Hearts and Minds & Two Dollar Shoes

At some point in my childhood, my daddy decided I was old enough to learn to be responsible for money and he began giving me a weekly allowance.  Each Monday morning, he would take a crisp $5 bill from his worn out wallet and tuck it into my pocket, always giving me the same short speech.

When it's gone, he would say quietly, It's gone. Spend it any way you like but don't look for anymore.

To be trusted to budget wisely and well was no small thing and I took it to heart, thinking it through before I spent the first nickel, weighing the pleasure of a hot fudge sundae carefully against the purchase of a new romance magazine or a trip to Harvard Square.  The temptations of the drug store and the deli were legion but it was the five and dime store that was the most hazardous - fortunately it was just two doorways down from the library and I liked to pretend that it was closed - but in the end, it was the music store that opened its doors across the street that proved to be my ultimate undoing.   There were guitars hung on the walls along with nearly lifesize posters of my rock and roll idols.  An upright piano sat in one corner, its gleaming black and white keys beckoned to be played.  Turntables in suitcase like boxes with carrying handles were stacked everywhere and it was never, ever quiet - music ruled here, the love of it and the sale of it.  Row upon row of display cases held 45's and 78's from every imaginable genre and rack upon rack held sheet music from every imaginable artist. It was here I heard The Mills Brothers and Brenda Lee, Johnny Horton, Hank Williams and Kitty Wells.  Liberace performed his extravagant and glitzy music here, and on Sundays the rich strains of classical composers like Mozart and Bach and Rossini drifted into every corner.  Other days you could hear old blues or barbershop quartets or opera.  No one was too famous, too outrageous, or too unknown not to be showcased here and my allowance as well as my conservative spending suffered greatly for the want of Billie Holiday and Pete Fountain and Mahalia Jackson.

Being firstborn and a daddy's girl - and a musically inclined daddy, at that - I could've batted my eyelashes and sweet talked him into an increase of my allowance and neither my mother or my brothers would've been any the wiser.   Instead, I just doubled down, passed on the sundaes and the five and dime and the busfare it would've cost to get to Harvard Square, and took on chores for the neighbors.  I saved my birthday money and Christmas money and  collected bottles like a fiend, leaving behind the desperate desire for the two dollar shoes in the window of the thrift store and doing without my beloved romance magazines.  Love of music had won over my heart and mind and things were never to be quite the same again.  I never imagined that all these decades later the feeling would be even stronger and that there would come a point when listening wasn't enough.  Of the three great and enduring loves of my life - animals, music, and photography - I've been able to blend the last two and find a place of peace, a comfort zone.

Despite my daddy's warnings, my brothers came crawling for extra allowance money every few days but I was a proud child, more than a  little vain about learning to manage money and over anxious to please the man who provided it.  It was an early lesson in learning the difference between need and want and being happy with what you have.  I never imagined I'd forget it - but then I never imagined I'd survive not having those two dollar shoes.