In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida

I've got a headache. The theatre next to my classroom was the site of a high school student rock band's performance this afternoon while I was teaching preschoolers about making tints and shades of blue.

I needed a break from the tints and shades of red after three days with Lettice the bunny. The children were quite taken with Polar Bear Night. They had different opinions about whether the polar bear cub really went exploring alone, or if the cub was dreaming. The illustrations were definitely ice cool and dreamy.


With the bass, drums, and vocals of the teen band thrumphing the classroom, we took time out to do do some Chuck Berry and John Travolta imitations, to play air guitar and applaud. Just another weird day at work!

Our health class teachers in the late Sixties-early Seventies told us psychedelics could cause us to suffer flashbacks without warning any moment making us strip off our clothes and jump out of high-rise hotel windows. I don't know about that. I did suffer a flashback of sorts this afternoon to the ninth grade dance at Millard Lefler Junior High in 1969. In those days the school colors were pink and black, due to the school being built in the poodle skirt era. We bore the burden of that "sissy"image at the time we were dealing with our early adolescent gender awareness, and it made us stronger. Remember, this is the same year Johnny Cash recorded "A Boy Named Sue" at San Quentin Prison!

As for the ninth grade dance, I was terrified about the upcoming event, and managed to get a horrible headcold in my anxiety. My nose could have guided Santa. I had a legit excuse to stay home, but wiser forces were conspiring otherwise. I wore an itchy brown wool pantskirt, a white sweater, and "suntan" nylons, Yardley white lip gloss, bronze blush, and "kitty cat eyes" green eyeshadow. Pocketless, I had to fold Kleenex tissues and tuck them into the cuffs of my sweater. Staring at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, I was paralyzed. Mom suggested that if I wore her favorite hot pink mod daisy pin no one would notice my raw red nose. It was a hard sell, but I ended up at the dance in the gym. The lights were low. The folding divider between the Boys Gym and the Girls Gym had been opened. Boys loitered next to the wall of the Boys Gym. Girls stood in huddles near the wall of the Girls Gym. Across the north end of the combined gyms were the food tables, laden with plates of cake donuts. Under the basketball hoops at the south end was the band. The band was playing its version of Iron Butterfly's "In-a-Gadda-da-Vida", which was way longer than seventeen minutes.

If you were to ask me if I would rather experience several hours of back labor or relive the ninth grade dance, I would choose labor. If you asked me if I would rather have impacted wisdom teeth removed or relive the dance, I would choose oral surgery. Would I rather deviate my septum crashing on the saucer sled or go to that dance, I would endure a two-day nosebleed. Would I rather eat cold cooked brussel sprouts or go to the dance? It would be a draw.

As the drum solo dragged on, the ninth grade boys and girls got relaxed enough to meet in the middle of the gyms for a donut food fight under the disco ball. I wanted to go hide in the girls' bathroom, but, horror of horrors, a boy asked me to dance to a Jackson Five song!

Did I mention that I was on the staff of the Millard Lefler Mascot newspaper under the editorial leadership of Beverly Renee Austin, a teacher stuck with the monogram "BRA"? I can still smell the blue stencils and stencil-correction fluid. My sister found an advertising poster I made for the Mascot today in the closet of the room we shared back then. It took a bit of description, but then I remembered the large poster I drew with very Monkees-style lettering, flowers, and a beautiful girl. My sister asked if we would have to have a big fight over who got the hot pink mod daisy pin. She found it in the jewelry box in the drawer in our closet. My memories are way too vivid to need the actual pin, even though it would be back in style this spring. Maybe the health class teachers were right about flashbacks.

"...'In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida' by Iron Butterfly was the first rock album ever to go platinum. For 140 weeks it stayed at the top of the Billboard charts and was spun millions of times in living rooms and at make-out sessions across the country..."

"Iron Butterfly's 1968 album veritably defined the burgeoning genre of hard-rock, primarily by way of its utterly over-the-top title cut. Reportedly composed by keyboardist/lead singer Doug Ingle in such a stoned-out, numb-tongued condition that he couldn't properly pronounce its intended title--'In the Garden of Eden'--the track seemed almost a parody of every excessive inclination of psychedelia. Melodramatic vocals, repetitive riffing, aimless solos--you name it, this 17-minute behemoth had it. Aided by FM DJs who loved to program it in its entirety so they could take "legitimate" breaks, it became an unavoidable hit--and an anthem of its era. "--Billy Altman

"...With its endless, droning minor-key riff and mumbled vocals, 'In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida' is arguably the most notorious song of the acid rock era..."

If this memory is a monochromatic exercise in the tints and shades of red, I can tell a parallel tale in blue of a high school Fifties dance in the cafeteria with a student band playing a mind-numbing version of "Duke of Earl":

Duke, duke, duke, duke of earl
Duke, duke, duke of earl
Duke, duke, duke of earl
Duke, duke, duke of earl