"Well here you go again, you say we want your freedom. Well who am I to keep you down?"
Fleetwood Mac. I always thought Fleetwood Mac was a country band of sorts. Little did I realize that it was the group that has been a steady nostalgic source for my father over the last couple of decades.
I remember coming home to this song on numerous occasions while living at home, and a couple of times afterwards as well. It was always the same time of year and always the same setting. It was always spring or summertime. It was always in the early evening. The "girls" as we say in our house were out shopping or getting their nails done or doing whatever it was that the girls in my family got together to do. The house was always quiet besides the music that was playing and there was always beer.
When I entered the house he would get up as if he were caught doing something he wasn't supposed to be doing with a beer in hand and ask me if I was hungry. This was always the first question he asked me. He had always just ordered something or was just in the process of ordering something. We would usually eat together and have some small talk before the girls got back from their outing.
These were the good times. If my father had his Fleetwood Mac playing it meant he was thinking of another time that he thought of as the good times and it put him in a good mood. It meant that we weren't going to argue when I entered the house. It meant that he wasn't closing himself off in his comic books or entrenched in a program about the Yankees history that he has seen a billion times already. It meant that he was open for conversation and that everything was going to be alright.
Music always has always been a big part of my father's life. He likes playing this game with us where he says he'll give us 100 dollars if we guess the name of a group that sings the song that is playing. It's usually some obscure one hit wonder disco band from the seventies that he knows we'd never know but the offer is always out there. He knows songs and bands that weren't even very popular at the time that they were around. He takes some sort of pride in it. He knows music, he understands it.
Maybe that's because he played the violin when he was in grade school. I remember hearing that he used to wear suits to school and get into a lot of fights. I can't recall the source but I always pictured him being forced to indulge in activities that he didn't want to because his parents wanted him to be cultured. I always pictured a very strict and regimented environment that he had grown up in and him using music as a sort of escape.
And wouldn't you know that it was music that helped him relive this regimented environment and remember the good times when his father passed away. I don't remember the song that played but I remember the dimly lit room and the somber mood. I had gotten out of bed because his music had kept me up through the night. I slowly entered the kitchen and made my way to the fridge to drink some milk. My mother always put warm cinnamon milk in my bottle to get me to go back to sleep as a baby and as I grew the cure stayed the same. Across the room I could see the shadow that was my father. There he sat, a lonely silhouette in the dark with a beer in hand just listening. When he saw the light of the fridge open he came over and asked me something or other and I replied with this and that. His red puffy eyes told me that this was not just a drunken music fest. There was something more.
I sat with him for a short while and don't remember the entire conversation but i do remember him saying that he just couldn't believe it. He just couldn't believe that his father who had meant the world to him, the man who taught him everything and made him the person that he was, the man he so needed to escape from when he was a teenager had now passed away. And now the music that helped him escape his rigid, confined upbringing was the same music that was helping him go back to those days when his father was around to give him a boot in the ass.
That was the first day I ever saw my father cry. The second day was when I visited home after spending months in basic training and months more in AIT (Advanced Individual Training). The setting was the same as the good times but the emotions were geared towards me more than his own past. Or maybe it was seeing me and thinking of how I had followed in his footsteps. His pride filled the whole room that day and my father showed me the love that I had always wanted from him as a child.
It's always been the music that has gotten him to that point. Well, the music and the beer. It's a pretty consistent and emotionally volatile combination. But I don't need the beer. The music alone has had me drifting back to these days and looking on my strict upbringing with the same fondness that I'm sure my father felt towards his.
Fleetwood Mac. I always thought Fleetwood Mac was a country band of sorts. Little did I realize that it was the group that has been a steady nostalgic source for my father over the last couple of decades.
I remember coming home to this song on numerous occasions while living at home, and a couple of times afterwards as well. It was always the same time of year and always the same setting. It was always spring or summertime. It was always in the early evening. The "girls" as we say in our house were out shopping or getting their nails done or doing whatever it was that the girls in my family got together to do. The house was always quiet besides the music that was playing and there was always beer.
When I entered the house he would get up as if he were caught doing something he wasn't supposed to be doing with a beer in hand and ask me if I was hungry. This was always the first question he asked me. He had always just ordered something or was just in the process of ordering something. We would usually eat together and have some small talk before the girls got back from their outing.
These were the good times. If my father had his Fleetwood Mac playing it meant he was thinking of another time that he thought of as the good times and it put him in a good mood. It meant that we weren't going to argue when I entered the house. It meant that he wasn't closing himself off in his comic books or entrenched in a program about the Yankees history that he has seen a billion times already. It meant that he was open for conversation and that everything was going to be alright.
Music always has always been a big part of my father's life. He likes playing this game with us where he says he'll give us 100 dollars if we guess the name of a group that sings the song that is playing. It's usually some obscure one hit wonder disco band from the seventies that he knows we'd never know but the offer is always out there. He knows songs and bands that weren't even very popular at the time that they were around. He takes some sort of pride in it. He knows music, he understands it.
Maybe that's because he played the violin when he was in grade school. I remember hearing that he used to wear suits to school and get into a lot of fights. I can't recall the source but I always pictured him being forced to indulge in activities that he didn't want to because his parents wanted him to be cultured. I always pictured a very strict and regimented environment that he had grown up in and him using music as a sort of escape.
And wouldn't you know that it was music that helped him relive this regimented environment and remember the good times when his father passed away. I don't remember the song that played but I remember the dimly lit room and the somber mood. I had gotten out of bed because his music had kept me up through the night. I slowly entered the kitchen and made my way to the fridge to drink some milk. My mother always put warm cinnamon milk in my bottle to get me to go back to sleep as a baby and as I grew the cure stayed the same. Across the room I could see the shadow that was my father. There he sat, a lonely silhouette in the dark with a beer in hand just listening. When he saw the light of the fridge open he came over and asked me something or other and I replied with this and that. His red puffy eyes told me that this was not just a drunken music fest. There was something more.
I sat with him for a short while and don't remember the entire conversation but i do remember him saying that he just couldn't believe it. He just couldn't believe that his father who had meant the world to him, the man who taught him everything and made him the person that he was, the man he so needed to escape from when he was a teenager had now passed away. And now the music that helped him escape his rigid, confined upbringing was the same music that was helping him go back to those days when his father was around to give him a boot in the ass.
That was the first day I ever saw my father cry. The second day was when I visited home after spending months in basic training and months more in AIT (Advanced Individual Training). The setting was the same as the good times but the emotions were geared towards me more than his own past. Or maybe it was seeing me and thinking of how I had followed in his footsteps. His pride filled the whole room that day and my father showed me the love that I had always wanted from him as a child.
It's always been the music that has gotten him to that point. Well, the music and the beer. It's a pretty consistent and emotionally volatile combination. But I don't need the beer. The music alone has had me drifting back to these days and looking on my strict upbringing with the same fondness that I'm sure my father felt towards his.
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