Mississippi Dreams

Julianne had been singing in the church choir for a few years now. Times were quickly changing around the country; rock had been born and was thriving. In the south, rock music was still considered evil, the devil's music, as the older generation would call it. But Julianne believed that one could love modern music, while also holding true to their moral beliefs.

Julianne had first been introduced to rock when she saw a tall, thin young man with large black glasses and a southern accent from Lubbock, Texas sing on tv. Buddy Holly had a clean-cut look about him. But when he played, there was a sound that she had never heard before. She had been devastated when she had turned on the radio one day to find out about a small plane crash in a corn field in Iowa. They had been on tour in freezing temperatures. Holly had been tired of being stuck on broken down buses with no heat. He had only wanted to get a good night's sleep and to do some laundry. Unfortunately, the plane had stayed in the air only a few minutes. Holly, along with two other nice boys who happened to sing rock, were gone. It was rock's first major tragedy. Julianne sat stunned, listening to the tribute, tears forming in her eyes.

One Sunday night in 1964, Julianne was watching tv when her life would change forever. There were four young guys from Liverpool, England introduced to the U.S. As she sat listening, with stars in her eyes, she knew she had never heard anything like it before. She knew what she wanted to do with her life. She wanted to make music that would change the world.

That night she pulled out her guitar from her closet. She had gotten it for Christmas one year when she was little. Once in a while she would pull it out and play around with it for a bit, but she never really knew how to make music with it. She took it out of the guitar case and looked at it for a little while. She didn't know what a fret was, or how to tune it. She didn't know how to make these incredible notes with just these six strings. All she did know, was that she was going to learn.

After school, she stopped by the bookstore and bought a book with all of the chords and notes in it. She went home and began to practice. It took time, a lot of time. She would strum the guitar until her fingers hurt. Then one day it happened, she played a song. Her face lit up as she played and the opening to That Will Be the Day came out.

Julianne was also in her school band, where she played the clarinet. She was pushed to join in Junior High as another method to cure her shyness. Although she was still pretty shy, she had fun with it, and she had made a lot of friends. One day, they was just hanging around class when she had gotten bored. She had her guitar with her, so she took it out to play. She started playing Johnny B. Good.

A boy named John who played drums decided to join in the impromptu jam session and grabbed his sticks. Another boy named Bobby grabbed a bass and joined in. Finally, a boy named Gary got behind the keyboard and started playing. As they played and sang, the other students started dancing, it was an epic time. Pretty soon, they decided that they had something. They formed a band. They wanted to take up like their favorite groups and adopt an insect name. After much thought and debate, they finally agreed. They would become the Grasshoppers.