ABBA

I blame it all on Mr. Jose and his daughters.

Mr. Jose was the Principal of the school my mother taught at in the 1980s. Lovely man, really. His two sons were about the same age as my brother and me. His daughters were a bit older and in high school. They were all brilliant. No really, they were. His first daughter graduated from medical school when she was 21. His second beat the first by a year. Yes, you read that right, medical school.

Since the boys were in primary (grade) school as we obviously were, Mr. Jose did my mother a huge favor: she would get us all to her school and from there, the boys would all pile into the school's bus and the driver would drop us off one by one to our respective primary schools, a privilege the principal was due, I guess. Before this, my mom was always late to work after dropping us both off at our school before making it to hers so this was really a god-send.

Afterwards, the school's bus would also pick us all up and since we got off at 1pm, we (my brother and I) would have to wait at Principal Jose's for about two hours until my mom got off work to take us home. While there, I was always fascinated by the older girls (guess why). They'd be ensconced in their not-so-secret boudoirs, reading their romance novels and listening to music that was mostly Abba.

God, what sound. Of course, since they liked Abba, naturally I did too, but this was something else beyond simple infatuation-linked love. This music was rocking my boat, blowing holes in my experience. Everything I heard was dead great and I just had to get more of it. Within a few weeks, I had a small music library of Abba cassette tapes.

My favorite Abba songs: Fernando, Dancing Queen, Take a Chance on Me, Waterloo, Angel Eyes. My very favorite: Eagle. Psychedelic, trance-inducing, otherworldly, awe-inspiring joy and a kick ass story, man where could you go wrong? I don't care if you think I'm a corn ball: I love Abba!