Friday, June 02, 2006

Duane Johnson changed me forever
In the small, po-dunky high school that I was forced to attend, we had 31 people in my class my senior year. This was large parts of 3 counties and a sliver of a fourth, and this was what we could muster. One fine spring day, while senior fever was oozing out the pores of everyone my age, and probably the teachers, too, who were rejoicing at being rid of my highly obnoxious peer group, Mr. Ellwood, who kicked ass, joined us for music class.
Our regular music teacher was a fat turd of a man. He was a whiney baby who kicked trash cans across the room and threw music stands at people if they weren't showing him enough respect. We made up absolutely horrid songs about him, including lurid details about what we thought sex might be like between he and his equally nauseating wife, also a teacher.
Well, this lovely spring day, Mr. Ellwood, who was still young enough to be handsome and cool, but was married to his super-cool wife ever since he had come to our school fresh out of teacher college, fell in love with one his students, and married her as soon as she returned from college five years later, this fine day, Mr. Ellwood took us into the music room and taught us a bit of musical history. He sat down and proclaimed that he was "really not much of a musician" and self-taught at that, then played Rhapsody in Blue, followed by a montage of crazy music that walked us through the history of musical change in the U.S. Then, out of the Blue, Mr. Ellwood asked Duane "Spanky" Johnson to take the floor. Spanky was a slight, weasel-looking kind of kid. Not a mean bone in his body, but rat-faced with a skinny, pointy nose that set off his too-close eyes in an unattractive way. These features were nestled under his never-freshly-washed or professionally cut hair, that had more cowlicks than a person could count. Bless Spanky's heart. He was from Geneseo, the smelliest part of our own personal armpit of HELL where we all had to live, and I think none of us by choice. We knew nothing about his family, but everyone from Geneseo wanted to be from somewhere else more than the rest of us did. He wore clean clothes, and I am sure bathed often, but had that dirty, hangdog look about him all the time. He was born defeated.
I am not sure how Mr. Ellwood knew this about Spanky, but Mr. Ellwood knew that Spanky had something to offer to us. Spanky shyly stood and walked to the center of the room, while the rest of us slacked in our folding chairs. He lifted a ukelele and said that he had learned this song a long time before and would like to share it with us.
He sang Rhythm of the Falling Rain, by the Cascades, in the sweetest tenor that you could imagine, while self-accompanying on the uke. We roared when he was finished.... giving him an embarrassingly long standing ovation which nearly scared him from the room.
From that day on, I have thought about Spanky every time I have heard that song. I think about how much it sucks to be (from) somewhere you may or may not like, all the while knowing that everyone else hates the place. I think about what it must be like to wash yourself, and still no one can tell. I think of what it must be like to wake up every day thinking that you never had a chance from the beginning. I think about how lucky some girl was to have Duane sing that song to her, and her alone, with a lilt in his nervous voice. At least I hope that happened for him.
And now, Rhythm of the Falling Rain:
Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain,
Telling me just what a fool I've been.
I wish that it would go and let me cry in vain,
And let me be alone again.

Now the only girl I've ever loved has gone away.
Looking for a brand new start!
But little does she know that when she left that day.
Along with her she took my heart.
Rain, please tell me, now does that seem fair
For her to steal my heart away when she don't care
I can't love another, when my heart's somewhere far away.

Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain,
Telling me just what a fool I've been.
I wish that it would go and let me cry in vain,
And let me be alone again.

Rain, won't you tell her that I love her so
Please ask the sun to set her heart aglow
Rain in her heart and let the love we know start to grow.

Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain,
Telling me just what a fool I've been.
I wish that it would go and let me cry in vain,
And let me be alone again.

Oh listen to the falling rain
Pitter patter pitter patter,
OhListen, listen to the falling rain
Pitter patter pitter patter,
OhListen, listen to the falling rain
Pitter patter pitter patter
posted by Rosie @ 6/02/2006 03:01:00 PM

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