Welcome to Stackable Plastic.

It has been a fact of my life that while I am often unable to remember what I had for dinner last night I can tell you of each and every song I enjoyed through most of my 38 years. Clearly, it would be impossible for me to recall the songs I heard while I was, for instance, 5 months old, but there are family stories that predate my own personal recollections that are all somehow connected to a song. Not too much later my own memories are forged: earliest memory, first day of school, death of a loved one, loosing ones virginity, college, breakups and everything big and small set to a soundtrack either unwittingly or by choice. Songs we loved and the songs we hated all support the framework of one’s life.

I have decided to recap my life in story and music. Month by month and year by year and eventually, after hundreds of posts I will have caught up to the present and also caught up to myself. Besides, if you don't tell your own story, who will?

Enjoy.

March 23, 1968, Year 1, Day 1.

I was born in a small eastern fishing town. My mother and father, already the parents of teenaged kids, felt they could kick start what had become a somewhat languid marriage by having more children. My mother, taking a break between her fourth and sixth child, was pregnant with me and it was during this pregnancy my father had taken up bowling at the town’s newly opened lanes. My mother, fully stretched by the burden of both young and teenaged children had little interest in bowling. Her mind was more focused on the clawing thought that my father, out of the house more and more frequently for bowling, was having an affair.

My mother’s suspicions were confirmed very late in her pregnancy with me one evening. She had started cleaning the dinner dishes as my father was heading out for another bowling night. Through the ‘freedom window’ over the kitchen sink my mother could see both the harbour and my father’s 1965 teal green Buick LeSabre rolling backwards down past the house to the street. The car turned onto the street and then lurched forward, dragging its dancing ghost of white exhaust behind it as my mother continued watching as he pulled up to the intersection where the car stopped. It was then my mother saw the passenger door open and a woman, in a long, dark coat get in, close the door behind her, and lean over to kiss my father on the lips as the car drove off out of sight.

My mother, with little more to look at than the early spring slate grey water of the harbour, continued washing the dishes. After she had finished cleaning my mother put on her coat and went to visit her friend next door. From here the story gets a little fuzzy and the hushed tales of relatives and family friends were a little conflicted and contradictory. It is assumed that what transpired between my mother and her friend was sworn to either secrecy maybe it was just an act of decorum but in the end it appears my mother had a breakdown. It is widely accepted that this breakdown prompted an early labour and she was rushed to the hospital that very evening.

Several attempts were made to contact my father and the only certainty was that he was not at the bowling alley. Later, it was established that he was at the home of his new girlfriend who, as it turned out, was a nurse from the hospital. Nurses and doctors were often from out of town in places like my hometown and they did contractual tours of duty for experience and/or extra pay. It was from this pool of transient healthcare professionals my father chose his girlfriend and perhaps it was a stroke of fortuitous scheduling that the same nurse was not the one on duty the night I was born.

It was not an easy delivery. My mother – either unable or downright unresponsive – was not terribly co-operative in my arrival. There are so few details available about my delivery that only the faintest sketches of story and rumour exist. I know it caused my mother 100+ stitches and that, at 11:57 pm, March 23, 1968 I came into this world. I also left the hospital a few days later and my mother stayed behind for a couple of more weeks. My grandmother stepped in to help out and as for my father, story goes he felt guilty, broke up with his girlfriend and gave me the exact same name as his own thereby making me a ‘third’ in the line.

So, a screaming, blood-covered baby boy just shy of 11 pounds came into this world seemingly occupied by deceit, lies, large cars and a little bit of drama in a small town by the sea. But, again, only seemingly.

Number one song on the day I was born:
Steppenwolf, Born to be Wild