STAR SPANGLED RODEO or: How Glen Campbell Saved a Sad Little Immigrant Girl

Ayser Salman
Aug 9, 2017 · 7 min read
Me, probably wanting to be at home — away from people.

The following post is an excerpt from my upcoming memoir, THE WRONG END OF THE TABLE: AN IMMIGRANT LOVE STORY.


Music plays a huge part in my life, especially in terms of defining periods and eras. If my life were a book the chapters would be named after song titles…

I mean that’s pretty much what I’ve done — I AM writing a book, a comic account of being a “fresh-off-the-boat” Iraqi who moved to Ohio in the dead of winter and was told “Here. Fit in now.”

I’m exaggerating a wee bit but that’s the crux of it. And pretty much all my memories revolve around music. Ask me a question about a time in my life and I can often tell you what song is representative; my life in Ohio is defined by singers Ronnie Milsap and Glen Campbell. Saudi Arabia was The Carpenters and Olivia Newton John. I discovered the Beatles in high school and lived by their credo “Let it be.” And college was my heavy metal and Goth music phase (short-lived) with a heaping side of R.E.M. and Echo and the Bunnymen.

I developed my love of music from my mother. When I was little she often told me that whenever I was feeling sad or depressed, if I put on some music it would instantly brighten my mood and often transport me to a ‘magical place.’ This was a lifesaver to someone whose young routine was uprooted by moving from Baghdad to Columbus, Ohio leaving behind our large house with my dolls and toys and a backyard swing to come to a cold and snowy land where I didn’t know the language and had to share a bedroom with my kid brother and listen to creaky radiator pipes pinging loudly during the night.

One of my earliest memories from Ohio is Mom making a hybrid Middle-Eastern/American feast, while her small FM radio played pop music in the background. I would sit at the small table in the corner of our very small kitchen and ‘help’ her by shaping rice into balls for kibbe and squeezing lemon juice into taboule and various other side dishes. And all the while Mom would buzz around humming happily to whatever tune was on the radio. Every now and then she would mouth the words on the commercials, her way of strengthening her fledgling English. On rare occasions a song would come on that would make us go into all-out performance mode. We’d dance out into the living room, Mom holding the spatula as a microphone and my brother playing air guitar.

I played this cassette over and over until it almost broke.

One song we loved was Glen Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy.” To this day hearing it brings back memories for all of us — particularly Zaid. It was one of his favorites. He would get so excited that after the song was over he would rush into our bedroom and continue his own acapella performance of it while jumping up and down on his bed. Then Dad would come home from work and try to switch the radio to the news — probably it was a continuation of what he was listening to the in car. As soon as he got near the radio Mom would shut him down with ‘My kitchen, my music.’ And shoo him out. There were times, especially during the Iran hostage crisis of the late ’70s that Dad would sit in our blue Lincoln Mercury for a half-hour and listen to the radio in order to soak up all the information he craved. Eventually this ended when some neighbor complained about a “suspicious Mexican man loitering in a blue car for long periods of time.” With his mustache and the fact that Middle-Easterners weren’t common in Columbus, people often mistook us for Mexican. And my family didn’t correct them. It was safer to let them believe we were part of a large and known ethnicity like Mexican than to tell people we were Arabs, which at the time was a largely misunderstood group. Not only that, but Iraq sounded like Iran, which at the time was the enemy because of the hostage crisis. So you can imagine the pressure and crisis of identity this created. I never wanted to leave our apartment. And music became the thing which soothed me. My favorite songs had the ability to ground me by giving me something familiar to hold on to, like a comfortable audible security blanket.

One particular day I recall coming home from school, hating that I wasn’t learning English fast enough and worse, that I had a speech impediment which required me to go to a special class to practice saying my Rs properly. Basically it was fifteen minutes in the middle of the last period of school. Which meant that while the other students were quietly practicing cursive writing at their desks while dreaming of what afterschool snacks their moms had prepared, I had to pick up my belongings, get up and walk out of the classroom, completely calling attention to myself. During those early days of life in America, my only goal when I arrived at school was to disappear and be invisible until the end of the day bell rang and I got to get on the bus and escape home.

So on this day as I was trying to make my invisible exit, I tripped and fell in the doorway which made my skirt flip up exposing my turquoise undies. I didn’t even need to look back to know it was Ian snickering — I will never forget that stupid hyena laugh of his.

And this was not my first embarrassment at that school. A few weeks prior, we were rehearsing or our class play about the Native Americans [1] and to my horror, I was cast to say the line, “We bring them Iron and Ore.” First — what a nightmare for someone who had trouble with ‘R’. Secondly, I learned my English from my parents (who had strong accents) so naturally I pronounced it Eye — run. And I had done my line in rehearsal that day and I kept mucking it up.

Eye-run, I would say. Eye-urn, the teacher would repeat.

And I would say it the way I thought she was saying it but it was the way I had learned it. And I could tell she was being patient and the kids were well behaved enough but you know when the rest of the cast thinks you’re being annoying. And they were sick of me and I was sick of the whole experience.

So I trudged home from the bus stop and into our apartment, ignoring Mom’s sing-songy greeting to me. I went to my room and shut the door. Trouble was I shared the room with my brother. So he came home and flopped on the bed and then he started jumping on the bed singing some other pop song, the name of which I can’t recall right now. And I wished he would just go away.

I was annoyed so I was forced to leave my room and go out to the kitchen. Mom looked at me and could tell I didn’t want to talk so she didn’t press it. She placed a snack of cheese and saltine crackers in front of me and went about her business stirring a pot on the stove. For some reason the radio was not on when I came in but she turned it on and we stayed that way for a few moments listening to some pop disco. Then the Glen Campbell song came on and Mom began humming. I liked this song, but I wasn’t finished moping so I continued to morosely eat my cheese and crackers. When the song got to the chorus Mom began belting out loud “Like a Rhinestone Cowboy! Nah nah nah nah… Star Spangled Rodeo!” — Mom clearly didn’t know all the words. But she was doing some exaggerated dance simultaneously and that made me chuckle. When she noticed her ploy was working she made her movements even more obvious. Until I was laughing out loud. By now, Zaid had joined us and gotten up on the coffee table dancing away.

By the time Dad came home, we had exhausted ourselves and were lying in a small circle on the area rug in the living room. We didn’t tell him the truth about anything. That afternoon became our little secret.

And that’s how I learned that sometimes you don’t need to talk out your problems.

You just need music.

[1] I’m sure it was called something more like Settlers and American Indians.


Thanks for reading. If you liked it, please share. And look for my book, THE WRONG END OF THE TABLE: AN IMMIGRANT LOVE STORY — coming soon!

Ayser Salman

Written by

Writer/ Perpetual New-Kid-In-School. Nostalgia…sometimes cats. www.aysersalman.com

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