In the fourth grade Mrs. Miller, my music teacher, used to let us bring in records from home to play in music class. She would always let us listen to them when we were done sitting in a circle playing the sandpaper blocks and singing “sneaky snake.”

usually, it seems in my memory, that we only ever listened to kenny thompson’s records. i think it’s because he always brought in eddie rabbit records, thus cementing him (and the song ‘i love a rainy night’) forever in my heart.

the biggest song in the fourth grade, the song that all the kids loved was “Angel in the Centerfold.” Mrs. Miller refused to play it, because it was much too dirty for fourth graders. she might have even said it was in appropriate. even as a fourth grader, i could totally understand why she wouldn’t let us listent to it. it was pretty naughty and i knew what a centerfold was after sneaking a few looks at Jenni Trunnell’s dad’s playboy collection.

but i could never figure out why we couldn’t listen to Donny Judge’s Rolling Stones, record “Start Me Up.” i even asked Donny once, why we could’t listen to it. “you make a dead man come!” Donny said, he offered no other explanation. i have to say that allegedly donny had been held back a grade and was older than everyone else, and therefore wiser.

“oh yeah,” i said, as if i knew what in the hell he was talking about. “i forgot about that.” i remember in my fourth grade mind that unlike “Angel in the Centerfold,” which we couldn’t listen to because it was too dirty, i had decided that Mrs. Mill wouldn’t let us listen to “Start Me Up” because it was too scary — what with all that talk of dead men coming to get you.