The Record Album
Stephen Mosher
When I was eight years old, my Mommy took me to the picture show. We saw Bedknobs and Broomsticks. It was the start of a lifelong ardor, an adoration, an obsession with Angela Lansbury. I had already been introduced to the magic that fantasy films could bring into a boy’s life by the films Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Doctor Dolittle, and Mary Poppins but there was something special about Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and all I can think (all I have ever been able to think) is that it comes from Angela Lansbury, the woman from whence cometh all things special. So, naturally, I begged and pleaded for Mama to buy me the record album from Bedknobs and Broomsticks (which didn’t really take much begging and pleading, since My Mam loved to shop and she, especially, loved to shop for things to give the people she loved, most notably, her children). In those days I didn’t have but maybe three or four record albums of my own - the soundtracks to Chitty, Hello, Dolly!, and Doctor Dolittle (if memory serves), although I spent a fair amount of time listening to Mom and Dad’s records. This meant I would have one more movie musical soundtrack with which to drive the family crazy through repeated listenings on the family Hi-Fi.
I did not always get my way. I did not always get my wish. I did not always get what I wanted, when I wanted it, just by depending on Mama’s devotion to me and to shopping.
One day, in a similar scenario, Mommy was standing in line at the Customer Service Counter at Sears Roebuck & co., most likely to return or exchange something, but possibly to put a present on layaway so that it would be safely hidden from the snooping, the sneaking, the prying eyes of curious children looking to see what they were getting for Christmas or a birthday. Even though I was not yet ten, Mama felt safe and secure allowing me to spend my time inside the shops in the record department, flipping through stacks and stacks of albums, looking for something to make my record collection a collection of five, or even six. With a combination of excitement and boredom unusual for a child of nine, I stood on my tiptoes, flipping and eyeballing album covers, when a name jumped out at me. The album cover featured no photo and I wasn’t quite sure what the artwork meant, but I knew the name.
ANGELA LANSBURY.
I snatched the record album out of the bin and ran over to Customer Service and thrust it before the eyes of my Mother.
“Mommy, can I have this, please?”
“No, honey, you can’t have that one.”
“But Mommy, it’s the actress that plays Miss Price in Bedknobs and Broomsticks.”
“Yes, I know, sweetheart, and she’s a wonderful actress but you can’t have that record.”
“But Mommy, why?”
“Because it’s not appropriate for you.”
“Why Mommy, it’s just a musical.”
“Yes, sweetheart, it’s a musical. It’s a musical about strippers. And you’re not getting that record.”
“But Mommy, why can’t I have it?
“Sweetheart, do you know what a stripper is?”
“No, Ma’am.”
“Well, you’re not going to find out before you’re ten - not on my watch. Put the record back and we will get you something else.”
So, posture of failure, I slunk back over to the record department and put my treasure back in its chest - dejected, deflated, and completely defeated.
But Mama and I did find a satisfactory, a happy, a more authentic compromise to the situation, and I went home with the album that was, cosmically speaking, the right one for me to take home that day:
