Major Lance - Um Um Um Um Um Um

I have several families. My nuclear; my mom, dad, brother, niece and I. (we are the only ones of us around for hours in any direction.) My extended; the ones sprinkled through Mount Airy and Galax - my aunts, uncles, cousins and remaining grandparents. The hyper-extended; the few floaters in Detroit, Virginia, SC and even Germany. Then the surrogate families… since my brother and I grew up so “far away” from our other kin, we were adopted into a few other groups, we were raised by villages… 1) Our church and 2) my dad’s coworker world. This song makes me think of #2 (although my church family is a huge part of who I am, even though I no longer associate myself with this church – a post for another time, I’m already mentally preparing for it).

The 80s in Raleigh was a much different place than it is now. I grew up off Lake Wheeler road, (an area eaten alive with subdivisions and strip malls now,) but the house my father built, at the end of the cul-de-sac still remains. I find myself sometimes driving by, it’s not too far from my home now… about halfway between where I live inside the beltline and my parents’ home in Apex. Driving down that little unlined back road beneath the loblolly pines and puttering past the split level ranch homes of that neighborhood really does something to me. I time travel every time. I am kissing a boy for the first time, (Chris) after he pops a wheelie off a plank of plywood propped on a cinderblock in his back yard. I am learning to ride my bike, albeit pathetically, while the whole neighborhood watches me crash. I hear pine needles crunching beneath my Zips. I smell dogwoods and lumber while my dad builds the freestanding garage... But one of the strongest memories I have of that house are the block parties.

Does anyone even have block parties anymore? Does penny candy still exist? I can understand that my niece may never know what a VHS tape or a rotary phone is; I got that. But trick or treating without fear? Banana seat bicycles and realistic toy guns without the orange cap in them? (My God, did you ever think they would stop selling Jell-o Pudding Pops? They did! They are gone! You will never eat another REAL Jell-o Pudding Pop!) Wandering off deep into the woods to explore for hours with the promise to be home by dark and never explaining where you’ve been… can kids even do that now? That was the majority of me and my brother’s “play time” as kids… just… walking off into the woods... Exploring. We would walk for miles up into strangers’ back yards and then just… wander back. Stick fighting; jumping creeks… are there even any creeks left in the 27606? Lake Wheeler is 1/3 the size it was when I was a kid. We didn’t have shows the glorified teen pregnancy much less even understand the concept of reality TV… we watched The Dukes of Hazzard and the Muppet Show and we went to bed.

My dad began working for this company almost 40 years ago. Rather than go into his entire history of employment, I will tell you he worked his way up through college, starting as a surveyor and ending up in upper management when he finally retired a few months ago. My dad got me my current job, where I worked 2 stories below him for the past 6 years, with him and the extended family I grew up with. I loved working with my dad and these guys. I wish he was still here. Dad basically created the department he later became responsible for. The men who created this section with him worked with him (some are still here) from day one. These men (and women) became my dad’s best friends and one of my surrogate families. They would always throw Christmas parties together, we kids all graduated kind-of around the same time (I was younger than most,) and we all played together. One of the best parties the group would throw, and the ones that stick out the most are the annual pig-pickins.

Please remember, this is going back a lot of years for me, so while my details may not be 100% accurate, the feelings of these memories are flawless. The smell of the pig cooking, the crispness of the fall air as they day would come to a close… Chocolate Chess Pie, my mother’s laughter, vinegar, my dad in flannel with a big full red beard, my second dads; Jim and Scotty teasing me and encouraging my shenanigans, showoffs and general attention seeking behaviour; and the music. Always the music. Dad would pull out his full Kenwood stereo and set up the vinyl. Mostly Carolina Beach music, Motown and a little classic rock thrown in. I sometimes wonder who has listened to my dad’s vinyl more now… me or him. How many times can a child listen to Steppenwolf’s ‘68 self titled first album and be normal? Is it ‘normal’ for an 8 year old girl to know all the words to The Pusher? (ps - in case it is not blazingly apparent... i was perhaps the coolest kid ever.) Dad would test me, play “name that tune” to entertain his friends. I’ve mentioned it before, when my parents would punish me, they wouldn’t send me to my room or ground me, they would take away my music… Hell. On. Earth.

There is very little Shag music I can hear now-a-days and not think of these pig pickins. Where I don’t think of that little ranch house and the smell of the pig cooking and the taste of the sweet iced tea. I hope I can give my own non-existent children experiences like this one day. Or, at least my niece. These songs, Major Lance, the Temptations, Wilson Pickett, the Drifters, the Coasters, the Platters, and the Four Tops – these songs are the ones that bring me back with the strongest intensity to the innocence and childhood euphoria of Swiftbrook Circle. Much like Hank Williams, Sr and roy are the strongest connection to my mom for me; This music, the deep swinging soul of the Southern black man, this will always bring me back to my daddy.



FYI – my dad is the whitest man on earth. My family feeds on irony, whether they recognize it or not.