MS-tical Franklin

My love life skipped three about years between Blackhawk School and Ben Franklin Junior High, what is now known as Franklin Middle School. Though I had a major crush on Linda Walden in 5th and 6th Grades at Blackhawk, I was almost totally distracted by schoolwork and airplanes at Franklin until half-way through 9th Grade when I was totally smitten by J.W. (I say J.W. because the last time I heard, she’s still in Springfield. I encountered her at a Jewel Supermarket back in 1988, we had 45 seconds of polite pleasantries, I picked up my bread and baloney and went home. Linda emailed me from Arizona about six years ago after she encountered my name on the internet. Following the three or four emails in which we shared what we cared to share of our lives, we stopped writing, and that’s okay. She would never be as beautiful as she was in 6th grade at Blackhawk School, and equally important, I will never be as handsome as I was then, those halcyon days of puberty before pimples.

Ladies and gents, if you’re younger than 30 and reading these words, remember when I tell you it’s better for everyone if you try EXTRA hard to KEEP close to the love of your life today than it is to jettison “love in hand” in the belief that something better is waiting for you “in the bush.” Don’t believe the lie: for some, there are no better “fish in the sea.” All of which is preamble to Harrilyn Hart; the reason why I was so touched when I looked in on the gymnasium when I sub taught Band today. That was where, during one after-school activity involving a tame kind of spin the bottle, I was very lucky and to this day, I can see her smile. All I have to do is dream.

Franklin Junior High in 1961 was a mecca of sock hops, a thriving PTA, and music music music. I danced with many girls and enjoyed every one 3.5 minutes at a time. Away from school, Harrilyn and I went on one date: a movie I think. I remember nothing but picking her up and walking her to her door. Dad drove the car. Harrilyn lived in a duplex on the southeast corner of Seventh at Governor. Her family lived upstairs and her dad — Dr. Harold Hart was her dad; I never met him, but from her fine name, I’m guessing the fam was expecting a boy when Harrilyn arrived — had his office downstairs. I cannot drive by that duplex today, 46 years too late, without wanting to ring her doorbell and ask if Harrilyn’s home.

At Franklin today, I looked form the band room windows to where I amd maybe 60 other bike riders parked our bikes every day. In bike racks, even. Today I saw no bike racks, no bicycles. Only cars and cars and cars of faculty.

During teacher prep time, alone in the band room, I turned the electric piano volume down and spent more time playing piano than I had before Mom sold the family Chickering uprights, soon after she and Dad divorced in 1967. I was astonished. Do you remember the Beechnut Peppermint Gum Song? I do. (”Beechnut Peppermint Gum. The pep-pep-peppiest one. Pep-pep-peppiest. Pep-pep-peppiest. Beechnut Peppermint Gum.”). After five minutes of practice I played, tentatively to be sure,  the arrangment I made when I was in 9th Grade at Franklin in 1962. I also played the first song I ever wrote with lyrics — and I remembered most of the lyrics too! I played melodies I sang for the first time in Miss Broche’s 7th Grade Choir class when I decided to take music seriously for the first time in my life in 1960, the arrangement of Blue Moon I learned from Mr. Tom Patrick whom I idolized in 8th Grade Choir, who spent one year at Franklin before getting a new job in Arizona. I practiced the boogie-woogie base hand and a song called Chop Suey that choir teacher Bob Nika taught me in 9th Grade, the year I sang in boy’s choir from 7:30 to 8:15, the school choir, a barbershop octet and mixed ensemble. Franklin was a great place for music. It was where I played the first songs I learned on guitar from a Mel Bay beginner’s book. I still remember the lyrics to the first song I played (Undecided) and Nancy Rose’s obervation — “Job, I could not understand a WORD you were singing!” (That’s okay; I got better.)

This week, fighting a MAJOR head cold and sounding — and looking with my cold sweating and coughing — like I had come through a coffeegrinder a student asked me, “Mr. Conger, have you served in a war?” No, I have not served in combat with a military enemy. I have merely served in combat with society that seems bent on forgetting I’m alive.’El NO, I didn’t answer him that way! I simply, politely said I hadn’t, but my head cold just makes be look that way.

Another student, observing my new mustache asked if I were a Hell’s Angel. I am not now, nor have I ever been a Hell’s Angel.

Two students remembered my visits to Iles Elementary School during their Poetry Weeks in 2004 and 2005 where I recited Vachel Lindsay’s poetry. They are exceptionally bright students!

I’ve wondered what ever happened with Harrilyn: probably kids, grandkids and, I hope, a life of many joys and few heartaches. It would make me happy in a small way to know she stands on top of the bulldozer of circumstance, rather than under it. And it makes my life a little more bearable believing it is true.

Thanks for reading this.

Live long . . . . and proper.