1960’s. I still look back on that time as one of mystical influence. The whole scene of the psychedelic culture in Texas influencing later generations of musicians. Janis Joplin. The Moving Sidewalks evolved into ZZ Top. Big name bands. All of these musicians influencing each other in the huge revolution in music that this was. Often referencing Buddy Holly and Howlin’ Wolf, Charles Brown, and others, these bands drew from old influences and converted them into new sounds.
Later, it was well known that Roky was diagnosed as schizophrenic, but he was before he deteriorated, a landmark influence in Texas music. After many years in hospitals for mental breakdowns, Roky was released and did perform supported by his wide net of friends and associated musicians until his death. He opened the gate for Texas Music to truly thrive with a huge place in modern music history.
I think about that and just say “wow”, and I think, as detached as our generations were, my parents left me alone in my unique eclectic musical tastes, honored it and even supported it. Embedded in my tapestry are those roots.
The non-conformist conformist. Yep, that about sizes me up.
Before the policy change (you can’t focus on my hairy legs or the white socks (in this case “anklets”)
I get gut-aches when I’m stressed.
I’ve endured a lot of stress, but still, when it is extra bad, I get gut aches. This didn’t start suddenly. I think that this first started when I was about 10 or 11.
Stress starts at home – The parent child struggles
I may have started getting stress like this when I was a kid – maybe I did have those things that I just couldn’t sort out, those conundrums of the day to day, where sometimes my mom tried to help, but when she did – telling me that everything would be alright, most of the time it didn’t turn out that way, and it was the same shit show, different day, every day.
The issue, I’ve since realized, is that my Mom had a very limited concept of my reality. Her oversight and her policies did not fit – like they were created in another decade, more likely to have worked in a small town 15 years prior (or more). We lived in a big city. I would say that it being in the early-1960’s, and being where we lived, the culture was quite different from where my Mom had grown up, with the exception of when she was at university – but she was older then. I think that she should have known better, but, I’m not sure.
Her understanding of my day to day was very limited to the point that sometimes, her rules made my life even more difficult. They got me bullied. Big time.
Because of this situation, I went to extremes, at an early age, to both escape the ridicule that following her rules would bring me, and learning to shape-shift back to appearing to follow her rules by the time I got off the bus each afternoon. This was tricky, as some of the ridicule was dished out by the kids on the bus… to the last minute before I got to my stop. I look back on those days and shiver… Truly.
This was the beginning of the time of my life that I would never want to repeat – grades 6-12. Ok, maybe grade 12, things changed somewhat, but certainly through grade 11. Total living hell.
Yeah – that was me just before fourth grade – that’s how my Mom wanted me to look – maybe forever? Maybe until end of 12th grade? Who knows? Dig the white crew socks that I tried to make look like knee highs, oh, and that hat – those were “a thing” back then!
Back then the policy created by my Mom, that dictated my dress code was: “not allowed to wear make-up” “must wear socks” “not allowed to shave legs, or armpits”.
OK, the situation was that I was well into puberty. I had dark brown hair. My mom tried to dress me like I was in 3rd grade. Even in 3rd grade I didn’t want to wear what she put out for me to wear each day. I became very rebellious. This got me into trouble. Let’s say that we spent a lot of time struggling, but to no avail.
In retrospect, I suspect that these were the seeds of my learning to troubleshoot problems, and build solutions! Put a difficult problem in front of me – given enough time, I’ll figure out the solution!
The daily living hell
As you could imagine, the kids at school made fun of my “hairy legs”, told me I looked ugly (no make-up), called me names that I can’t remember as I have blocked them out of my memory, and of course, wearing the white socks didn’t help with the vision of my hairy legs – complete with the dorky shoes (my Mom insisted I wear “tie up shoes” aka “Oxfords” vs. the ever popular penny-loafers, because they gave me “more arch support”. This was Texas, honey, not Boston! Let’s say that her ideas about fashion for a junior high aged girl were not aligned with reality.
This was the age of the rock and roll emerging from England! Twiggy! Eye-lashes! Mini-skirts! Revlon “Frosted Malt” and “Sugar and Ice” lipstick. Carnaby Street! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Hey you, get off of my cloud! You get the picture.
White socks, dorky shoes, hairy legs, no make-up, along with home-made clothes – in a school where how you looked was a top thing of importance – and there was a merciless “in crowd” that relished giving people that didn’t fit their “criteria of looks for acceptance” a cruelty filled hard time.
I’m surprised I didn’t jump out a window or slit my wrists – oh right… we had a one-story house, and I had no access to razors (not allowed to shave my legs or armpits, remember?).
Oh yeah, one last thing – I had achieved the puberty level, and I hadn’t been allowed to wear a bra. That was the icing on the cake.
I walked around thinking, “kill me now.”
Oh, and did I mention that my chunky figure didn’t help? Back then I was also taller than most of the boys, and had my paternal family’s genetics that trended heavy to extremely heavy. Thankfully, mostly, I was just heavy. Chunky, as they called it.
The plan
OK, so what I decided to do, with the aid of some close friends, was to figure out how to (1) buy some lipstick and eyeliner, at least, (2) try to talk my mom into the loafers or at least Keds sneakers, and (3) devise a plan to put on make-up, off load the socks, and get myself together for facing the tough crowd, then (4) unroll all of that at the end of the bus ride home at the last possible moment so that I could blitz off the bus with little attention.
This is what you call, “classic sneaking”. That was the solution that I put into practice and did so for the better part of the last semester of sixth grade. I figured that as long as I didn’t get caught, I could work on my Mom over the summer months to get her to allow me to do those things, and to continue to work on her (badger), enduring the fights that we would have, until I wore her down and got my way.
The Summer Break
Let’s say that this was interesting, and as it turned out, in her counsel with my Dad’s boss’s wife, who had three older teenage girls, the advice to my Mom was, “pick your battles…the ones ahead are going to be much more difficult, and these things you’re insisting on are not helping, and trivial by comparison.”
So, in her fashion of listening to older women, who were financially better off and a member of the right clubs, and whose husband was her husband’s boss, she issued the revised policies for my dress code – finally – before the school session resumed.
Oh, and also, while I was attending church camp. the girls there, “helped” me shave my hairy pits and legs! I got home and synchronicity happened! The rule change + I had already had my first shaving session.
School again
So it went. That part improved, but in seventh grade, more stress emerged. I got gut aches. I got head aches. I had my “monthly” to deal with, that caused more “gut aches”. I was in a swirl. Eventually, I did get used to this – these never went away. My Dad told me about “Tums”. Those helped. But at the end of the day, stress management wasn’t a thing back then. It was just “deal with it the best that you can” oh… and take Tums for the tummy!
Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!- end of seventh grade – chunky monkey – but the belly button showed and NO SOCKS + wore makeup! Dance party – crazy!
