I shall fear no evil, not even the consequences of my love for punk rock

On my way home from work yesterday, I was enjoying the local classical music radio station. On a particular strip of 85North, that is the only station I receive, a strange feature of my malfunctioning radio that drops and catches signals at whim. I think it's fun...you never know what you'll get when you turn it on. And if nothing picks up, I can always whistle.

Regardless, a certain piece by Bach came on, one that my mother used to play over breakfast, often. We would eat together as a family each morning, then read the Bible and have prayer time before leaving for school. I think this assuaged my mothers fears that we might somehow stumble off of our righteous path - if we were bathed in the Holy Spirit before leaving the house (in His blessed name, amen) we were less likely to succumb to worldly temptations. We would, at the very least, have a heightened idea of just how close we were to stumbling into the fiery grips of hell (especially if I was having wicked thoughts about that cute boy in Algebra), what with Proverbs ringing in our ears before first period.

I was in high school when my parents took a particular interest in our musical preferences, having found my collection of Nirvana cassettes, thereby increasing their concern for the status of my soul. We had been raised on hymns and classical music, everything else was considered sinful, something that might lead to S-E-X or, at the very least, masturbation. My mother found a book on the sins of rock music and insisted on reading a chapter along with our Bible reading. (We found this mildly hypocritical considering my father had been in a polka band before he had ever met my mother and had a long running repertoire of popular music he could play on his accordion.)

I had a friend who used to pick me up in the morning. She had come early one day, and my mother insisted that she join in our devotional time. Mom was always excited to perhaps bring someone over to her side of life where all things were righteous and clean and no one ever touched themselves in that way. I feared, after my friend witnessed the spectacle that was my family, that I would become a complete social outcast, but she said nothing on the way to school and started coming earlier every day, listening attentively as my mother would read from the book and then Bible, even helping clear the table before we left for classes.

I asked her about it one day. She was a lapsed Catholic and quite verbal about her disdain for organized religion. Her reply to my inquiry as to why she had continued subjecting herself to my parents proselytizing was simple "Your mom makes great coffee." She then went on to ask why we never read from the Songs of Solomon. I explained that there were references to bosoms and S-E-X, so, you know, we ignored that book. Since my mothers vocabulary didn't include the word sex or any references thereto, I was sure her brain would explode and leak out of her ears if our breakfast devotions included praise of pursuing the pleasures of the body. You might as well stick her into a bathhouse orgy and tell her to act normal.

My parents efforts to keep us on the straight and narrow were, however misguided, appreciated in hindsight. While I think their methods may have been extreme, I sit here, as an adult, with the Golden Rule planted firmly in my gray matter, and I can recite passages of the Bible on command, which is always a neat party trick. I love punk music, my brother is a DJ and we've both had our share of S-E-X, but I'd like to think that those mornings, while we went through the motions so as to respect our parents, that we absorbed enough goodness to carry us through adulthood without leaving behind too much wreckage.

All of this from listening to Bach on the way home.