Discovering the Music — and more — in You

I didn’t know I was a gorilla until I saw it in my mother back in 1963.

Patty Green was spending the night with me and we were listening to the radio at about two in the morning. As KEWB channel ninety-one blasted rock and roll, and we heard the Dave Clark’s Over and Over and Over Again, and I decided to shriek the radio knob up five decibels when Dave repeated Over and Over and Over about fifty times.

Patty and I laughed hysterically about this when suddenly MOM slammed open my bedroom looking like a giant gorilla let out of her cage. She stood larger than life in the doorway, snorting from frothing rage as she hyperventilated and looked through bulging sleepiness. Her lurking stance reminded me of a jungle mother ready to kill her young. Patty immediately closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep, and I closed my top eye as I lie there, watching Mom determine her next move.

Mom stumbled past the foot of my bed and over to my new ivory plastic clock radio with the red calligraphic dial face. She reached over and pulled the plug out of the wall and waved it in my face, spitting through her teeth, “If I ever hear another word out of you, you have had it.”

Say no more, Mom, I’m with ya, got the picture, watch me be quiet as a mouse.

Meanwhile, Patty convulsed with muted guffaws and almost wet my bed. It was a childhood moment I hold fondly in my memory because I discovered my heritage.

By Pru Starr