My dad hated holes in the walls. So, when mom wanted something hung up, he complained.
“This is just another way for bugs and critters to get in the house,” he’d say. And he wasn’t wrong. I woke up one morning in my bedroom in the house on Locust Street in Ashdown, Arkansas, and a small garter snake was in the middle of the floor.
That snake got in, but not because of any holes I had caused. But I did put holes in the wall. One wall.
I grew up in the era of posters. All kinds of posters. The south wall of my room was covered with them. Each poster caused many holes in the sheetrock from the thumbtacks that I used.
Farrah Fawcett, Led Zeppelin, KISS, Boston, and several posters I won at the county fair, looked back at me for years as I did homework, listened to music, or just stared at the ceiling and contemplated life.
Kids now have their electronic devices to see anything they want. In the 70s, you had to go to a department store to buy an image.
Farrah Fawcett was popular then. I cannot emphasize enough how popular. I had the nowiconic poster of her in a red bathing suit, sitting in front of what looked like a Native American blanket. Two takeaways from that poster: Her smile, and it must’ve been cold when the picture was taken.
Teenage boys then had a couple of major influences: Girls, and music. I was a fan of country and rock, but there were few, if any posters of country music stars. But rock bands? Plenty of options.
The English group Led Zeppelin was huge. They were the first band to sell more concert tickets than the Beatles. And their albums sold in the millions. I loved them. I still do.
The Zeppelin poster I had showed the singer out front, straining to hit a note, with the musicians behind him in deep concentration.
I started playing guitar when I was eight because I wanted to be a star. If they had called me to join Led Zeppelin, I would have immediately quit my job at the Piggly Wiggly. Alas, the call never came.
The rest of the real estate on my wall was covered by black light posters. Black lights were actually purple, and the light reacted in a neat way with whatever it was they put in the colors on the posters. I had no idea at the time, but they were very popular with the stoners, who also liked lava lamps.
One poster showed the coyote actually catching the roadrunner. Another was the Keep on Truckin’ image. A cartoon guy who had his thumb up and was strutting with one foot prominently forward, on his way to somewhere.
My posters all came down one day when a girl I liked said she wanted to redecorate my room. Farrah, Zeppelin, KISS, Boston, and the roadrunner and coyote; all were replaced by wallpaper. The girl was happy, my dad was happy, but I felt robbed.
I wasn’t really ready for that part of my youth to be so quickly supplanted by adulthood. But, as is often the case, change comes when you least expect it.
Being the oldest cousin, like most of my other things, my posters were dispersed to my younger kin. I don’t know who got them, but if you’re reading this, dig them out or take them off your wall. They’re now antiques.
Me? I got over the loss and moved on. From everything except that snake. We’re still looking for him.
— John Moore’s, “Puns for Groan People” and two volumes about growing up in the South called, “Write of Passage,” are available at TheCountryWriter. com. Write John at John@TheCountryWriter.com.