La Vecindad / The Neighborhood

As A teenager, I always dreamed of staying up late, no interfering parents to bother me as I greeted the dawn, doing as I pleased and then sleeping until noon. I was never allowed to stay up late, and if I attempted to do so, I could hear my mother rattling about in her room, yelling to me: "Please, go to bed! What are you doing, anyway? " What I was doing was watching television, or reading a book, or writing in my journal, or just hanging out, with any excuse to stave off an unwanted sleep that I hoped was hours away. I was most alive at night, but my mother didn't understand! What I craved more than anything was my alone time, to be just that, alone. But my mother insisted that I go to sleep and now, and so, against my will, I dragged myself to bed. But still, my contrary nature persisted, as under the sheets I hugged my small transistor radio to my chest, muffling the sound in the interminable darkness as I searched out koma, the all-night rock-and-roll station in Oklahoma City that catered to my restless spirit, bringing me the Beatles, the Dave Clark Five, Herman's Hermits, the Rolling Stones any number of groups and singers that fueled my inchoate dreams, my intangible longing, music my mother mistakenly called mere "noise." My sense of geography was poor. Still, I knew Oklahoma City was far enough away to be a mysterious "city." What I wanted in those years was to move away, and as quickly as I could, to become someone else, somewhere A vintage Beatles pre-tour book published for koma in early 1964 (Highlight Publications, 1964) |