No. 258 – Along Comes Mary

Performer: The Association

Songwriter: Tandyn Almer

Original Release: And Then … Along Comes The Association

Year: 1966

Definitive Version: The Monterey International Pop Festival, 1992.

The Association is a band whose music I’ve known as far back as I can remember. To me they represented everything that was lame about my parents in the Sixties. My parents listened to The Association, along with The We Five, Jose Feliciano and The Fifth Dimension, so I always associated The Association with bad furniture, bad clothes and a cheesy chandelier lamp that we had in the corner of our living room.

Fast forward two-plus decades: I eagerly purchased the box set that captures a large chunk of the legendary Monterey Pop Festival of 1967. Of all the legendary acts who performed at that legendary show, The Association opened the whole show, with this song. (OK, so it really was just the first song on the box set.) My respect shot through the roof. Who knew the guys who did Windy and Cherish actually were cool?

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I’m not a fundamentally healthy person. I might have mentioned this, but one of the first memories I have—if not the actual first—was of being awake in the middle of the night, running past my parents’ room to the bathroom while announcing I was going to be sick.

I don’t know whether that night was the final straw, but it was part of an ongoing illness that led to the earliest event in my timeline I can set to a specific time. My doctor determined that my tonsillitis wasn’t getting better. So in April 1968, my parents took me to Children’s Hospital downtown to have my tonsils removed.

As you might suspect, given the traumatic nature of the event, I remember a lot about it, even though I was two months shy of my 4th birthday. I remember, sort of, driving up to the hospital. I DEFINITELY remember seeing my room for the first time. My roommate was a girl, and I wasn’t having any of that.

OH, NO! I’m not going into any room with some dumb girl! I mean it’s bad enough I’m having my tonsils out; I don’t need a dose of the cooties while I’m at it. Eventually I calmed down enough to go into the room, after they pulled a curtain to divide us. At some point, she left, but it didn’t matter, because it was time to get down to business.

I don’t recall being scared. It seemed kinda cool, not scary, like the dentist. I remember being wheeled into surgery, however, and seeing that mask—the mask that put me to sleep as soon as it was placed over my face. In my mind’s eye, I still can see it, hovering, coming slowly towards me with everyone in the room looking down at me.

When it was all over, and I was tonsils-free, the next thing I remember was being back in my room, whichever room it was. I kept trying to sit up, but I kept falling over. I’d sit up and slump over to one side, then sit back up only to fall over to the other side. Mom said I was totally whacked out on drugs, although there was no word on whether Along Comes Mary was being played over the P.A.

Anyway, when I finally came to, I realized that the girl was gone and I was in a room with another boy. Ah, this was SO much better.

Gary was cool. I had one of my favorite toys with me—my Disney jigsaw puzzle of the United States—and I was naming all the states. I tried to have Gary say the names with me, but, like me earlier, he wasn’t having any of it. I’d say, “Say California, Gary.” And he’d say, “I don’t want to say California.”

Later Mom said I had been so nice to Gary, and I never said anything about him being unable to walk. Wha? Paralyzed? It didn’t mean a thing to me. All I knew was he was a boy and therefore cooties-free. Any other issue was irrelevant.

You would think that I spent more than one night in the hospital, and maybe I did, but I remember being there only one night. I got to choose which parent I wanted to spend the night with me, and I picked Dad. Gary picked his dad, too, and they spent what I’m certain was one of their most uncomfortable nights sleeping (?) in the spartan armchairs that were in our room.

At one point, I was awake in the middle of the night, and I looked out my window. I could see a light on in one of the rooms in another wing, and I wondered who was in that room and why they were here. I was curious, but I remember feeling worried for whoever it was who was up in the middle of the night and whether they’d be all right. I think that was the first time it dawned on me how sick I was to be in a hospital, too.

We somehow survived the night, and befitting my wanting to have it all Gemini nature, I was upset the next day because now that it was over I wanted Mom to spend the night with me. Fortunately, my parents distracted me with a new Bugs Bunny doll as a reward for coming through my ordeal with flying colors. (Awesome!) I was given a clean bill of health and headed home to ice cream and more pampering. My first—but certainly not my last—visit to a hospital was consigned to the memory banks.