This Old Soul.

Dancing circles

Originally uploaded by natalamc

It was 5th grade that I came to the realization that I could be considered by many as weird. This realization at first devastated me, as being part of the norm tends to be the safest way to live your pre-pubescent years.
The moment that I realized that I was not like any of my friends, or classmates came to fruition in one very vivid moment in music class. My music teacher was considered to be the coolest teacher, ever. He wore blue jeans and button down shirts to school, and he had long curly, unruly hair that he would sometimes tie back with a rubber band. Every one of my classmates looked forward to his class. We didn’t sing the typical songs, no, instead Mr.Casey had us singing “Proud Mary” as well as songs from Queen, Paula Abdul, and Tina Turner.
For me, this was an introduction into what it meant to be cool. Because, very clearly, I was not cool. All of the songs we would sing were at least somewhat familiar to my classmates, but for me, on the other hand they were completely unfamiliar. My tastes were much, well let’s just say, more refined.
It was one day in class that Mr.Casey went around the room and asked us who our favorite singer was, that all of my awkwardness with my peers would come to make complete sense. Being in 5th grade, I did not think to lie, and copy one of the more popular names going around the room… I could have easily blurted out “Michael Jackson” or “Madonna” but no, instead in my 5th grade brain, I believed that all of my classmates had surely heard of my favorite singer.
Connie Francis.
I said it and remember the raised eyebrow of Mr.Casey and a crooked smile. And him saying, with a chuckle “I think that is my Grandma’s favorite singer too!”
A few laughs followed, and we went on to my other classmates who loved Whitney Houston, Bon Jovi, and Prince.
And I sat there wondering why no one had ever heard of Connie Francis.
It did not occur to me that throw back singers to the 1950’s were not exactly on Z100’s most requested songs. And while my classmates knew every lyric to “Thriller” and “Opposites Attract”, I on the other hand could sing word for word “Lipstick on his collar” and “Everybody’s somebody’s fool”.
I went home that day, looking through my records. Yes, records. I had an old record player, at my Grandma’s house, which was where we were living at the time. I could not understand why Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and The Dorsey Brothers were not popular with my friends.
And I would soon find out it didn’t just stop there. My favorite movies included “Hello Dolly” (so much so, that I wanted to be Barbra Streisand for Halloween one year), “An American in Paris” and “a Street Car Named Desire” . Not until that day in music class did I think that this might not be what the rest of my friends were watching.
We didn’t have TV, and the only time aside from old movies that I watched anything at all, was watching “Bob Ross” painting videos. My Grandma and I would watch him every day, and we’d paint.. happy little trees.
I wasn’t watching “Alf” or “The Wonder Years”. I was watching Bob Ross paint, and old black and whites, an the occasional musical.
This would remain to be my life through out my pre-teens and my teens, and even followed me into college.
On paper, and with out knowledge that I was a 5th grade girl, one might mistake me for a gay man or a 70 year old woman. But yet, there I was, an 11 year old girl, living in NY, loving the old Italian-American singers, and watching painting videos with my Grandmother. Even when I had the chance to be different, I never really was. There, even through my teens was this realization that all of it made me different.
When I was in middle school, it was the New Kids On The Block who were insanely popular. It was at this time in which I was feeling the biggest need to fit in. Middle School is hell enough, but for someone who could not tell you any of the New Kids names, it was even more so. The biggest question as a middle school girl, was “Who is your favorite New Kid”?” Girls lockers were plastered with pictures, and big hearts around faces, proclaiming their love for one of them. I decided I needed a favorite, and while assisting my friends in writing postcards to a radio station, in order to be in a drawing to have the New Kids come to your school, I looked over at one of girls post cards, and read “Danny”, and that would then be the one I “Liked the most”. This would have been fine, except as it turns out, Danny was the “ugly one” and the one no teenage girl liked. Just my luck. And when people would question this I would tell them that he was “under appreciated” and that he was “mysterious”. This got my strange looks and a few laughs, but seemed to detract attention away from the fact, I HAD NO CLUE who any of them were. And when on my 13th birthday I received a New Kids on the Block pillow case set? I stared at it blankly until my friend, Francesca piped up “Now you can sleep next to all of them every night!!!”. This, made absolutely no sense to me. Why would I want to rest my head on the faces on a boy band?
As I matured, I accepted my weirdness and my lack of knowledge of the popular culture, and thought of myself as unique, and happily pretentious when it came to the what good music and good entertainment truly was.
I lined my bedroom with pictures of dead composers, and records of the “Rat Pack” and “Paolo Conte”. I talked endlessly to elderly people, and spent most of my teen years volunteering in a nursing home, where I could sit down with any of the residents and chat about the good old days, and Jimmy Stewart, and Grace Kelly. I was what they would call me, an “old soul”, and I loved every moment of it. While my friends were roller skating and at the mall, I was listening to Bing Crosby on an old record player, in a nursing home room, with Joe, a 90 year old man with Alzheimer’s, except when it came to Bing, and Connie, that he remembered every detail of.
I once danced to old swing music, with a man in his 90’s named Paul, who once danced with Ginger Rogers. And, I thought this was far more intriguing then getting a chance to catch a glimpse of a pop icon at a rock concert.
And I suppose, that while part of me regrets missing the 80’s, and most of the 90’s, and all of it’s pop culture, the other part of me? It completely loves that I, as a generation X-er grew up in the 40’s and 50’s, and my old soul is forever grateful .