Oh Susannah...

Scott and I have been perusing the children's folk song market for songs and cds for H.P. During my library and story time years, I became familiar with a lot of this "type" of music and much of it is pretty heinous. We want our child to have good taste. We want him to understand what is quality music verses what is shit. So, we're going to be selective as to what he can listen to. We've been playing a lot of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and though Scott cringes at how basic the music is, the sheer storytelling involved in some of the tunes leaves me enrapt. It saddens me that children aren't singing these songs any more. Or are they? Some of them surprised me by their depth and seriousnees. Guthrie's "Little Black Train" is not going to bring you back cuz it's the damn grim reaper, y'all! And you better get your soul straight with the "savior" if you've been in the barroom gamblin'... At first, I wondered at the explicitness of this song for young tykes. And then I thought back to my own childhood and my favorite songs. One was about a little girl singing to heaven because she missed her daddy up there. Tom Dooley "met her on the mountain, took her life... met her on the mountain, stabbed her with [his] knife..." and then hung for the so-called murder. And then, of course, there's the fairy tales, which are pretty damn grim if you ask me. So, violence and death are a fun part of childhood and provide lots of oppurtunity to use the imagination whether song or literature or film be the vehicle. I do, of course, beleive in limitations, but folk songs are an important link to our past that I want to keep alive for my children. Consider the song, John Henry. This song is important for several reasons one of which is John Henry's color. He's black. There are different versions of this song, but the one I can recall most clearly and the one I found by Woody Guthrie begins as John Henry is a baby sitting on his mother's knee. Even then, when he picks up a hammer, he looks at it and says, "This hammer be the death of me..." Now, my recollections are not too clear, but I only went away from the song with half the story- The work John Henry had to endure (it may as well have been slavery) was the death of him. This isn't complete, though. Only now, in re-listening to the song as an adult do I get it. It's the age of the machine and he's forced to compete with it. He was a worker by nature, and it isn't until his work is taken away from him that he is defeated. He is faster than the machine, but it kills him in the end. It's up to Scott and I as parents to inform Hawkins, to make sure he knows these stories of lore. The full stories. I'm not even sure that I knew John Henry was black. It would have been nice, though, as a child to have learned of an African American hero. I pictured all the "big men" (Paul Bunyon, Pecos Bill, Iron John, John Henry, ect...) of lore as white. I'll have to talk with Scott and see what folk heroes he remembers growing up. Perhaps his time in Guam and Hawaii as a child gave him a more diverse set of heroes.

Anyway, I know I went off on that but I've just been thinking. This parenthood thing is so new. We have so much to think about. My coworker was telling me about Radio Disney being at the track for Family Day and I was thinking, "Jesus, I don't want my kid listening to that crap." It's just this grab bag thing and Scott and I have to continually keep on our toes and decide what is important to us as parents and what is not. Music, art and literature are important. So are values... I know. But everything is so tied together. I don't know where art (which at it's best unveils truth) ends and goodness begins. It's all kind of connected for me. This may be blasphemous, but if so, it just is... I see Shakespeare and Dickens and Austen and good writing as sacred. Yes- like the BIBLE. Writers inspired by Something that I think must be God at work. As a person, I'm still not sure where the moralities in art lie. Is one called to be a great artist or a great person first? Flannery O'Connery said that if one is faithful to their art then they will inevitably be faithful to God. In my writing class, I was really called to look deeper into this question when I wrote a short story called "Fat Girls (or Salutatorians)." It really offended an overweight girl in my class, but she totally missed the point. I felt guilty, though, that I had hurt her. I made her feel bad and so really battled with whether writing that story was wrong or not. It was brutal at times, but it was good. Maybe one of the best things I've written. I talked this through with my writing prof who said obviously it wasn't wrong, but she was a little less sentimental than I was. Obviously, she had never been overweight. Molly and I have discussed it time and again, but of course, we'd much rather someone called us mean or a bitch than fat. I wasn't calling this girl fat, but I described the two fat girls in the story as "two tired bears, lethargic and looming" and things like that. What I thought was much more insulting in the story was their stupidity. Anyway, I suppose people who have good taste in things can be bad people. To me, however, it all kind of floats around in the same blob of goodness whether you are talking literature, life, music, or religion, etc.. It's all either good or bad. If it's bad, then it has no substance- like a person, or a donut, or a Danielle Steele novel. If it's good, then it nourishes- like a grapefruit, or a teacher, or an Emily Dickinson poem. Okay, I've talked so much that I don't know what I'm saying anymore. I'll stop and just say that I like good things and that I hope I have good taste whether it is in people or books or music. I hope Hawkins has good taste, too. He already likes bananas, his soft blankie, sparkly things, and sunshine. He's on the right track.

So, this morning I'm walking to work and college student shit that I mentioned a couple days ago drives up to me. He says he's going to campus and offers me a ride. I'm running late and to be honest, I want to give him a chance to redeem himself for the two times he's blocked my car in, and so I accept. Was this dangerous? I'm not sure. Once I got in his car, I realized that I probably shouldn't have, but I'll have to remember that for next time. Anyway, he may be a nice person, but he comes across as a Uriah Heep type figure and I didn't like it one bit- a little too deferential, a little too schmoozy, a little polite, and a little too down on himself. Plus, what in god's name is a college student doing up at 8am. He said he was going to do his laundry at a place just off campus, but why would you be doing laundry so early? I don't know. Maybe I'm determined to dislike him, but I went away with an icky feeling. I won't be accepting anymore rides from somewhat strangers no matter how late I am. I wish I trusted people more, but now that I have Hawkins and Scott, I'm just waiting for someone to screw with me. Last weekend, while running errands I decided that I'm going to get some mace. I'm not going down without a fight. For all my life, I've thought that I was the type of person to sympathize with the murderer, the theif, the criminal, the underdog. When I had Hawkins, something just switched. I remember doing the dishes the other day and imagining Hawkins being kidnapped and thinking, "Anyone but him. Any baby but mine. I don't care who, but not Hawkins." I have a child and all of a sudden, I'm a coldhearted savage ready to blow a hole through anyone that tries to mess with my kid. It's complete insanity.

This weekend we've got nothin'. I'm ecstatic seeing as how this is our last free weekend for a month and a half. So much is happening in late June through July that it's almost as if the time doesn't exist. There certainly won't be any damn free time. That's for sure. So, I'm a vegetable this weekend. I am getting my hair cut tomorrow. Fancy place. New Talent. This means I get to go to an expensive place and pretend like I'm getting a really nice haircut. In reality, though, the person who's cutting my hair isn't very good with the scissors yet. Next weekend at Molly's wedding I want to look good. Not as good as the bride, but good. Maybe it will happen.

Happy weekend! Relax and enjoy the sunshine (if you can stand being outside in the 90 degree heat)...

The tires on the bike are flat. I'm going to pump them up this weekend and see what gives. Let's hope I don't kill myself.