When I was little, I wanted to play the saxophone or the bag pipes or the accordian. I begged dad to let me take lessons in school. “We could rent somethin’ . . . it don’t cost much . . . you pay by the month . . . please daddy.” His answer was always the same, “I ain’t got the money . . . now go on.” I knew to quit askin’ . . . I knew the musical instrument wasn’t gonna happen. Mom did play the radio sometimes. She’d be in the kitchen in the morning listenin’ to Tennessee Ernie Ford, Perry Como and Patsy Cline. That was a short lived deal. The radio blew a tube and we never got it fixed. There was some music at church. We tried to follow along with the hymns but believe me, no one wanted us in the choir. I never heard gramma sing or grampa or my aunts or uncles . . . nobody. Once in awhile dad might hum an old army song but that’s about it. We just weren’t a musical bunch. When I was 14, I scrounged up a used record player. It was a wooden box covered in light green sparkle cloth with a snap off detachable speaker. We put on a Beatle record and dad got so mad. He stormed in there drunk with a beer in his hand. “Shut dat crap off.” He kicked the record player and the needle jumped onto the cloth. He yelled, “I ain’t interested in this hippie shit.” Then he hollered all about the pinko bastards out there who should just go on and get jobs ’cause by god this was America and those worthless long hairs should love it or leave it. He stumbled out of the room. Finally he went to bed. We put the record back on . . . real low. We tried to enjoy the songs but mostly we just sat there in the dark feelin’ bad . . . feelin’ like some kind of awful communists ’cause we wanted to listen to a little music.