Sharing an audio-visual slideshow I finished in January 2022; I started this in 2018.
Short Intro:
Secret phone recordings made by my mother in 1975, followed by an interrogation of me. I was in sixth grade.
Now, if one listens to this (and studies my illustrations) surely there will be questions!
Knowing the short intro cannot describe this, below the 25 minute film I will put the longer intro and my analysis.
I would welcome comments with interest and fascination…
Expanded Intro:
WAIT. WHAT? WHAT IS THIS??!!!
Good question! Thanks for asking!
Who? These are the audio voices of my mother, other unknown callers being recorded by my mother without their knowledge (the first is a woman trying to return a lost baseball glove, and there are other accidental mis-dials), and myself, in the last section.
What? I can only assume my mother made these to “document” something.
Where? These were made in our home.
When? From references within the recordings, March 1975.
Why? My mother was paranoid. And other things.
How??? Well as I recall this, I believe the secret “Watergate” recordings gave my mother the idea she could also do that. I think it may have been a year or two earlier, that I was with her at the old Woolco on Salem Church Road in Newark, Delaware – I’m pretty sure that is where she bought two small reel-to-reel tape recorders (one was for me to play with). She also went to Radio Shack and bought a recording device. This was a suction cup that went to the phone’s receiver at the top, by the ear, and the cord had an audio jack that plugged into the recorder.
Due to both her paranoia and her issues with creditors (this was before caller ID), she got two phone lines. One number was listed and one was unlisted. If the “green” phone rang, she ordered my father and me to not answer it. If the “black” phone rang (this was the private number), she was the only one who could answer it. I suppose there were times she answered the green, listed number, too.
I recall her hiring an electrician to install two side-by-side phone jacks in each room, for each of the two phone lines/phones. I believe the only phones that were green/black were the set in the living room. There was a set in the basement, kitchen, bedroom and living room. This was a very small ranch house. As I recall, about eight phones in total. The recording device was used on the living room phones. I imagine she had a suction cup device for each phone and probably switched them back and forth.
I was instructed to give my friends the “unlisted” number so if it rang she would know it was someone from the realm of people given the number. The listed number was used to call out on.
Brilliant? Well…um…perhaps a precursor or workaround of the call waiting and caller ID features, ha ha. But, her reasoning was both bizarre, nonsensical, paranoid and costly. I recall her buying a lot of the magnetic recording tapes on little plastic reels. Eventually she would buy a large bulk tape and have me help her wind the tape onto the smaller reels for use.
My friends and I were given tape and batteries (I can recall our disappointment when batteries wore out; they were costly) and we would sing and play like normal children would do with such a device!
Meanwhile, my mother was consumed with placing the recording machine in the side bedroom window some nights to secretly record neighbors on a weekend night with friends, having beer and talking. She thought they were talking about her (and, they might have been, ironically, but that is another story!), recording various conversations with my friends who would call, various relatives, calls to my dad at work, incoming calls, wrong number calls, calls to the school bus route manager, calls to the school – you name it – she lived in a world of paranoia and control-seeking.
She would record me – interrogating me about my school day and other personal things.
When my mother passed away in 2001, I found boxes of these reel-to-reel tapes and the player in the basement. I saved them, and in late 2005/2006 I began transferring them to computer audio files. To do this, I had to have a cable between the player and my computer and play them in real time, into another program that would record and save the files. My teenage sons showed me how to do this.
I tackled this on my weekends following my first divorce, when I was alone and my boys had time with their dad. I probably have around 50-70 audios, some which I’ve still not categorized or re-listened to, but the best and most unusual or interesting ones I have shared with various friends and others from time to time.
Many trauma survivors speak of the “tapes” in their head….that is, the various recollections of words said to them that were damaging or many other things. I actually have the literal tapes!
I find these very validating to visit and re-visit at times. Sometimes we questions our memories or perceptions…was it really that bad? We may ask. Sure, there are all sorts of traumas and categories, but it isn’t a contest. Trauma is trauma. While being burned with cigarettes is a horrific physical and psychological trauma for a young child, it doesn’t mean that being raised in a hostage-like situation fully controlled by an obviously mentally ill person (my mother) did not have significant impact on me. Apples and oranges, yes. But, this is my story. Everyone has a story, and all of our stories vary, and all of our stories matter. The articulation and examination of our life stories has many layers of benefits, to us and to others.
One thing that compelled me to listen to these for hours and hours to transfer them, was the hope I would find one with my father’s voice on it. I did find several, with one precious conversation between him and myself. That one tape was worth it, but there were a few others with his voice. And I had no idea the level of bizarre things I would hear, and things I would recall.
This first audio-visual series I’ve created from a grouping seemed to come together well and it is OK TO LAUGH! Seriously…while it is sad that my dad and I were basically held captive to all of this….the nature of these things in this series lend themselves to funny illustrations. I have no idea where my father and I literally were when these particular calls were received – it doesn’t matter because we sure heard this stuff routinely!
I gave myself artistic license to use my imagination with the illustrations! Because the first call involves a baseball glove (and in some ways almost reminds me of the classic “Who’s On First” dialogue due to the confusing nature of my mother’s interaction with this caller), I incorporated myself as a child in a “play arena” of sorts in our “topsy turvy” upside down living room! My father is glued to his chair with packs of Marlboros floating in the air, his face red and steam blowing from his ears.
I was an only child, quite imaginative and played a lot with dolls, creating my own little world and even making them really cool houses and furniture from whatever I might find to use. So in the slideshow I am hopping onto the baseball glove idea by cutting and painting a little baseball field and playing catch with my Chrissy doll, who is catching a cracker jack! Ha ha.
Was I really doing this? Of course not, ha ha! One friend watched this (she laughed hard because she sort of knew my mother) and later asked, “Was that actually YOUR baseball glove?!” Ha!
I said, “No!” Of course not – I was just taking some creative artistic liberty and imagination…I think one really needs to pay attention to the interplay between my illustrations and the audiotrack and read more closely my “speech bubble texts” on the cartoons, for full effect! This may be easier to do on a laptop/desktop than on a phone, but either will give you the gist of this!
This first audio-visual slideshow (I intend to gradually do more – at least the ones I think I can share here…some contain things or other people I do know that I can’t share online but may put some things together just for my own personal pleasure) all came together one weekend this past January…and I like my little captions, ha ha….as the slideshow moves into the “interrogation” of me…I thought to put Jesus catching a baseball (glove in Hand) in the sun-stained-glass and I’m singing “Take me out to the ball game” with the “church choir,” all red-faced!
Now of course, until you listen and watch, this will not make sense 🙂
I notice as I’ve listened to myself being interrogated by her, I can hear my young self alternating between trying to cooperate and please her, and then exasperation, anger and outrage! I note at one part that as she is linking all these separate things in her mind in a paranoid manner, and at age twelve I was responding to her in a way that showed I had a pretty clear understanding of how delusional she was. This is both sad that it happened, but I think in another sense, quite amazing how I handled her. It isn’t just on this one tape, but on others, that I’ve picked up on this.
I do notice at points in that dialogue with her I sound like I have a strong southern twang or something. I’m not sure what accounts for this. My mother was from West Virginia and neighborhood kids teased her in accent-twang and they would taunt me as I exited the bus calling out “Old lady Slaaaafer’s daughter” and “Auuuuleeen.”
I don’t know if I was messing around with her by putting on an accent for my own amusement (I mean, I imagine I needed to get “something” fun or enjoyable out of these unusual experiences!), or if I spoke that way out of some emotional effect that the situation was having on me. My first husband speculated that it may have showed how much time I was forced to spend with her (at many points I was forbidden to play in the neighborhood with others due to her paranoia and constant feuds) and perhaps I had learned her accent to some degree. But it isn’t consistent. I’m thinking it was some combination of all of these things.
The last comment I want to make is, that I do not know who these recorded people are. This was over forty years ago and there is no real way to find out. My mother should not have done this activity, but anything I share in this forum I consider (until somehow it is otherwise made known to me) that I am doing none of the unsuspecting callers any harm, and in fact, if they are still alive and might recall these interactions and would know me and who I’ve become despite all of this, they might even be honored in some strange way to be part of my healing artistic self-therapy!
And, I truly believe…they might laugh quite a bit over this.
Thank you for your interest and time in following my life story and writings, I really don’t know for sure who reads what I write, but I do feel it serves some greater purpose. Even if that is unclear to me.
Thank You For Reading
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