Singing

From the time I was little until I was about seven mom used to sing to me and Lani at bedtime. She liked show tunes and sang the same songs to us over and over again. I remember her singing Honey Bun, Ragtime Cowboy Joe, "Pollyanna" (Everybody, Loves a Lover), If I Had a Hammer and Lahaina Luna.

When I was five, Mom taught me and Lani the word and actions to Happy Talk from the movie version of South Pacific. After Lani and I had it down, we went to our neighbors' houses and performed for them.

Grandma Gordon loved singing too. She sang songs like I've been working on the rail road, side by side, the skunk song and hey, look me over. When I was ten I went to camp Naheli Kai in Hawaii with Lani and my cousin, Shelly. We learned a round called rose and another song we called underneath the bamboo tree. We taught them to Grandma and she always messed up on rose. To this day I can hear her saying "wellllll!" after she realized she sang it wrong.

When I was a young girl, Mom and Grandma were in a ladies singing group called "The Chauntonettes." One year they sang Me and My Shadow and used top hats and black canes as props. I learned every word to that song as well as the words to other songs they sang, and remember a lot of words still.

Lani and I shared a bedroom in the basement of our condo. I would lay in bed every night and sing You Light Up My Life (and every other song I knew) before going to sleep. At times, Lani called the music I liked "elevator music." I listened to FM 100, an easy listening radio station in Utah, and it drove her nuts. She whined, "Can't we listen to something else?" until I changed the station.

Whenever we went anywhere in Grandpa's truck, we sat on the wheel wells in the back of the truck and sang at the top of our lungs. Music intertwined with our lives.

In the eighth grade, while Mom worked, Lani and I lip synced to her wooden fruit. Lani always had the grapes and I always had the banana. We moved our lips and held up our microphones when Barry Manilow sang "At the Copa...Copacabana." 

Whenever we went somewhere in the car, eventually, we sang. As a teenager when Lionel Richie's song All night long became famous, I droned the harmony of the backup singers singing "All Night...All Night..." Mom hated it, and would tell me, "Stop It!" or "Sing Something Else."

I had a friend who loved Barbara Streisand. As a result, I grew to love her too. I bought her album on tape called the Broadway Album; I loved it and listened to it all the time. I loved show tunes, and that album was right up my alley.

In my room I would often listen to my records of The Sound of Music, West Side Story, and The Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I loved the Top 40 Hits, but they couldn't compare to my first love of show tunes and choral music.