Rural Life in the UP of Michigan Some stories about life on 160 rural acres in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan

I didn’t think much about my choice of music while I was going about the baking process. However, I found myself getting emotional for just about every song. And I knew all the words and the tunes to just about every song. What was going on here?

Fortunately, the music that touched me so thoroughly didn’t seem to affect my baking, because the cookies (Russian Tea Cakes; recipe available on request) came out just fine. I still have to taste one or two, because I can’t be shipping inferior product all the way to Florida 🙂 I was able to bake and think, which led me to a theory about my feelings.

This album came out in a difficult time in my life. I had a bi-polar Mom whose philosophy of child rearing was to out-mean any rebellion. My Dad cared mostly about his own issues, and spent the majority of his time at work. His philosophy of child rearing was to leave it to his wife, and to bow out of any controversy whenever possible.

We children were forced to go to church on Sundays (to this day getting up early and getting dressed up are no fun for me), and were forced to give up our Saturday mornings for some years during our teens to attend a class at church called catechism. This required us to memorize some items from the little book, to recite them to the adult in charge, and to get their initials placed in the little booklet if we recited correctly. Once all this was completed, we went through a ceremony at the church that then entitled us to be able to attend communion with the adults.

Honestly, being a fairly sincere young person who didn’t want any trouble, I did my best to try to understand what all this religion thing was all about. I remember debates with my high school friends, but that they didn’t seem to go well. I found I was not armed with the necessary tools to defend my beliefs against logical arguments. The armor that all this indoctrination was designed to protect me had chinks that were not self-healing.

Then Jesus Christ Superstar came out. Great music telling a story very different than the one I’d been fed. Listening to the music all over again this afternoon touched me, I think, because it brought back such a difficult time in my life. My adult role models had no interest in my questioning of all this. I doubt they’d given any of it much thought in their own lives, and felt they were doing the right thing to expose us to the same process that seemed to give them such comfort. In my bedroom in the basement, I listened to the album over and over, mostly with my headphones to avoid controversy. The armor that was supposed to protect me and has worked out for so many past generations, and will probably do the same for many future ones, was disintegrating.

All that happened more than 50 years ago. I thought it was all behind me, but today as I was relaxing to some enjoyable music, I found the old emotions come flooding back. Reaching puberty was the most difficult time in my life, and being surrounded by adults that had no patience for any difficult questions did not make that time any easier for me. But I made it through, found a soul-mate to share my life, raise a family, and share the decades with probably more joy than I deserve.

If you are a young person going through all the difficult part of your life transitioning from child to adult, I feel for you. My hope for you is it won’t be hard on you. My hope is you’ll locate a mentor that will take the time to listen to your concerns and encourage you to keep searching until you find what you need to make sense out of life. It is a tough job, but you are doing the same job that all your ancestors have also done mostly successfully. If times get tough, know that things will get better. They sure have for me, even though I have flashbacks now and then.