The Story of Therapy Dog Tails 417
Where Everyone Gets a Dose of Puppy Love
CHRONOLOGY 49: TAPCO / ATR 7
Fri., Sep. 6, 2013
… Born to Wander - it was being played at GCC but it also reminds me of that drive from Hyatt to Paula’s house near Glenwood H.S. That must have happened a lot during freshman year at GCC, 1970-71. We were just getting to know each other but that meant my going over there for visits. We sat in her family room a lot - a room at the back of the house that must have been added on. Her father was dead when I met her - died of a sudden heart attack. Her mother died while we were in Tinley Park. Both died young. They were Christian Scientists.
If You Could Read My Mind - this one could bring me to tears even then. Now that it’s associated with those very early days of courting Paula, it is almost impossible to listen to.
She’s a Lady - This song always makes me think of turning off Traphagen onto Erie (old 21). I must have heard it. More than that it reminds me that I was a big fan in high school and never missed Tom Jones’ t.v. show. During those early, lonely Evanston years when Paula and I were all alone, we went to see Tom at the Arie Crowne theater. I remember those rickety old steps leading out the back door of that apartment from the kitchen down to a basement where we had some storage space. Maybe we used those stairs mostly to go back to the garage where we kept our little VW station wagon that we’d bought the year before.
For All We Know - The Carpenters were on the radio during all of those years. They remind me of Paula in every way - driving to her house from Massillon, in GCC, at Wooster, at that apartment that Paula had during her senior year and in Evanston. Paula was working at Continental Bank and I was doing my senior year at GCC.
One Toke Over the Line - This one reminds me of Wooster. They had a Rathskeller student union there. I don’t think we were there too much but we must have heard this song there. Paula had a good friend from W. Virginia who was a clown and whom we visited after graduation down there one time. I don’t remember her name but I remember her face. There was another friend, a boy from the Amsterdam area that we hung around with at Wooster. I wish I remembered his name. Then there was the beauty of her class, a girl from NJ named Marianne. She visited us in Evanston and had gained weight just as I had during that time. This song reminds me of all of them.
Wild World - another of those haunting songs from freshman year at GCC.
Eighteen - Alice Cooper reminds me as much of Paula’s brother Mark as of her. He was a wild child who had no interest in high school, was smoking at the age of 14 and was helping some guy build something called the Quonset Hut on Cleveland Ave. in 1971. That place really took off. It was a clothing store with a record store in the basement to draw people in. Mark ended up running the record business and after that they expanded into at least one other store on Lincoln Way near K-Mart. After this came School’s Out and that had the same effect on me.
Put Your Hand in the Hand - I’m just walking around the campus of Wooster with Paula talking about the things we talked about. There were various Jesus songs around so this one wasn’t unusual - “Jesus Is Just Alright” was around then. I liked talking about religion. Even then I was a philosopher. I was also keeping a hand-written journal of those first days together. The last I heard of it was that it was stashed in Mark’s (their mother’s) house in Canton when Paula and I split up. I wonder if it still exists.
6:26 p.m. G. #9.
If - This one was the “song” of my good friend at GCC, Larry Fabrey. He and Bruce and I were a threesome for most of that year. I couldn’t stand Bread but this song reminds me that it was their song and so I was thinking of them while driving to Wooster from Massillon.
Toast & Marmalade - One of those songs that hasn’t been played since and so there I am driving to Paula’s house or to Wooster.
Want Ads - I would have been driving to Paula’s house frequently starting at about this time.
Treat Her Like a Lady - I was a soul fanatic at the time and when I heard this song, I thought it was the best soul song ever. I must have tried to put that over on Paula but I also remember a day driving to Wooster or somewhere west when she wanted me to turn it down. Even with her music got me into trouble. By the end in 1981 she was trying to hide from my music obsession. After what L ... Z and her son did to me over the recording studio, I could easily make the case that music has been my downfall in this world / life. I’m romanticizing my life with Paula but I had the same problems with her over music. I know that she could never have betrayed me, however, the way L ... Z did.
Love Her Madly - I was sitting in my tiny room off the main room in that GCC freshman dorm when I heard this song. The Doors had disappeared since “Soft Parade” although I’d heard “Roadhouse Blues” on the radio going up to visit Dale at GCC. But that was just a song. This one brought them back and I knew it that year. But besides reminding me of Paula and that year, it also reminds me of a girl named Tammy. She was a year behind me in high school and I was writing letters to her that year at GCC just as I’d written letters over the previous months to Barb Harter, another high school heartthrob who I wanted to get to know better once Pam Rank dropped me without a second thought that summer. I wrote letters to Tammy thinking that maybe I’d get together with her but, of course, Paula took over in my mind. I remember sitting in that tiny little cubicle writing letters while this song was playing and knowing that the Doors were back. Of course, Jim Morrison was about to die.
Rainy Days & Mondays - I guess I associate this, the greatest of all female voices, the most feminine of all voices, with Paula Kratzer. I think now that that’s right.
Here Comes That Rainy Day Feelin’ - This one proves that I was driving back and forth to Paula’s house a lot at this time.
Don’t Pull Your Love - Now I’m remembering driving down Stuhldreyer and across Hills & Dales to where Fulton hits; then I’d turn left, go past the police car that was generally stopped there with a sleeping cop inside, cut through that upper class neighborhood and come out somewhere behind the Fisher’s store on Cleveland Ave. Those were the greatest car rides of my life.
Mr. Big Stuff - Now I’m coming out in Paula’s neighborhood.
You’ve Got a Friend - Paula had 2 uncles. One was a big success in the gas station pump business and lived in Nashville with his wife and 2 daughters. The other was Jim. Jim worked for the state weighing trucks at the weigh stations. He lived in the area and we saw him much more than the other, whose name I don’t remember even though we flew there for a visit during the summer of 1978 when we were back from our world travels. But Jim was a really nice guy. I liked him a lot. There was someone else related in the Dover area and we went down there a couple of times to visit them. I don’t remember the relationship now but I remember driving down and this song now reminds me of those visits.
6:54 p.m. G. #10.
How Can You Mend a Broken Heart - Here it is - once, twice, 3 times. I’m crying now. I don’t know why I put myself through this unless it’s because I think I deserve as much punishment as possible. It’s just amazing how this song predicted my life.
I can think of younger days when living for my life
Was everything a man could want to do.
I could never see tomorrow,
But I was never told about the sorrow.
And how can you mend this broken heart?
How can you stop the rain from falling down?
How can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go around?
How can you mend this broken man?
How can a loser ever win?
Please help me mend my broken heart
And let me live again.
I can still feel the breeze
That rustles through the trees
And misty memories
Of days gone by.
We could never see tomorrow.
No one said a word about the sorrow.
And how can you mend a broken heart?
How can you stop the rain from falling down?
How can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go around?
And how can you mend this broken man?
How can a loser ever win?
Please help me mend this broken heart
And let me live again.
One of the amazing things is how they tapped into the idea of not knowing what the future held. I can remember thinking how I had no idea what was going to happen to me. I can remember thinking it in Wooster on those nights when I was there with Paula. At some point after this during her junior year we would have her dorm room to ourselves. We would take off our clothes but we had not yet made love. We’d sit together, arm in arm, and make out and that was the greatest thing that had ever happened to either of us and neither of us could conceive of how something like that could lead to sorrow. I had no idea what would happen to me and no idea how I might make a life for us but also couldn’t conceive of the sort of pain that I’m now feeling for her and for that time. I could not see tomorrow at all but I believed in it. Paula must have believed in it, too, but I’m the one who let us down.
Now I’m feeling the breeze by thinking back on those times and wondering how I can now be healed. My heart is broken. I broke Paula’s heart. Now mine has been broken justifiably I guess but broken even harder than I broke hers because mine has been broken by a woman that I invested my soul in AND by her son. If there is justice anywhere, then Paula has it now. I’ve been hurt as much as I hurt her. Maybe I’ve been hurt more. At least I didn’t give her a son who also broke her heart. That is as close to a conciliation as I can think of for what I did to her.
As I’ve said, this was one of those songs that I learned to play by ear. I used to play it on the piano that Mom bought for our house - for herself - and on the piano that sat in Paula’s mother’s front room. I remember that Paula’s mother used to like to hear me play this song. She must have had some premonition of what I was going to do to her daughter and maybe even of the consequences that awaited me for doing that. I was only thinking of the music at that time. Maybe I ought to have been listening more closely to the words ….
AUDIO INSERTED: Tin Tin, Toast and Marmalade for Tea
(Once again I insert this track without permission and will take it down upon request.)
IMAGES INSERTED: Record Labels / Promo