My Story
MY MOTHER was a prodigy pianist. At the age of four, she walked up to a piano and started figuring out how to play, by ear and with both hands, the music she was hearing. My grandparents found a way to pay for a piano and teachers that were worthy of this “God-given talent.” As a young girl, whenever anyone paid a visit to the family home, my Mom was required to play for them — to share her gift. If she made even one mistake, she had to go out into the back yard and get a “switch,” with which her father whipped her, as “encouragement” to be play perfectly. Once, when guests came over, her father found her sitting at the top of the stairs. When she told him that she didn’t want to play, because she was afraid of making a mistake, he told her to go get a switch. She recalled getting the biggest one she could find, figuring that is what she deserved. A few years later, an article appeared in the local newspaper with the headline: “Linda Waldrop practices 5 hours a day and loves it!” Like so many social media stories today, this was only half the story.
By 15, my Mom was the organist at the family’s church and winning regional piano competitions. By 16, she was studying with a college professor who selectively worked with only a handful of students. She also was a straight A student and editor of the high school newspaper. When she passed away in 2022, we found an issue that she had saved, in which she wrote about the importance of kindness. When she graduated from high school, her class voted her [WHAT?]. She was awarded multiple scholarships and was the first in her family to go to college, graduating Phi Kappa Phi from the University of Georgia. Later in life, she recalled to me a rare day in her youth, when her mom had said to her, “This was actually a good day, Linda. You didn’t disappoint me once.” I only saw my Mom’s parents a few times in my life. They always sent cards with a little cash for my birthday and Christmas. I didn’t know them. They didn’t know me.
MY FATHER was born in a small town in Eastern Oregon, and his family moved to another city within a day or two. My grandfather’s job was to open Montgomery Ward stores from Northern Washington to Central California. Through my Dad’s early high school years, they usually moved at least once per year, and as many 2-3 times. Most of the stories I’ve heard of my Dad’s youth are about making things with his erector set, building model airplanes and launching rockets, mostly by himself. His high school chemistry teacher was the only adult to show interest in his future and encouraged him to enter the science fair his senior year. The model he built to show how air flows over an airplane wing to create lift, won the blue ribbon and got the attention of U.S. Navy officer recruiters in Pacific Grove, CA. His teacher loaned him a sport coat for a college scholarship interview, and a year later, my Dad became the Naval Battalion Leader at the University of New Mexico. Only recently has he recognized what a big deal that actually was. He worked at the student union to pay expenses and practically starved through college. He sold his record player and BB gun to buy my Mom’s engagement ring and had to beg his father to lend him money to purchase the two required navy uniforms. Within days of graduation, he became an Officer in the U.S. Navy and married my Mom. When I was born, 1.5 years later — seven weeks after JFK’s assassination — he was stationed at the naval base in Newport, RI, from where my Mom could see the Onassis compound nearby and their flag flying at half mast. My Dad was in the Bay of Pigs, Cuba, monitoring the waters following the Cuban Missile Crisis. Six weeks later he was allowed to return to base and meet his first daughter for the first time. Six months later, he was transferred to Long Beach, CA, and departed for Vietnam.
MY STORY starts with these stories about my parents’ childhoods, because they shed light on source of my own conditioning.