Member-only story
Me and Keith Partridge in the Basement
An obsession with music is born
I can see her in my mind’s eye, this little girl, surrounded by a toy drum set and school desk. Just beyond her is the workbench where her father tinkers with his electronics. She’s humming music from “The Partridge Family” and drawing pictures.
She always has her back turned. I never see her face. Just a little girl wearing a red plaid Polly Flinders dress and hair ribbon, playing day after day all by herself.
This is in the basement of a three-decker house in Dirty Old Boston. Jamaica Plain to be precise, in the early 70s, the last time everyone thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse.
Something about the bend of her head and her complete solitude fills me with deep sadness, even though she’s still humming happily and completely engrossed in drawing yet another picture. Even by age four or five, she knew how to amuse herself.
The little girl is me. I still feel sad for her sometimes.
Many of you know my mother didn’t have much use for me when I was a kid. Most of the time I was relegated to the basement to play in my father’s workshop. It was preferable to being upstairs with my mother, but I wasn’t allowed to do that anyway. I counted the minutes until my father came home and my mother left to work the evening shift.
But it wasn’t all horrible. I spent most of my time down cellar with the Partridge Family. David Cassidy was good company.
Even before Donny Osmond, there was David.
My favorite thing to do in solitary confinement was listening to the Partridge Family. I knew all the songs and they soothed me when I was lonely or scared, which was far too often for a 5-6-7-year-old.
David Cassidy was a god to me, an impossibly handsome man-boy who sang like an angel. He helped me realize music can help you escape your pain, if just for a little while, and this has helped me through many of life’s shittiest challenges. I owe David a debt of gratitude for that. He made me the music freak I am today which has probably saved my life, or at least made it feel worth living.
That’s ginormous.
