ABSTRACT
I’m 14 years old and my band, The Dynasty, is playing at the Seaford Summer Canteen. It’s a fiercely hot and humid midsummer night-a “close” one, as we call it in lower Delaware. The junior high cafeteria is packed with high school students-the boys with Beach Boy hair cuts, madras shirts, and white jeans; the girls with shoulder-length “Cher hair,” halter tops, and tight white cut-offs. We’re doing “My Generation” by The Who, and I’m drummin’ like crazy. I play football, basketball, and baseball for our school, but I have never sweated like this. Emulating Keith Moon’s gnashing, frenzied drum solo beat keeping for the last four minutes of the song is pretty well tapping me out. I can’t hit my cymbals for the last chord of the song because both of my arms are clenched to my chest, and I can’t pry them open. Scared and upset, I shriek to my band-mates, “I can’t move my arms!”
