My Blog For You

Continuing on from last week…

Life after that day seemed to chug along at its own pace.  I was sitting down, like I did each Saturday morning when I was trying to review and tweak this manuscript and realized that I blew past the time after my conversion and leading up to the time I met my girlfriend.  These details below are the parts that lead up to that meeting.  Like I said, some of the other details of that time were as follows…  Since my family and I lived about 10 miles from the church, in the summertime when school was not in session and since I wasn’t old enough to drive yet, my days at home started with sleeping then eating and more sleeping if I had not yet done any chores.  Chores, for me, were like watering areas of the back yard with a hose we had and then watering the grass in the front.  The rest of the lawned areas of the property had automatic watering sprinklers that just needed to be turned on when we wanted it on and turned off when the chore was done.  Other chores I had were feeding the animals.  We only had a dog, however each day, usually at dinner my grandmother put out a large suet ball, like candy for birds for the various birds that lived in our area.  Birds like Sparrows, Robins, Blue Jays and some Orioles, Crows and Starlings. At dinnertime we would eat our meal at the picnic tables on the porch watching all of the birds flocking to eat the sewit ball and take a bath from the hot sun.  We ate so good during those days and my grandmother was primarily responsible for all of it.  I know when I get to heaven one of the first people, I will thank for getting me there will be her. I know she prayed me into the kingdom as well as feeding me, washing my clothes and taking me places I wanted to go.  My grandmother, for sure, was always baking, cooking or cleaning and sometimes daily during the summer I was doing tasks for her out in the yard.  Frankly, if I am honest, I was asking her to take me somewhere to then drop me off most of the time.  I know I owe her a lot as she selflessly took care of me during those formative years.  I expect I will ask her if I can be her slave for about a thousand years.  I was always asking her to drive me the10 miles to the church to drop me off to hang out with my friends or something.  Reading this over again now, I can see such a selfish tendency in me, I never thought once about the cost of gas or wear and tear on her car or her time.  I like many teenagers was so myopic, selfish, self-centered and self-absorbed…should I go on…I guess I was fortunate that I was going to church and not somehow, someway, getting into some kind of trouble.  I had my own room away from my younger sister downstairs and I was down the hall from my mom’s room upstairs.  My bathroom was attached to my room, however my Mom’s bathroom was not.  Not sure why I shared that but I guess trying to get inside my head at the time that was significant to me.  Privacy was really not a big deal to me at 13 but looking back and in the background it must have been.  Today there are lots of “privacy” issues.  It seems like I can’t review a website or try to buy something online without running smack dab into a “Privacy Statement” and that Moving onward and sideways….I had plenty to eat and nice clothes to wear.    Between my grandmother and my mom and their support of me there was really   I had need of.  I think this was around the time when I got interested in music as my friends from church were starting to acquire instruments and learning how to tune their guitars, get heads on their drum kits, playing beats, imitating the rock bands of the day.  These bands were groups like The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Chicago, The Moody Blues, The Yardbirds, The Beach Boys and others. Between you and I, I hated bands like The Stones and Emerson, Lake and Palmer and listened almost exclusively to The Beatles, Chicago and The Moody Blues. Now a days I listen on the Spotify music app a lot to these bands, but I forgot one that I listened a lot then and probably even more now these days…Steely Dan.  Steely Dan would be my favorite today. Just sayin….   As I mentioned, my two best friends, Randy, was learning to play electric guitar and his older brother Terry, was learning to play piano.  A friend of theirs from high school, Bill, was a drummer and so it appeared that the only slot left to fill for the band was someone to play electric bass.  In syncing with my friends I inwardly wanted to be the bass player but together the band that they formed  “One Truth” decided to use their brother-in-law, Andy, to fill the bass player role.  None to worry.  I began to hook up with Terry’s brother-in-law, Glen, who was already a rather good guitarist, and his girlfriend Janet who could really sing and write songs.  The three of us started a band which was later called “Grand Mansion”.  We eventually added a keyboard player (Larry) and another electric guitar player (Alan) to the group along with the last piece of this band, a drummer (Peter). Back to the story…. At that time I went as far as to asking one of our youth leaders,  Jim Berkley who was a really good bass player to teach me.   He was my first bass teacher.  He drove me down to the first Guitar Center in Hollywood and with two hundred dollars I had earned from mowing lawns for my mom and others around the neighborhood I purchased my first bass guitar and amp.  It was a Ibanez brand with a blond body and a white maple neck.  They got me a used Fender Bassman amp and threw in the strap and cables as a part of the deal.  This was as I remember 1972 or 1973ish time frame.  I hauled it home and  up to my room and  proceeded to play each day after school, The Beatles, Steely Dan or Chicago records (albums) after school till my Mom said, “Rob, Dinner is on”.  I was building up my callouses on my finger tips and learning popular songs of the day.    It was tough sledding the first few months, but I was determined to play in a band with my friends from church.  We were all athletes after youth meetings playing pick-up basketball games at the rear of the building, however that eventually turned into rehearsal times at the church after youth meetings.  In the summer I would stay overnight at Terry and Randy’s house so we could practice songs they were writing.  Although I was not the bass player for their band, that was Andy’s slot, I still enjoyed playing with my best friends till around 1:00am or so before the neighbors’ complained and the Police were dispatched to ask us to politely turn it down or turn it off.  There is some of the history and my start as a musician. 

More next week