I was born in 1967. For a two or three year period in the early 1970's, my Mother took in foster kids who were in trobule with the law and who the state didn't want sent back to their parents. I was about four years old when this started.
Because I didn't have any older brothers or sisters, I treated these kids as my siblings. I tried to hang around them as much as possible. But, that wasn't very much because they usually didn't want a young kid hanging around them.
Anyway, at that young age I learned a lot of things. I would listen to them tell their stories of how they got into trouble with the law. I learned about LSD, mescaline, peyote and, of course, marijuana. There wasn't supposed to be smoking in our house but they sometimes snuck and did it any how.
We lived in an old two story house back then and my room was directly above these teens bedroom. So, not only did I get to smell regular tobacco smoke but I also got to smell wacky tobacky smoke too (I didn't know the difference until I started attending rock concerts).
I also learned their music. They listened to Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, the Stones and Alice Cooper among others. On the weekend, if I got to stay up, I would sometimes watch Don Kirschner's rock concert with them. Because of these kids, I learned to LOVE rock music.
When Blinded by the light came out in the mid - 1970's, I laughed when I heard the long version of the song because there was a guitar solo followed by somebody playing chopsticks. I thought that combination was hilarious.
Later when I was a teenager and wanted to be a guitar star, people would ask me what I envisioned when I said I wanted to be a guitar hero. One of the examples I gave was standing on stage playing Blinded by the light.
I start to play the guitar solo and the lights in the theater go down. The mirrored ball hanging down is slowly turning, some strobe lights are flashing, a little fog comes onto the stage and looking out at the crowd of people, some of whom are stoned, I see their eyes are only on me.
I tried to learn how to play guitar but failed. However, whenever the long version of Blinded by the light comes on, I STILL get that picture in my mind and can just imagine how it feels to be the center of attention for all of those people for those few seconds....
David
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