A big influnce on my early childhood involves the peculiar town of Forest Lake, Minnesota. You wouldn't recognize it today as it appeared in the 1970's... it now has big-box stores, car dealerships, touristy bits and sort-of a bike trail. In the early 1970's, when I was 4, we moved there from Fort Worth, Texas. Our new home, a log cabin. Heated by one wood-burning Ben Franklin stove in the center of the sunken living-room. Surrounded by woods in a protected game reserve, we spent winter ice-skating and learning to track deer, and Santa's sleigh, via tracks in the snow. My dad had a beautiful orange Chevy pickup truck and we'd often cruise around the backroads listening to 8-tracks... Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Blondie... you know: Classics. I'd wait at the end of the dirt road in the summer for my dad's truck to come down the road, and jump in the back for a little tire-spin ride home. My parents ran a country store, called Degee Village. We sold everything. Gasoline, groceries, art, auto supplies, pottery, and my Mom heated up Toni's Pizzas on Saturday to give out samples. We were about 30 years early. The structure is still there. I think. There was one place to get a burger in that town, Burger Chef, it had the Kid Corale complete with leather saddles to sit on while we had our "Booger Chef" cheeseburgers and a shake on a rare evening we could eat out like the fancy folks. It was in Forest Lake that I began to hone my wide range in musical lusting. I'm not sure how I didn't end up gay. You'll see. My sister's middle school had their yearly talent show. I got to go. At the end of all the acts... these kids came out dressed as absolute demons. Faces made up, giant boots, leather and studs, guitars, their tongues flailing about wildly as they took the stage. I was terrified, and in love, with being terrified. This was going to be KISS! A single guitar note screamed through the pitch black auditorium. The crowd hushed. I was on my toes in anticipation. I had seen their photos, but not heard the music. This was KISS! My new favorite band. Right now. And then... the music started. A fun little melody. My feet moved. My head bobbed, I smiled. And then the lyrics... just these unbelievable sweet voices hamronizing while dressed as hellions in the night coming to ravage us!
"Listen to the ground There is movement all around There is something goin' down And I can feel it, on the waves of the air There is dancin' out there If it's somethin' we can share We can steal it, and that sweet city woman She moves through the light Controlling my mind and my soul When you reach out for me Yeah, and the feelin' is right, then I get night fever, night fever We know how to do it Gimme that night fever, night fever We know how to show it" And this was my first "KISS" song. Night Fever. By, the Bee Gees. Not KISS. But to me, this was KISS. I got home, and begged for the records. My parents said no, and that I wouldn't like their music, but, I already did! How could they know? Months later, a neighbor's older brother put on a KISS record for us. I was in shock! Where was Night Fever? Where was the sweet harmony and booty-shakin' fun? The demons lie!!!
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Well, both bands have chest hair. So, there's that.
Televison, three channels of it, had many family treasures. Fantasy Island, Little House, the Beaver, Wild Kingdom... and Solid Gold. You got to watch all the top songs of the week lip-synced by the original artists and hear what they were like after. It was magical. My sister and I, we wanted to be Solid Gold Dancers. So thin. So acrobatic. So flexible. So gold. If you came to dinner at our log cabin, once the meal was over and the dishes were put away, the furniture got moved to the edges of our central living room. All guests were to be seated, lights lowered, record player loaded with the newest K-Tel disco mix album, and you got to see our Solid Gold dance routine. We danced our asses off. People acted impressed. No one snickered. All routines started with our backs to the "audience"... and on the first note, our heads turned sideways to smile and acknowledge these strangers who were visiting our musical dance disco forest. Maybe I'll show you some of my moves one day. Maybe not. A few years later, my first records, that were just mine, were Queen "The Game" and the Village People one with them all on the cover at a construction site. I wanted to be the Army guy, maybe the Cop. He had a motorcycle and a CHIPS helmet. When we played Army in the woods, I'd be Bruce Jenner. Nobody was tougher than the guy that beat all the Russians and Germans in the Olympics. Do you see any patterns here?
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In 1976, it was our country's Bicentennial. A big fireworks show was planned for the lake. Forest Lake. We had chicken and a big blanket on the beach. Maybe some knock-off Coke product. It was a special night. Midway through the show, an error occured. An explosive went off in the cache of fireworks. It set them all off. On the beach. Next to us. Rockets red glared and bombs burst on the beach. Showers of magnesium rained from the sky, burning us. We screamed and hid under the old blanket, hoping it wouldn't catch fire. I don't know where my chicken piece went to this day and I don't care. Thirty-five years later, having left Forest Lake a year after the beach explosion, I heard my new mother-in-law tell that story from the perspective of having seen it from her dock next to beach, while she was pregnant, with my then-new wife. Small world. I did go to part of kindergarten there in Forest Lake. There was a bully named Troy. There was chocolate milk before naps on the cots. There was Ms. Fielder, my first crush. I'm quite sure I had a chance with her until the day she was making guacamole for the class and she accidentally squirted lemon juice in her eye. I laughed. She didn't. Romance over. She also tried to make me right-handed. I wasn't. Time to move back to Texas. Bye Minnesota... (Although I did move back there in 1996 and lived there until 2014) (Also, I never found Ms. Fielder, or Troy)
