About books: Love of My Life

 

Many of us like to engage in “what if.” What if someone who was killed in a car crash had decided to wait to leave? What if the alarm hadn’t gone off? What if you’d decided to stop in to a particular restaurant, and the person you needed to make your career a success was there?

What if someone else told the story of your life as they knew it?

Tom Morton is a successful businessman. He has an attractive, successful wife and a teenage daughter who has never given her parents any trouble.

What a change from his formative years!

Tom was the third of three sons. The eldest was trouble from the moment he was born, and the family mainly feels the less said about him, the better. The second son was mentally challenged, and although he ended up doing well enough given his disadvantages, he was not what his parents expected.

So, when Tom came along, was intelligent, and didn’t give anyone a hard time, he was the shining star of the family. Everything seemed to come easily to him, and his parents didn’t look too hard to see if he was exactly what they thought. His mother certainly wouldn’t have listened to anything against her “good” son.

Everything seemed to be going right for him, and it looked like he was headed for a big advance in his career. His boss even brought him along for a meeting with another company they were going to merge with.

The meeting was in the World Trade Center. The date was September 11, 2001.

The story is told by four different women: his teenage daughter, whose last words to him the night before were, “I hate you!” because he refused to let her date someone he and her mother thought was too old for her; his wife, who felt so blessed to be married to such a wonderful man; his mother, whose world revolved around him; and Marty, a friend of his since childhood, who had reconnected with him just before he married, and had stayed in touch, even though they had long ago realized they would not be a good match.

Many people were saved on 9/11 because of “what ifs.” One man was saved because his daughter was ill, and he decided to work from home. A woman’s lived because she couldn’t decide what to wear, and missed her usual train. Another went to work early that day, and left the building a few minutes before the planes hit to go get coffee at a local shop.

The what ifs of this story come because he was never able to contact anyone to let them know whether or not he was all right. His boss managed a call to his wife just before the cell towers came down. He lost the call just as he was about to give her a message about Tom. Tom had left his phone home that day.

What if his boss was about to say Tom wasn’t with him for some reason? What if he’d gone for coffee and was about to return as the jets hit? What if he was on his way up in the elevator and it had just reached the point of the crash, killing him immediately?

The first three women had no way of knowing what became of Tom. All they knew was that he was presumed dead. His wallet was all that was recovered, with the remains of a few burnt bills.

Marty was the  only one who might have known, but whatever she knew, she never told the others.

I’ve always been fascinated by what if ideas. This is a story of what if, and how it affects the lives of four women. It’s a story Tom couldn’t tell because of the events of 9/11.

Sleighing Christmas

 

It’s that time of year again: The same five Christmas songs blaring from speakers everywhere. And they always happen to be five of the ones on my “most detested Christmas songs” list.

You don’t have one of those? Look through a list of popular Christmas songs, and you’ll probably find a dozen or so you’d prefer not to hear.

I was raised with traditional carols and the Christmas songs that became popular in movies and TV shows.

When I was about four or five, my dad came home with a new Christmas album. It was “Merry Christmas” by Johnny Mathis.

I’m sure my parents grew up on Christmas carols by 1940s singers, and friends singing around the family piano. But I learned my Christmas carols in church, and other Christmas songs from records and radio. That Johnny Mathis album was the core of my Christmas song knowledge. I still love it.

The record is divided generally into side one, consisting of secular songs, like “Winter Wonderland”, “The Christmas Song”, etc., and side two, which is mainly religious songs, like “O Holy Night”, and “What Child is This?”(for those who grew up post-vinyl, vinyl records were recorded on both sides, and you had to flip the album over after you finished the first side.)

I learned all of these songs the way Johnny Mathis sang them before I heard anyone else sing them, so to me, Nat King Cole singing “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…)” was nice, but not as good as Johnny. And Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” didn’t hold a candle to Johnny’s version, not to mention Elvis’s “Blue Christmas” was simply horrific compared to the smooth Johnny version.

While I like Big Band music, I’ve never liked the way the singers from that era sang. Bing Crosby, Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra have this syncopated, bee-bop-balua kind of nonsense to their singing that drives me up a wall, and the girlsingers, usually in groups of three or four are devoid of feeling in their singing. All of their songs could be “Don’t Sit Under The Apple Tree with Anyone Else But Me,” they sound so much alike.  So Christmas songs performed by any of them are in the “also ran” category in my book.

I know, people accuse me of blasphemy by saying those things. I’m not in the majority. (The fact that I can’t stand Elvis – as a singer or an actor – makes me an outcast before I even start.) There’s a syncopation in that ‘40s style of singing that makes me feel like my clothes are on backwards. I find it uncomfortable to listen to. But hey, the big bands – sans singers – are wonderful.

So, the older Christmas songs, while I’ve heard them, don’t get much airplay from me. Of course, by now, Johnny’s first Christmas album is considered really old. But to me it stands up as the way those songs should be performed.

One of my other favorite singers in general, is Josh Groban. Unfortunately, I don’t like the way he records most of the Christmas songs I’ve heard from him. He has a tendency to only sing a verse or maybe two, and fill up the rest of the song time with instrumental music or singing the same verse over, even when there are more verses. And often, the verses he does sing are not performed in the traditional way. The only Christmas song I’ve ever heard Josh Groban do that I really liked – and remember this is a singer I just love – is “Believe” from Polar Express. And I really love that one!

I’m a traditionalist. I’m also a singer. I’m not big on instrumental music unless it’s Manheim Steamroller. When I hear Christmas songs, I want all the verses. I don’t want a whacked out, syncopated version of something traditional with half of it missing. I don’t want a drum solo in the middle of “Silent Night.” I don’t want screechy yodeling, as so many women singers do to the “Star Spangled Banner” in my Christmas songs.

One song has its own special category for me in that it has an oft-repeated line that makes no sense. I consider it the As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti of Christmas song lines. The song is “Do They Know It’s Christmas”. I love the song. The melody is great. The reason the song was written is great. But the line “And there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmas,” gets me every time. Well, Duh! It’s Africa! It’s on the equator. Why would you be looking for snow? Did you learn nothing in Geography class? Even the parts that are not equatorial are in the southern hemisphere, where it’s summer in December! Give me a break! Could the writers not have found a better line for that part of the song? ( How about: “And there’s never snow in Africa at Christmas time”?)

But I’ll let it go, since I do like the song. Don’t blame me; I didn’t write it.

There are also songs that I like, but that were recorded by singers I either don’t care for or whose renditions I don’t like. “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” by Bruce Springsteen is one. I’m not a huge fan of Springsteen as a singer. As a person, he’s all right. I just don’t like his voice. True, no one else could do “Born to Run” justice. But Bruce as a Christmas singer, well, no. And worse, ever since he recorded his version, every other rocker who’s recorded the song has done it Springsteen style. Ick! It’s like ever since the first time someone did the octave jump on the word “free” in  “The Star Spangled Banner,” which doesn’t belong in the song, every other girl singer doing it has done the same (to prove they could?)

I like Frosty the Snowman, but I can’t listen to Jimmy Durante doing it. He wasn’t a singer, as was obvious in his recording. I also don’t like Burl Ives’ singing voice, even though he could sing. But even with those two recording the song, I still like the song itself. Just not their versions.

That said, I have some songs that, even if Johnny Mathis recorded them, I just don’t like.

So, yes, I have a list of hated songs. I also have a list of most-loved songs that, no matter how often I hear them, I still love them. Everything in between is fine.

Now,  here’s my list of Christmas songs I never ever want to hear again (and wish I’d never heard in the first place.)

10. It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

9. It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

8. Santa Claus is Coming to Town (Springsteen version only)

7, Baby, It’s Cold Outside

6. Jingle Bell Rock

5. Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree

4. Stepping into Christmas

3. I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas

2. Santa Baby

1. All I Want for Christmas is You (Mariah Carey)

 

Okay, I know there are people actively unfriending me as they read, because the ones I can’t stand are beloved by many (and I didn’t even include “Merry Christmas Baby” by the Carpenters because I can’t stand anything by the Carpenters – probably because we had to do so many Carpenters’ songs when I was in Glee Club), but hear me out. I also have a top 10 of favorite Christmas songs (and yeah, one or two are as unpopular to others as Mariah Carey’s is to me). “The Christmas Shoes” is special to me because my mother died 6 days before Christmas. And while it came in at #11, Christmas Wrapping by the Waitresses deserves mention. So here goes:

10. Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy (David Bowie and Bing Crosby)

9. Do They Know It’s Christmas (Band Aid)

8. Father Christmas (The Kinks)

7. O Holy Night ( Johnny Mathis)

6. Same Old Lang Syne (Dan Fogelberg)

5. Last Christmas (Wham – no one else does it justice)

4.  The Christmas Shoes

3. Christmas Canon (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)

2. I Believe in Father Christmas (Keith Emmerson)

1. Believe – Josh Groban

 

There are many, many great Christmas songs, especially the religious carols, and a lot of fun songs, like Snoopy’s Christmas, -- and let’s not forget the Hanukkah song for those who don’t celebrate Christmas – but I had to limit things to a top and bottom 10 list. So, whether you agree with me or not, the holiday season, which apparently starts at Halloween and ends for some the day after Christmas, for others after the 8 days of Kwanzaa, and still others on 12^th night, aka the feast of three kings, is upon us. I wish everyone the joy of the season, healing for those who are hurting, and hope -- most especially hope. And apologies to anyone I may have left out.