Record Breaking Intelligence

Every now and then when I am feeling like I am smart or wise or have just solved a really difficult problem or challenge, I remember some of the things I thought or did as a child.  Looking back on them now, I don’t understand what the heck I could have possibly thinking.

Two of the neighborhood dads worked for Hawaiian Punch.  On occasion, we’d get to try out a new flavor or something.  One day one of the moms showed us this really cool new drink.  Basically it was one cup of the “new” powder and a half-gallon of water.  I think the marketing concept  Hawaiian Punch had was that they’d already mixed in the sugar so you didn’t have to add any.  We made some to sell at our Lemonade Stand Hawaiian Punch Stand.

Our stand was an old playpen from which the bottom had broken.  We set up shop and immediately began sampling our product.  It was a hot day!  Once most of the jug was emptied, I looked at Duane’s cup, which was still full.  The thing about Duane was that he took his time with a snack.  When we each got a cookie, most of us, including me, would hoover it down.  Duane would munch on his for a good fifteen minutes to a half-hour.  Once, an older boy pointed out to us the advantages of Duane’s style.  “See?” he said.  “You’ve gulped yours down and he can still enjoy his cookie.”

This time, due to my highly superior abilities at reason and logic, it didn’t work to Duane’s advantage.  If one cup of product and one half-gallon of water made us a half-gallon of Hawaiian Punch, then we could just take Duane’s full cup of punch and add it to another half-gallon of water and we’d have another full jug!   Astounding brilliance, this!

Somehow I explained to him my theory and talked him into investing his cup of punch for the good of all of us and our business.  Of course, all we got was a gallon of pastel, violet-tinted water.  I never could figure what went wrong with my plan…

Another friend of mine had a sister who was older than us.  We were still in single-digit years and she was in high school.  When I was at his house and she was out, we’d go into her room and listen to 45s on her stereo.  It was one of those huge old console set-ups where you opened the top and all of the equipment was down inside.  There was a larger spindle you could attach onto the thinner one and stack all of your 45s.  You’d twist the switch to start them, then close the lid and listen as they played one after another.  The stacker would let each record drop in successive turns and you could listen to them all, open the lid and raise them all up, shuffle or change them if you wanted, then play them again.

I thought the whole thing was very cool.  My friend had a subscription to Boy’s Life magazine and we’d sit around in his sister’s room, flipping through the magazines and listening to all of her records.  At least until she got home.  We’ do our best to get out of her room without leaving a clue before she got home.  Didn’t always work.

One day at my house, I was playing a 45 on my sister’s little portable record player.  It was the size of—and had a latch on it like—a lunchbox.  My mother brought a large box out of her room and showed me her music collection from when she was younger.  They were all singles but they were the size of the modern day 33RPM LP, only they were quite a bit thicker and more solid.  Like our 45s, they each contained a single and a “B” side and they played at 78RPM.

I remember asking her why there was only one song on a side when our “albums” had six or seven.  She explained to me the concept of Revolutions Per Minute and how 78 was about 2 ½ times faster than 33.  Oh!  Simple.  I got that!  I’m so smart!

She removed a few from their yellowing, aging paper jackets and told me a little bit about a few of them; the singer or the band leader.  She said I could listen to them, but to be very careful.  These were her Tony Bennett and Big Band records and they were from her youth.  Of course I was very careful.  And smart.  Remember the part in the last paragraph where I told you I was smart?

I flipped the RPM knob to 78 and began playing the first record.

     Take my haaaaaand… I’m a stranger in paradiiiiiise…

For some reason that I cannot explain to you now, and maybe I didn’t even know then, at some point I decided it was time to close the lid on the player while I listened to the song.  Perhaps I just thought it was cool.  I remember being a bit curious about the fact that the record stuck a good two or three inches past the edge of the player.  But you can close the lids on these things, so I reached up and closed the lid.  Oddly enough, the lid came down on the record and smashed it into pieces.  Hmm…  You can’t close the lid when the record is sticking out past the edge?  But I thought…

I lifted the lid quickly.  If I lifted it hastily, then possibly it hadn’t happened.

It had.

There were lots of little pieces of Tony Bennett all over the player and the floor.  My breath caught in my chest and my brain froze.  What would I say to my Mom?  She’d just told me to be careful and I cavalierly told her I would.

“What happened?”  She was standing behind me.

I was so overwhelmed with guilt and confusion over how a record that stuck out past the lid of the record player could actually break when you shut the lid on it that I probably didn’t realize she could hear the music and its abrupt termination.  I said something like, “Buuhhhh Buhhh B B Buuhhhhhh…”  I turned to meet her eyes as tears welled in mine.

“You have to be careful,” she said and knelt down beside me to pick up the shards of the soundtrack from her youth.  She scooped them into a pile in her hands and walked out to leave me to keep playing the rest.

Would I, as an adult, have been able to react the same way?  Would I have understood the youthful inexperience of my child and just calmly remind him again to be careful?  I’d like to think so.  I’d like to think I’ve become more patient with my advancing years.  I’d like to think I can now see things as merely things and not get upset about their inevitable demise, even if it is premature.

I can also see myself with red face and protuberant cheeks and foam spewing from my mouth and blood shooting from my eyes as I get a tad bit annoyed.  But, even though I have gotten better at putting things into perspective— the spittle-emitting, crimson-faced monster being a depiction of me in my younger days—I still think I will never be as gentle and compassionate as my mother.

And every time I ponder why I was never invited to join MENSA, I recall events like these.