The Last Meal

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My dad came over today. This song came up, and we laughed. I am thankful to have grown up with books and music, all varieties and genres, at my disposal.  Like a buffet at The Golden Trough, or maybe Golden China, music played and books were displayed prominently in the house where I grew up, behind delicate but protective glass doors, tucked into built-in bookshelves and stacked haphazardly, even when there was no room left on the shelves. 

I have tried to do this with my own kids, mostly because I believe being immersed in music and books helps us connect ourselves to things other than ourselves.  They help us to make sense of things.  Books and music lend us a power like nothing else can, and when a chapter is finished or the song fades, I believe we are left with a sort of knowledge that nobody can ever steal or take away.  The melody and the lyrics and the stories are forever branded into our souls, like it or not.  That's just the way it works when we happen upon the unforgettable.    

And lyrics?  Well.  Once you figure out the proper words, songs work very much like someone sat you down and took a pen and paper and set out to illustrate your own life through music.  I've said it before, and you know I cannot help but say it again:  My stories ARE the telling songs of a wider life.  I tie just about everything in my life that has ever happened to - you guessed it - a song.  The feelings, the vibes, the very emotions evoked through song, at least for me, help me hold on to memories.  They help me make sense of them.  

And books?  Ah.  Books.  Books can take us anywhere without ever having to go away; it is like sending your heart on vacation to someplace you have never been before, yet, in the straight black line that is your life.  A good book is a change in atmosphere, or an intentional transcendental meditation you look forward to doing every day.  Like prayer, books are a commitment of time you make of yourself in order to achieve heightened spiritual awareness.  

When I was young, my GrandMaud took me with her to Lewis Meyer's on Peoria before Brookside was even cool.  She would buy books for me there, all hardbound and smooth, and never before touched by uncaring hands.  I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Meyer himself once, and I was so shy when I held out my hand to offer him a quiet hello.  His own hands were cool and smooth, and I remember his hand patting the top of mine  like one might pat a pup's perfect, rounded skull; it was cupped just so, and affectionately approving, too.  He smiled from ear to ear, too, and his ears were big.  He wore wire-rimmed glasses that crept down his nose in a familiar way as he pored over spines of works that lined the shelves of his store.  Perhaps that is what made him such a memorable man: He made his customers feel welcome.  He made us feel like we were old friends visiting from a land far, far away.  Mr. Meyer's love and passion for print oozed out of him like the slow and deliberate stories housed on the pages of the very books he sold every day!   He wore a chartreuse bow tie and a distinguished charcoal suit coat the first time I met him, and I thought even at age 8 what a classy, congenial, and joyful man he was. 

That first summery Saturday, Mr. Meyer introduced me to the proper way to break in a hardbound book.  Why, he even demonstrated on one of his own so as not to rough-up one of mine from the small stack I had selected that trip to bring home with me.  I appreciated that about him, really.  That was how this man was, though:  He wanted to give me the pleasure, the satisfaction, of breaking in my own books as I savored them, so he used his own instead.  A sacrifice, you know, from one book lover to another.  And if you are a purchaser of hardbound editions, you know what an expensive sacrifice it might have been for him.  But still, he cared that much.  

I remember how my GrandMaud and I would huddle eagerly, expectantly, across the room from the console Zenith in the cluttered house where I grew up, and we would wait for his segment to air.  I would grow wild with anticipation when I knew there would be something on there for kids, and then the next week we would usually make a trip to go and buy it if it was something she or my dad felt I could benefit from.  We would climb in her silver Ford and make the trip back to Tulsa that next week, down the old highway through Oologah and by German Corner, which my GrandMaud always said was where bad, killer wrecks happened.  Every time we would near that church, my heart would just about thump out of my chest.  More often than not, I would close my eyes and hold my breath and white-knuckle my lifebelt strap that fit awkwardly across my chest.  I would pinch my eyes closed, tight, until we made it through that stoplight without getting slammed into, and then I would let down my breath.  Relief.  Talk about risking our lives for a good book.  See?  That is part of where I come from, and I couldn't be more proud. 

'The Last Meal', in a way, represents this time in my life, back when censorship didn't exist, at least in my neck of the woods, or in my house.  Books and music were laid out before me like a grand buffet, a smorgasbord of entertaining and intellectually stimulating selections for both the heart and mind.  Plus, my father cussed with reckless abandon and didn't care who might have an issue with it.  You didn't see any of this '#&!%@' stamped across his mouth when he spoke.  You just...heard it...and maybe you'd wince a few times trying to decide whether to protest or just let it slide, but I could say the same kinds of things if I wanted, and nobody blinked an eye in my house.  Oh, was there something on your mind?  Well, then, let's hear it, and anything you might have to say to get your message across was acceptable.  Revered, even, but never, ever censored.  Bizarre, now that I think back on it, but that's just the way life worked with my dad and his mother.  

Because of this little-known thing, this freedom I had to speak my mind without fear of punishment or retaliation, I believe I have grown up  with a  much more colorful vocabulary list than many.  My ABC's weren't 'A is for Apple' and 'B is for Bat'.  What fell under my organic list of ABC's was enough to piss off the Pope himself and churchgoing, well-meaning mothers everywhere.  And while I may not have said those words, I had certainly heard them thousands of times over, and they were just a part of my days, like breathing.  They just happened.  Bad words were typical, and they certainly gave me my earliest clues into human behavior and how the words we choose affect the people around us.  Perhaps this is just another reason I have always loved books, because I look at books and music as something much akin to food:  Books and music feed us.  They grow us up in one direction or another.  They serve to whet the appetite or satiate it, and allow us to be fed or gratified to or beyond capacity.   For these reasons and so many more, I remain thankful.  Too, this has helped shape me into who I am today, and every day I am growing more at peace with who I am.  It's like I am growing into myself, a self-actualization that is finally quite sweet.  I feel like I can now draw in a deep breath, look around the many rooms of my life, and settle down quietly into a big, comfortable armchair, ready and willing to let good things come to me as I turn pages of my favorite novels and listen to my favorite songs on loop, never once stopping to censor or stamp out the things that society preaches are bad for me.