My Dad's Love Life Started With Creedence
“I bought this record for my girlfriend in 8th grade"
‘Firsts’ is an ongoing Jam Jar spread spotlighting personal stories about folks’ first vinyl gems.
When it comes to my dad and Creedence Clearwater Revival, there’s an amazing irony at play. For a band that never once released a love song, Creedence’s fifth studio album, Cosmo’s Factory, provided the soundtrack to my father’s earliest romantic escapades.
Last week, I visited my dad at his condo and made a point of unveiling my own copy of the Creedence record, which was fairly beat up from years spent buried in a Brooklyn basement. But its condition didn’t stop my dad’s eyes from widening beneath his glasses as he admired the cover art — scruffy young men posing casually in their Bay Area rehearsal space.
“Throw it on,” he said, gesturing across the room to a turntable that hadn’t been played much since my parents’ divorce. Back then, after we’d sold the house, Dad rented an apartment across town and the two of us spent summer nights eating pizza and playing Zeppelin records in the living room.
As I asked him questions about Cosmo’s Factory, the record skipped in the background, and, for the first time, I was able to clearly picture this 67-year-old man as a teenager doing teenager things: hitchhiking to the record store in his small suburban town, crushing on classmates in steamy basements, dancing close, making out, getting his heart broken.
It reminded me of my own queasy attempts at romance. Asking a girl to date me in the 5th grade, hugging her behind a tree at recess, burning her a CD, inviting her over and watching my mother gaze suspiciously at the gold hoops dangling from her 11-year-old ears, as if to say, “This one’s trouble.”
Cosmo’s Factory by Creedence was the first album you ever bought?
Yes. I bought this record for my girlfriend in 8th grade. And I didn’t want my parents to know that I was buying a gift for a girl, so I hid it up in the attic over the garage. Which is not a good place to store a record.
I didn’t know there was an attic over Grandma and Grandpa’s garage, how did you get up there?
I had a little step ladder that I could pull from the back of the garage, and then I hoisted myself up onto the rafters and hid the record. I think her birthday was October 3rd, and it was September, so it baked up there for quite a while.
How did you land on Cosmo’s Factory?
I’d heard the songs on the radio, so I knew it’d be a good album.
Where’d you buy it?
We had one record store in town — Randolph Records, or something — right on Main Street. Pretty sure I hitchhiked there, everyone did that back then.
What was your girlfriend’s name?
Her name was Nancy Seifert. I did eventually get the record to her, and I had it all wrapped, in birthday wrap.
That’s romantic for a 14-year-old.
I thought so. We were a hot ticket.
How did you get the record to her?
I don’t remember, but I actually got to listen to it at her house. Her parents kinda liked me.
Sounds like they were more open-minded than Grandma and Grandpa.
Her older sister had already broken down all the barriers, whereas I was the oldest in my family; my parents weren’t welcoming of girlfriends in 8th grade.
Really?
Yeah, I hid my relationship. But we used to have dance parties at people’s houses, in their basements, a lot of making out, a lot of grinding going on.
Was grinding a thing back then?
We didn’t call it grinding, but it was definitely a thing.
Dry humping.
Hahaha…yeah.
Would you dance to Creedence?
Not really. We would listen to their music, but we used to dance to Motown. Elvis’s “Suspicious Minds” was a big one; also the Beatles’ “Come Together,” and “Something.”
Did you ever host one of these dance parties?
No, but at least my parents let me go. Nancy had one at her house, and I remember she and I were in the laundry room making out and her father came walking in…he wasn’t happy.
That tracks.
He was just glad we had out clothes on. He’d already come downstairs and was looking for his daughter, and somebody was like, “I think she went outside to get a breath of fresh air” and he was like, “Yeah, okay…” Then he burst into the back room. We weren’t alone in there, either; other people were on the floor.
Wow, an 8th grade orgy…
It was an 8th grade make-out party. Dancing and making out, you ate a little bit, and no alcohol, just good clean fun.
At that age you don’t really need any extra stimulants.
There were enough pheromones in the air. Now that I think of it, maybe we did dance to Creedence — maybe “Who’ll Stop The Rain.”
How long did you and Nancy date?
Oh boy. Three months? Six months?
Do remember who broke up with who?
I don’t. But I don’t remember it being dramatic. She ended up marrying one of my best friends from high school though, and they’re still married.
Who did you date after Nancy?
It was Karen McSweeney first, then Nancy, and they were best friends — that was awkward — and then in 9th grade I went to the high school and that’s when I met Ginger. Ginger Wells. We dated until I graduated.
Ginger Wells sounds like a leading lady’s name from old-school Hollywood. Was she a big deal at school?
No, she wasn’t a cheerleader or anything.
What did you like about her?
We just hit it off. Sunday nights, I used to go over to her house and we’d watch gangster movies on TV and make out. We would sit in the living room where the TV was, and her mom would be out in the family room chain-smoking Virginia Slims — she would smoke about half of them, put them out, and line them up in her ashtray, it was all very organized. Her dad didn’t smoke, and he’d sit there reading the newspaper, the whole room in a blue haze.
You were together all of high school?
She dumped me right before the senior prom.
Damn, that’s cold. So you went alone?
No, come on. I got a date. I went with my brother’s ex-girlfriend.
That’s nuts.
It was nuts. My mother was especially confused, because we came over to the house for corsages and pictures and all that, and she’s like, “Isn’t that the woman who was here last year with your brother?”
Was Uncle Scott pissed?
No, he wasn’t pissed. I didn’t ask him, but no. I met her at a party, and we got to talking about my broken heart and she said, “Well, I’ll go with ya!” And I was like, “Alright, sounds like fun.”
So it wasn’t serious.
No, no. I went to college a couple months later and was unattached, but I came home for Thanksgiving and hooked back up with Ginger. Second semester of freshman year I met Sheryl and I was with her all the rest of college, then we got married.
A long-term man.
I’m a monogamous man, I don’t like the playing-the-field thing, it just confuses my head.
I feel like I’ve always had a somewhat similar outlook on dating.
Yeah? But you’re 31 now, and you’re not married. So you missed the 23-year-old wedding.
Times have changed.
Thanks god, right? Yet marriage still ends up in divorce half the time. It’s just not how we’re hardwired.
Some people like to do it, though. Maybe it’s just folks with high pain tolerances.
Hahaha.
And patience.
Lots of patience.
You can check out more Firsts here, and reach out with your own album stories to be featured on The Jam Jar!
(Also: a shout out to Auntie Karen for supplying the vintage photos!)