Maggie May, by Rod Stewart (MTC6)

Maggie May
Rod Stewart

1971, Dowling Junior High- Houston, Texas
Second Period, Typing class
S. McDonald, teacher

The first few bars of the mandolin take me back to typing class where, along with Shirley Merchison, I would type the words to Maggie May instead of the lesson we were supposed to be typing. There seemed to be only a certain amount of "aaaaa...sssss...ddddd" that I could handle without falling asleep so I substituted with something much more interesting.

Mrs. S. McDonald (the "S" was to differentiate between her and "H" McDonald who taught history) was pretty cool about our typing unauthorized material as long as we were being quiet and not disturbing other students-and as long as we didn't try to peek at the keys (a cardinal rule in her class!)

I had committed the words to memory by playing the 45 rpm record over and over on my portable record player; you remember-a small suitcase-sized contraption that required a 45 adapter to hold it onto the spindle of the player. Screw American Express, in those days we did not leave home without our record player!

Mine was a sickly pink color with flower power stickers all over it thereby announcing to the world that I was not a shit kicker. In my school, there were only two kinds of people-hippies and shit kickers; this was, after all, Texas in the 70s. Our school was dealing with busing and forced integration and we were experiencing cultural awareness for the first time.

So there I am, in typing class and am I looking cool? You betcha. I'm wearing my favorite green paisley Nehru jacket and mini skirt, set off by to-the-minute-fashionable knee socks and my Peter Max high-heeled tennis shoes. Of course no outfit would be complete without the requisite almost white lipstick (mine was called icicle pink as I recall) and teased hair; it would be next year before I adopted the natural look and let it hang straight down.

Looking back, it was an important year in my life-I guess that's why the song has such a strong memory association. 1971 marked the year I stopped being a good little girl and became (eeeek!) a Rebellious Teenager!

That was the year I went to my first anti-war protest on the University of Houston campus and also the year I first smoked pot. And everywhere, all the time, that song was playing on the radio or on record players-it was one of the major soundtracks to my life.

I remember the first time my mom heard the song; when it came to the line:

"All you do is wreck my bed;
And in the morning kick me in the head".

She told me in no uncertain terms that I wasn't going to listen to such trash. Naturally, if my mom hated it, it must be a great song, so of course I listened to such trash. Over and over and over.

I think it was really the first song we ever disagreed about which made it seem even more important that I play it; the song itself became a power struggle between us.

So there you have it; a song, that each time I hear it, takes me back to 1971 and one of the coolest years of my life. Some shit just sticks, you know what I mean? These days I have been on my way home from the video store and I can't remember what I rented just 20 freaking minutes ago but I can recall with visual clarity that long-ago typing class.