Singing Do Wa Diddy Diddy Dum Diddy……..WHAT???????

Driving around with my daughter, Marie, is always spirited fun, especially during the nice weather. She loves to “listen” to the radio by feeling the vibrations from the speaker when she leans her leg against the door. Today, with the windows rolled down, we were bopping away, tapping our hands on the car door, and shaking our bodies in time to the music. The music was not generally my “type”, but in a way it was, because any music that brings me and Marie together is my kind of music, even if she did the choosing, (and she choose based on the sound of the base vibrations.)

As we were bopping along with the windows down, I became self-conscious of the booming vibrations coming from the car. We were having fun, so what! THEN I became shocked when I heard a word in the song that should not be spoken…a word I didn’t even know the ASL sign for. Previously not even listening to the words, I started to pay attention. There were many words not suitable for family listening, as well as words that are not socially acceptable. I was MORTIFIED! Here was this sweet little, ole mom and her teenage daughter listening to urban (VERY urban) rap!

Marie didn’t understand my quick channel change, and I did manage to find some tamer, not as exciting base vibrations for us to bop to. I explained that the song had “dirty” words in it and it wasn’t appropriate to listen to. Marie said she couldn’t hear the words, anyway, so what did it matter? Thinking of all of those cars stopped next to us at red lights and in traffic throughout the day, I shuddered!

So this is an apology to anyone who was driving near us and heard the booming, top level, uncensored urban rap blasting from my car. I didn’t meant to do it…REALLY!

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The Apple Tree: Raising 5 Kids With Disabilities and Remaining Sane
Authored by Linda Petersen
The link to the book:
https://www.createspace.com/5321986?ref=1147694&utm_id=6026

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I Get All of My Exercise in the Driver’s Seat of My Van

My daughter, Marie, is in a residential school, out-of-state.  I drive the hour and a half to see her at least once a week, sometimes twice.  If you have read my book, you know that I HATE to ride.  (I spent my childhood zig zagging across the country.) Driving is no better, and I need to focus or I will fall asleep.

Talking books on tape used to keep my attention for the ride, but taped books are getting harder and harder to find.  Music has become my new listening alternative.  Not just ANY music…noooooooo….only the rock music of my youth; Proud Mary, Sweet Caroline, Born to Run, Papa was a Rolling Stone….   Of course when one hears this music, one’s body can’t help but “dance” to the beat and one’s mouth HAS to sing along, and I am no exception.  The fact that I am in a van somewhat limits my moves, but not altogether.  While driving down the straight highway at 55 miles per hour, (the fastest my 2002 van can manage,)  I can safely swing and wave my arms, (alternately, of course,) bounce, tap and kick my left leg, twist at the waist, and move my shoulders, and do so with great veracity in time to the music.  I have found this new driving routine to be loads of fun helping to both pass the time AND exercise!  Although I am not self-conscious, and the stares from others would not bother me,  I am so busy looking at the road that I don’t see them! Reality comes into play every time a tractor trailer truck drives by because our seats are at the same height.  I am sure that the driver is mortified at the sight of me, as I am no substitute for the sexy young woman for whom he was looking, but what sexy young woman would be driving a huge old old, rusty van like mine anyway?

As the summer approaches,  I will be singing with the windows down because the vans air conditioning met an untimely death last summer.  Most people DO have air conditioning and thankfully (for them) their windows will be closed and the buzz of the air conditioning will drown out any ear shattering notes coming from my van.

If you see me doing my “moves like Mick Jagger” on the highway, I will be too busy driving and exercising to see YOU. However, if you happen to see a somewhat middle aged woman, hair wild and wind blown, climb her way down from the seat of a very old, high van seat, and she has skinny arms, a skinny left leg, tiny waist but a big butt and plump right leg, smile and wave because that would be me….

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Link to my book

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-apple-tree/id538572206?mt=11

The Apple Tree: Raising 5 Kids With Disabilities and Remaining Sane

Link to the Readers Digest review of my book:  http://www.rd.com/recommends/what-to-read-after-a-hurricane/

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Beatles are NOT Bugs

I attended a banquet last evening where the featured musicians played songs from the 60s and 70s…the Beatles, the Bee Gees, Neil Diamond, and so forth.  Listening to the same Beatles songs that were first heard on the Ed Sullivan Show years ago, I became nostalgic for my childhood.  I led an unusual childhood with parents who were the opposite of materialistic…they rarely spent money on “things”.  Being a teenager those days was much easier than being a teenager in “modern” times.  Teenagers now have so many choices of types of jeans, sneakers, perfume and so forth.  We did not have as many choices when I was younger, and, if we did, my parents would have still bought the no name brand sneakers and jeans at K-Mart.  And who needed to smell good anyway?

For Christmas that year my dad gave me his old record player and a record to play on it.  The record was of the fake famous band the Bugs…dressed and hairstyled after the Beatles.  They played the same songs as the Beatles, albeit a little off key. To my parents, it was the same.  To me it was not.  Having been raised not to care about “things”, it surprised me how let down I felt when I received this record.  I know it was selfish of me when we had so many other things to spend money on, but I was disappointed by the fact that I did not get a  real Beatles record.

Although I have lived my life also not dependent on “things”, I still remember with more than a little resentment that day 40 years go.  Sneakers were just sneakers.  Jeans were just jeans.  But the Bugs were NOT the Beatles!

 

To read more about my unusual childhood, please check out my book The Apple Tree:  Raising 5 Kids with Disabilities and Remaining Sane,   which was reviewed by Readers Digest at   http://www.rd.com/recommends/what-to-read-after-a-hurricane/