Sunday, November 11, 2018

Kool & the Gang "Celebration"

My grandmother played in a Polka band with my grandfather until his untimely death...while performing with my grandmother...on stage...at a local library. It happened in 1989 and took my grandmother a few years before she ever picked up her accordion again. Years later, she tried to get us grandchildren to follow in their footsteps and embrace music. No one really took the bait, but me. With no formal training, I taught myself how to play the keyboard by learning church hymns. I wasn't very good, but I tried. I used to "jam" with my grandmother on our respective Yamaha keyboards. Take a moment to visualize that. Done? Alrighty, then let's move on...

Our musical tastes didn't really intersect, but she did know the song "Celebration" from Kool & the Gang. Along with a handful of polka, we added the song to our repertoire. We weren't very good, but we tried. Eventually, I came to understand the two of us didn't sound "good" until my grandmother had about a dozen Miller Lites in her. For some reason that still escapes me, the two of us volunteered to perform during her church's annual carnival during the fall of 1992. The two of us played keyboards while one of the priests from the church who played the drums asked if he could perform a song or two with us. Like the a good Catholic, I've suppressed many memories from that fateful day and don't remember much other than grandma was sober and we didn't sound very good. At all. Oh, and my dad showed up and took a picture of us performing. Yes, buried somewhere in my basement is a photo of me wearing a pink Chicago Bears cap alongside the drummer/priest wearing an avocado green track suit while my grandmother fiddled with one of our amplifiers in the background. Forgive me Father for I have sinned...