Music, Music, Music

Teresa Brewer was a popular singer of this period of time.  In one of her songs she sang,

“Put another nickel in,

In the nickelodeon,

All I want is loving you

And music, music, music”

Music was and is a big thing in my life.  When I was fifteen I got a second hand guitar.  I walked to my Aunt Zadie Hodges’ house and asked her husband Jack to show me some things about the guitar.  He showed me three chords – G, C, and D.  I was on my way to becoming picker – well actually more of a strummer than a picker.

Hank Thompson had a honky tonk song called, “The Wild Side of Life.”  I discovered that you could play it using those three chords.  I must have driven my parents crazy with my performances of “The Wild Side of Life” over and over again.  Okay.  It wasn’t the best song to start with, but it got me going.

Eventually I became a part of little band.  We sang at a few schoolhouses and other events.  Once in a while we played at a gas station on Saturday night.  The deputy sheriff and the justice of the peace sometimes got tired of catching speeder, and invited us to play at the JP’s office.   After we left, they would try to catch us doing something wrong.

We never played for dances.  Well, that’s not totally true.   All but one of us attended the Church of Christ.  Dancing was forbidden among the church’s young people of that time.  We stuck to our training and didn’t play for dances until one night just prior to my high school graduation.  Our class was invited to a party held at a home about 15 miles out in the country.  We were invited to play.  A few minutes after we started, a couple got up and started dancing.  Soon another couple joined them.  Before the night was done the whole class was dancing, even though at least half of them didn’t know how.   By Sunday, the news had drifted back to church and I was properly chastised.

Although that was the last time I ever played for a dance (not exactly true. I played for a senior citizen’s group once and they started dancing), I’ve gotten in trouble over the guitar a few times.  Of course I’m in an acapella church and I like it that way.  I’ve never played the guitar in a Sunday morning assembly in my life, and I don’t intend to.   There are those who are suspicious of me, however.  They figure I love the guitar so much that I can’t wait to slip it into the worship service some Sunday morning.  I did shock an audience one night when I brought my daughter’s viola to church.  I couldn’t have played it if I had wanted to.  I never put the bow to the strings.  I simply held it up as an illustration about something totally unrelated to music. There may be just cause to be concerned about my behavior on several matters, but playing the guitar at the Sunday morning assembly is not one of them.