OH, MAMA, MAMA LOOK THERE...

Christmas 1981 I hoped Santa would bring me two things: cassette copies of Wild Gift by X and Sandinista! by The Clash.

Starting in the first week of December, I would spend afternoons rooting around my mom's closet, fearless because I was a latchkey kid. One day, I lifted the lid on a hatbox that was pushed to the back behind some heavy wool coats, and there they were-- lovely stacked plastic rectangles, with price tags removed. I retrieved a knife from the kitchen, and slit the brittle wrapping just enough so that I could work open the hinges of the cases and pull out the cassettes.

Each day for the next couple of weeks I would come home from school, pull out the cassettes, listen until 5:30 or so, and then put them back. I made a pantomime of surprise on Christmas morning...

Of course what strikes me now is that my teenage passions had motivated a 48-year-old widow weaned on classical music and WQXR to go into a record store and buy X and Clash cassettes. I am on the edge of tears just considering it.

So thanks for the punk rock, mom! (And, um, sorry again about that Sex Pistols bumper sticker I put on the Maverick...)