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A blunt instrument is not normally evocative of gentler times, yet I had
this feeling recently while rummaging through a cardboard box.
A guy I know makes his living as an electronic musician, developing sound
effects for video games. He told an audience recently that "In the
early '80s I played in skinny-tie bands for no money. Now I warp children
minds for big money." Well, it's not big money, but it's a steady and
healthy paycheck for a guy who isn't used to either.
His mother died a while ago. Her bequest to him was a cardboard box of sheet
music. She had been a professional lounge musician, singing and playing
piano while raising a couple of children as a single mother. I went through
the box at his suggestion to see if there were any tunes I could use. He
felt that he wouldn't use the sheet music himself. He doesn't play that
sort of music, so he wanted to give the tunes to people who would use them
and play them.
Mixed in with the sheet music in his mother's trunk were other memories
of a nightclub musician's career. There were clippings of her from the newspapers,
looking elegant in Kennedy-era cocktail dresses. Also in the box were promotional
pictures, music teaching certificates, cue cards for lyrics typed in cursive,
and something that I couldn't figure out.
It was a piece of well-tooled black leather. I thought it might be one of
those leather items cops wear on their belts to keep their keys and handcuffs
from chafing. It had a little heft to it but was not too heavy. My friend
said, "It's a sap. My mom used it to protect herself when she was going
to her after gigs." I thought of a woman walking to her car or to a
bus, alone, in the small hours. I thought of her raising her children alone,
and how she must have seemed scandalous to her neighbors, pursuing a career
that hardly seemed motherly or "wholesome." I tested the weight
of the sap, striking it on my arm. It barely hurt. I realized that for all
the problems of those times, and the problems she must have had in those
times, raising her children around whispering neighbors, it must have been
a gentler time if sap was adequate defense in an era of strongarm robbery.
Today , waving a sap in a robber's face would be like pulling out a popgun.
Thieves today would be more likely to use a gun. You wouldn't get close
enough to them to hit them with a piece of leather weighing less than a
Stephen King hardback book. If you did, it would just make things worse.
So I thought about what parents pass on to their children, what they keep
and what they give away. He kept the musical talent she passed on but gave
away the sheet music he wouldn't play. A weapon made me think of a more
innocent and more evil time, when it was even harder to raise children alone,
but when a robbery made you fear more for your wallet than for your life.
e-mail me at: kurt@ribak.com