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Friday, April 3, 2009

On Stage Now....The Book Club Babes

If it's the first Friday of the month, that means it was the first Thursday of the month yesterday and that means last night was my monthly book club meeting. I use the term "book club' loosely as after more than 11 years, although we do read a book each month, the analysis and discussion part of the equation represents a small fraction of the meeting time. Last night's meeting for all intents and purposes started out in the usual way - wine was poured, food consumed and the non-stop gabfest carried on for the first hour or so. Then, something quite out-of-the-ordinary started to rev up and before long had accelerated into what can only be described as "Karaoke Night at Kim's"...without the help of a machine scrolling the lyrics. Who needed a machine? - we had Susan! As she did request becoming a recurring character in my blogs, today, I grant her wish. Susan is hands down the only person I have ever met who can remember the details of everything she has ever read or watched with the most incredible clarity and attention to detail imaginable. She has so much trivia packed into that brain of hers, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if it just exploded one day. I'm not sure how we got started (she would be able to tell me), but we started talking about song lyrics from our younger years and how we would often be singing our young hearts away to some of the most obvious sexual or suggestive notions without even realizing it, and how our parents must have been horrified listening to us. Who can forget being 10 years old and belting out such classics in the back seat of the car such as "Woman, whoa, woman, have you got cheating on your mind?" or "Ah brown sugar how come you taste so good (a-ha) brown sugar, just like a black girl should A-Huh"? The funny thing was, we just sang along oblivious to what we were singing just like our own kids do today. As far as I can tell, the lyrics in some of the songs our kids are listening to are far worse, but it's still all about the melody. I heard stories from two other club members of how their very young sons would sing along to Shania Twain in the back seat of the car - their sweet voices belting out "I feel like a woman", with no regard for what they were saying, only knowing it was a catchy tune and fun to sing. So last night we sang. It started (now I remember) as we talked about author Lawrence Hill's Book of Negroes and how he was Dan Hill's brother and that Susan had grown up around the corner from the Hill family, and before you knew it, we were singing Dan Hill's hits (Susan knew all the words) and it just escalated from there into a "Stump the Chump" quiz off the cover of a 70's Gold CD that Kim pulled off the shelf. For the record, Susan would have been the stumped chump, but she knew all the answers...and all the lyrics to even the most obscure one hit wonders of the decade. And this is why I love my book club. If laughter is the best medicine, well I had a double dose last night. I laughed till I cried, pulled ancient song lyrics out of my brain (good for me at my age apparently) and came away with a good subject for today's blog. I may even start researching material for next month's meeting. There has got to be a song that Susan can't remember. But I doubt it.

3 comments:

Trish Feehan said...

Wow! Sounds like an amazing night. Sorry I missed it! But thanks for the update, Deb.

Trish

Susan Gillmeister said...

You captured the laughter ... and thanks.

... S

(which this time of course, is Susan)

Anonymous said...

mmm mid 70s.. if the cat starts helping during rehersals try another song... a close to home number might be easiest... "Echo beach" Martha and the Muffins. Lifes short, have fun, you're a long time dead....

D