Ever since I got up this morning and read Jocks comment about Jim Stafford and my eclectic tastes, I've been thinking about my mother. She is the reason I have such eclectic taste in music, and I never knew how much she influenced my taste. When I was growing up, she listened to a lot of John Prine...he's the one I remember listening to the most. The little funny things didn't come around until later. The truth of it is, if you had asked me a week ago if I knew who Jim Stafford was, I probably would have said no...I'd heard the name but couldn't place it. Bobbie Gentry, yeah, but not Jim Stafford. Last week, Dwayne and I were discussing...oh hell I can't remember what, and I said "take a trip and never leave the farm." He found that amusing and asked what I was talking about. I told him it was something mom used to say that I realized later in life was a euphemism for you-know-what. She used to say it all the time, and I probably did too, garnering strange looks as reward for my naivete.

Saturday evening, after Dwayne had returned from mowing in stickville, Iwas sitting in the living room, reading the readers digest, and listening to the 70's music on the cable...when I heard the opening strains of Wildwood flower. I looked over to see who was singing, thinking it surely wasn't june carter, since that would most likely be on a different channel, and I saw the name Jim Stasfford and the title wildwood weed. Of course my ears pricked up (hu hu pricked up hu uh) at the word weed, and I listened intently. About halfway through the first verse I knew what I was hearing, and then came the line..."Take a trip and never leave the farm." I got excited, laughing and ran to tell dwayne, who was in the tub...Unfortunately my excitement rubbed off on Sophia who was laughing too, so he didn't quite know what either one of us was on about. I looked for the song...he found it for me later. I looked up some bio information on Jim Stafford. Turns out I had listened to his music a lot as a kid and just didn't know.

My mom had a lot of little funny things like this. even if she didn't have the records (Okay everyone under the age of 25 says what are those...) She would sing them. My Uncle M had a lot of influence over me that way too. He would play me some wild ones...it is because of him I like the B-52's and had a dog named Quiche for most of my life. It is also because of him I know the song "Slime from your video" and of course the ever popular "Johnny why did you beat up that queer," which taught me that severe homophobia is a sign of latent homosexuality. So, I guess mom and Uncle M really opened up my musical tastes. I miss mom. I miss being closer to M. Life changes, sometimes it sucks, But I'll always have those good memories of Blind Melon Chitlin and Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts.
bye ya'll.