Like Dreamers Do

Started out a wet, warmer morning with the first Brunch With the Beatles of the year. This week, Brunch went way back to the Beatles on the cusp of fame on New Year's Day 1962 with their auditions for Decca Records. They didn't make the cut, but it was certainly no fault of theirs. I'm not normally into the Beatles' earlier stuff, but where else are you going to hear them perform "The Sheik of Araby"? Other rare tunes recorded during this session included "Like Dreamers Do," "In Spite of All the Danger," and excellent versions of "That'll Be the Day," "Money (That's What I Want)," "Searchin'," and "Hello Little Girl."

I originally called Mom while I was finishing my Dark Chocolate Chocolate Chip Pancakes, but I didn't catch her then. I just shrugged and went into taking down the tree instead. It takes a lot less time to put the tree away than it does to pull it out. As with the display items, I wasn't really clearing much out. The only things I got rid of were the lights. I've had them since I bought them to put up on my window during my second year of college, which was almost 12 years ago. I bought an LED set from the Acme's 50% off Christmas sale on New Year's Day. Everything else was just repacked into various boxes or just placed straight into the container.

Mom called back as I was packing the wooden, plastic, and beaded ornaments in the round container I originally bought for cookies in 2012. She was washing up from breakfast when I called and hadn't heard me until she got my message on the answering machine. She spent her New Year's trying to keep the larder stocked. Dad's been off work, thanks to the weather, and she complained that he's literally eating her out of house and home, including polishing off the rest of the cookies she made.

I asked Mom something I've wanted to ask her for years. What am I? Am I mentally disabled? No, I'm not. She said I was diagnosed in 1991 as having "emotional special needs," and I was even on the lower spectrum of that. According to her, she withdrew me from Cape May Elementary because neither she nor I could handle the way I was treated by the other kids anymore or that most of the teachers weren't doing much to change it.

To this day, I have never understood what I did to the kids to make them bully me so incessantly. Mom says I was a happy, good-natured child who never did any harm to anyone. Everything went pretty well until third grade, when the teasing stepped up and my body started changing in ways my mind wasn't ready for. It would take another four or five years for my mind to catch up with a body that went into adolescence at age 9. Suddenly, I went from a happy child to an angry one. Why did the boys hate me? Why did the girls gossip about me? What did I do?

The teachers mostly didn't seem to get it at the time. Some of them did stand up for me, but by and large, they were older women who had been raised to believe that the body was sinful and bullying builds character. In the last 30 years, the world has discovered the hard way that bullying builds angry kids who often lash out at people or hurt themselves, not "character." I was constantly told to "ignore them," no matter how bad things got. Ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away. Mom got fed up with being told to ignore the problem and just moved me to the Special Services Middle School. I was surprised when she mentioned she had to get around a lot of red tape to do so. I figured the Cape May Elementary administration would be thrilled to get rid of what most of them probably regarded as a "problem child."

I was moved to Cape May County's Special Services Middle School in the fall of 1991. I wasn't really all that happy there, either. I still didn't feel like I fit in. Mom said that I did learn what she'd put me there to learn in the first place - how to deal with other kids. At the time, the only things I felt like I learned was I have a killer volleyball serve and don't mind playing a little rough floor hockey with the boys. (I could never understand why most of the other girls sat on the sidelines blabbing when there was a game going on!)

Mom once again suggested that I start looking into more hobbies and outside interests. Rose and Keefe had a rough time in Teitleman, Lower Township's junior high, but they both bounced back in high school. Rose became involved in softball, soccer, band, and Lower's award-winning mock trial team (they made the state championships two years running and the Nationals one year). Keefe later became a top drummer in the school's marching band and helped with sets and security for school plays and musicals. Keefe also started volunteering at the Battleship New Jersey late in junior high, which began his love affair with the Navy.

I'd like to do more "extracurricular activities," but I have three problems - time, money, and transportation. Most classes and sports here are in the afternoon or at night, when I'm usually working. There's the money problem, too. I can only afford so much and go so far. It doesn't help that I tend to lose interest quickly if a sport or class doesn't grab my attention right away or proves too difficult. I did like Shelly Stahl's suggestion of looking into volunteering for local theaters - I'll talk to her for further ideas. Lauren's big hobby is doing research on her ancestors, which might not be a bad idea, either. I'd also like to talk to the bead and yarn shop in Collingswood and see if they know of any local crocheting/knitting clubs.

Ran Forever Plaid and Five Guys Named Moe as I talked to Mom and finished putting away the rest of the tree, including the tree itself. Both of these shows are semi-revues that revolve around male vocal groups and the music of the mid-20th century. That's where the similarities end. Plaid's 50s pop songs are strung together by a psedo-tragic back story of the title group getting one last shot at the big time after they're killed in a car accident on their way to a lounge for their big break. Five Guys has a little more fun with 30s and 40s jazz and swing as the five Moes help a poor fellow who's been having a hard time with the ladies.

Thanks to the warmer weather, the packed ice that coated the streets yesterday was gone. I rode to work. That may not have been a good idea. The ice was gone, but the streets were still covered with slush, and no one ever clears the sidewalk on the Black Horse Pike. I had to dodge slush and drag my bike over piles of snow and was almost late for work.

Work was almost as busy as yesterday. While the weather was warmer, it's still the beginning of the month, and people are not only having Three King's Day and end-of-the-holiday-season parties, but are restocking as the kids (finally) go back to school tomorrow. They were also still cranky, grouchy, and obnoxious. I was so fed up by the end of my four hours, I asked to spend the last half-hour doing returns. Thankfully, it had slowed down by then, to the point where I was able to leave without a relief.

When I got home, I threw together tuna, broccoli, carrots, and the last of the chicken stock for fish and veggie soup and put on the Johnny Mathis On Broadway CD I got from Lauren for Christmas while moving two of the record crates back to where the tree was. Ironically, several of the numbers cover songs that either weren't originally written for musicals (like the title rock song) or for the show they were representing (the cast of Forever Plaid joined Mathis for "Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries," which was written for The George White Scandals of 1931 but was supposed to represent Fosse). My favorite tracks were both lovely duets. Betty Buckley (Gloria Redmond on the Christmas episode of Remember WENN) joined Mathis for a touching medley of "Children Will Listen" from Into the Woods and "Our Children" from Ragtime. Stage and TV star Nell Carter came along for a rousing "Season of Love" from Rent.