Memories of seventh grade past

Jambalaya and a crawfish pie and fillet gumbo
'Cause tonight I'm gonna see my ma cher amio
Pick guitar, fill fruit jar and be gay-o
Son of a gun we'll have big fun on the bayou.

I've just emerged from the shower, and am in the midst of preparing for my Christmas trip to Southern California, where I'll get together with my brother's family, including my niece and 4-year-old great niece. 

But while showering, I found the melody and some of the words to "Jambalaya" going through my brain, and then, as often happens in the shower, on my lips.  It took me back to seventh grade, when "Jambalaya" was one of the first "pop tunes" to which I recall really listening.  I had been only vaguely conscious of popular songs in sixth grade, and by eighth grade my interest was already fading.

But in seventh grade, in a new school surrounded by a different socio-economic mix of classmates, I felt -- probably for the first time -- the need to "fit in," the force of peer pressure.  I insisted that I needed to own more sweaters, in the then-popular pastel colors.  And they had to be "Columbia Knit" sweaters -- the only acceptable brand name -- because other guys greeted you by grabbing the back of the sweater and flipping it over to check out the manufacturer. 

Similarly, I listened obsessively to the radio, because all the talk every Monday was of the latest line-up of the Top Ten tunes of the week.  The official listing -- as eagerly anticipated as today's AP rankings of college football teams -- was announced to the nation on "Lucky Lager Dance Time" -- which could be received in the isolated Northwest Corner only by carefully dialing in powerful KFBK in Sacramento.

Your mother was crying
Your father was crying
And I was crying too ...

And I was close to crying myself, listening to Patti Page sing "I Went to Your Wedding."  At my first seventh grade dance, boys and girls who already knew what was what were dancing a bouncy swing dance called the shag to a modern rendition of "Glow Worm" -- probably unaware that their grandparents had courted to the same song.  I, on the other hand, was still falling all over myself trying to master a slow two-step.

Don't let the stars get in your eyes
Don't let the moon break your heart
Love blooms at night
In daylight, it dies.

By eighth grade, the "typical teenager" stars in my firmament were fading.  My stolid Scandinavian confidence in my own geeky interests and pursuits was becoming re-established, and by the dawn of ninth grade my craving to conform -- although never completely dead -- was clearly moribund.  It was fun to have a short experience of being a true teenager, or at least appearing as one, as "true teenagers" were then viewed.  Luckily, it was a phase I passed through quickly.

Vaya con dios, my darling
Vaya con dios, my love.