Many rock concerts were performed in my bedroom..

Glenda Crow, me and Suzi Brazil - Senior Trip 1974


....and even a few rock operas and tons of choreography.......

This morning I was in the kitchen on my computer when a blast from the past came pouring out of the computer speakers. Dancing In The Moonlight by ....was it King Harvest....can't remember. But with the first notes I was out of my chair and dancing around the kitchen table.

This set me to thinking about the role music played in my life. Its always been a part of my life. My father installed speakers in the ceilings of each room of our house and hooked them up to my mother's stereo in the den. In the mornings we would wake up to the local radio station blasting down from the ceiling. On the weekends if we were cleaning house you would be bombarded with Perry Como, Floyd Cramer, Andy Williams or movie theme songs. To this day I can see in my mind the cover of my mother's album that had the theme to The Magnificent Seven and Lawrence of Arabia on it. And oh my gosh - how could I forget to mention the track from West Side Story.... its all engraved on my soul...

Then as I got older there was the radio that played all night long as I lay in my bed dreaming the dreams of a teen age girl who thought the excitement of life would never end. KOMA Oklahoma City fading in and out....

But what I'm thinking about today after my embarrassing sock hop in a thankfully empty kitchen is all the time I spent listening to my records in my bedroom. Playing them as loud as I could get away with. Holding the hairbrush up to my face as I sang into it while performing for that solo fan in the mirror. Oh the hours I spent perfecting my performance, I who cannot carry a note in a bucket.

Oh for the imaginary boys I sang the love songs to. Oh for the filled stadiums I passionately sang my protest songs to. Oh for the number of time sin my bedroom sanctuary that James Taylor or Jim Croce asked me to come on stage and join them in a song that they wrote...just for me.

Oh the horror when I was in the middle of one of my best performances of the rock opera "Jesus Christ Super Star" and looked up only to see my dad standing in the door watching me with a smile on his face. I was so humiliated and angry at his intrusion ....but never forgot the smile to this day.

I smile now when I think of the hours that I and my friends would practice our dancing to make sure we would look really cool at the next school dance.

When I was in Junior High School Glenda and Carol Crow and I would make up routines to perform at the monthly Talent Show held in the local theater. Once we won third place and not knowing how to divide the trophy we hit on a plan - Glenda and Carol kept the trophy itself but I got the engraved plate that said "Third Place". Its all too funny to me now.

In high school I danced with James Dodge almost exclusively. Without really trying we developed a kind of routine for different songs that were always played. I tell you what - if I had the chance I could still dance with James to Tull's Aqualung and never miss a step of how we used to do it.

Last but not least are my most fond memories of the one and only year Santa Rosa High School had a drill team and all the fun we had making up routines and performing at the games .... again with Glenda, Carol and Lynne Brazil , JoAnn Garcia, Madaline Aragon and so many others.

...we like our fun and we never fight...you can't dance and stay uptight...its a supernatural delight...everybody was dancing in the moonlight.....