G.I. Bluesberry Yogurt and the Summer of '76

The kids down the street had a mom named Sharon. Sharon loved Elvis. 

In particular, she was a fan of the G.I. Blues album with a young trim E.A.P., all cleaned up on the cover, sans sideburns, facing left with his lips parted slightly in a sexy half sneer. 

She also loved the KISS Destroyer album. Although they don't seem complimentary at first blush, they became an easy way to determine what I was going to find upon entering their second story apartment any given summer afternoon. 

 

If KISS was playing as I ascended the stairs, I knew that Sharon would be up and about, dressed in her cutoffs and a gauzy blouse displaying cleavage. With her black waist length hair brushed 100 strokes and beaded Indian earrings sweeping her shoulders, she might possibly even be cooking something. I learned every word to that leathery, colossal booted, Jewfro KISS Destroyer album the summer of 1976 because when she was happy Sharon would listen to it over and over as we girls played Yahtzee or the game of Life on their lacerated beast of a dining room table. We'd pound our little 6, 5 and 4 year old fists yelling "You wanted the best! You got the best!" Little pigtailed heads bopping to the beat, sweat beading on our upper lips, we sang until our throats ached and we collectively lost our minds in Detroit Rock City. Sharon used get really excited about the line "First I drink and then I smoke!" and she'd light up her cigarette with an expert flick of a match, warbling about making the midnight show.

It was a far rougher, different scene than what I would hear and see at home. My parents had music on our turntable at all times too but we surely didn't have any KISS...or cigarette smoke. There was an element of danger and disarray at Sharon's with overflowing ashtrays strewn about, random items of male and female clothing draping every square inch of the furniture, and carpets chock full of dog hair though their dog had died the summer before. As I sat on the toilet, which was never bleach clean, I'd gaze up at the assortment of stretched out bras the color of dirty water hung over the shower curtain, and I'd tentatively glance over at the stack of Easy Rider magazines in their grungy old metal magazine rack

The Easy Riders were Grandy's. He was the father figure and proud owner of two of the kids and two vintage Harleys, each with hand-painted gas tanks. Folks on our block would argue about which was prettier, the one with the blue teardrops or the one with the orange lightening. I always preferred the turquoise watery paint but it seemed cooler to like the firebolts. Grandy wore a black helmet with no face shield and a leather vest three sizes too small as he took off riding. They had no car...Sharon worked within walking distance of the house and Grandy cruised to work in good weather or got a ride when the rain, wind, or snow was a challenge. Since so many of our townspeople worked in the same mill, and gas was so prohibitively expensive, carpooling was really common.

One afternoon, hotter than hell (also one of Sharon's KISS albums in rotation, along with Love Gun and Destroyer), I marched up the back rickety wooden stairs to my own cadence of "Christine Sixteen". Stepping over candy wrappers, broken toys, and small tools, I reached the top and the eldest of three daughters met me there with a furrowed brow and her index finger up to her lips.

"Shhh" was what she said but she didn't need to because I heard G.I. Blues and that was never good.

I wanted nothing better than to turn and high tail it back down the precarious steps; but though I was only 6, I knew I had to stay and try to help if I could. Sharon was supine on the couch with the drapes drawn, in a heavy veil of menthol smoke while her 4 year old daughter sat on the dirty rug beside her; her normally bouncy flaxen hair stuck in strings to the back of her clammy little neck. Sharon was alternately weeping and humming and singing and smoking. She was also drinking. It wasn't the first time I'd seen a drunk person but I was unaccustomed to it so unabashedly on display, heavy with emptiness and despair.

I suspect, looking back, that she may've lost someone special. Maybe her first love, maybe in the Vietnam War. Sharon's first born child had perpetually tan olive-hued skin, stick straight black hair, coffee brown eyes, and a sharp tongue prone to bad tempers. She always seemed ready to brawl and, while being punished, never flinched or cried out. I know this because Sharon, in a freakish display of psycho-grandeur would whip the girls with a flyswatter on their porch in front of any and all curious passers-by.

Where daughter #1 had ice in her veins, daughter #2 was artsy, flighty, feminine and quiet. She also had milky white skin that alternately burned and peeled all summer long and light brown curls. Daughter #3 was bone china complected, with a healthy pink pout and yellow fuzzy locks. She was also routinely whiny and argumentative, but only with us girls. With her Mama, she was the brow smoother, the cold cloth fetcher, the 4 year old caregiver.

On those dark G.I. Blues days the girls had to make their own dinners. They usually settled on blueberry yogurt, easy to grab and soothing in the heat. I made sure I was gone by the time the foils were peeled open because I knew I did not want to be there when Grandy arrived on that scene. After having reported the yogurt dinner menu to my own mother, leaving out the drawn shades, chain smoking, and wailing, my mother quietly commented that good mothers provided more than yogurt for dinner.

One lazy Sunday, the girls sauntered down the street for flashlight tag chewing gristle and bones, proud that they'd had charcoal grilled meat like the rest of us. Someone in the crowd told them to toss the sharp objects before play began and the three of them looked sick at heart at having to drop their beefy badges of normalcy.

An old flame made me a mix tape in the 1990s and knowing that I was in the KISS Army, he picked a Destroyer song to include among the other tunes. The mix tape came with a song list but actually playing and hearing the song aloud brought on a visceral reaction for which I was unprepared. Having not listened to Destroyer in its entirety since the summer of 1976 and having not heard a KISS song in a quiet solitary atmosphere, quite possibly, ever, I was running a bath when Do You Love Me came swinging out of my stereo speakers like a giant gut punch. I slid down to the linoleum and wept. All I could think of was Sharon, dancing with her wooden spoon up to her mouth like a mic over a grimy stove top, a pot of water boiling for spaghetti.

I'll never know what became of them. Without a word, they moved out of town following a year of Sharon not being able to lift herself off the couch for walks to work or trips to the grocery store or fucked up exhibitions of discipline on the high porch. 

Maybe a geographic fix led to help with her depression and drinking. Maybe the music could continue and she could listen to G.I. Blues without it destroying her peace. Maybe she is dancing to KISS in a half buttoned shirt, with dirty bare feet, and a soft pack of Merits. I can only hope so.  

NOTE: My favorite KISS song remains "Do You Love Me?" I can listen to it now and appreciate the memories of my life and times that helped shape me. 

I really like rock and roll...all of the fame and the masquerade. I love the concerts and studios. And all of the money, honey, that you make. 

#1970s #KISS #KISSARMY #DetroitRickCity #DoYouLoveMe #Elvis #GIBlues #EastRider #HarleyDavidson #Merit #blueberryyogurt #mushroomtumbler