Be still my heart

Music is a part of my earliest memories, I sang all the time when I was happy, at 5,  I was usually happy, drove my siblings crazy.

We lived in Detroit in 1969, I remember singing "feeling groovy" to my Dad and his full out laughter, "groovy? what does that mean?"  I replied "Daaaad,  it means happy!"  "oh, okay, sing it again!" he laughed just as loudly every time I got to the chorus.

We moved to a suburb of Washington DC, Franconia, VA in '70, I was 6, our neighbors were awesome. the people next door had 8 kids and most played a musical instrument,  the youngest was my best friend Pam, a year older than me.

Our favorite thing to do was play 45's, dance and sing along. sometimes we pretended we were a band and acted like we were playing instruments.  "Honky Tonk Woman" was one of my favorite jams. One day Pam asked if I wanted to listen to her oldest brother Mike (he was around 19) and his band practice in their basement. they were surprisingly nice, said they needed an audience.

I was in awe, had never seen a real drum set, amps, microphones, except on TV.  All was good until the drummer started playing, as soon as he tapped the cowbell I recognized "Honky Tonk Woman", When her brother hit the first few notes on his guitar I ran out of the room. My heart was racing, face was red, it was too much, I couldn't look at them directly.

In my 6 year old mind, they were the Rolling Stones.