Renewed faith

I have received some good response on my Pop Culture 101 column, but the best is this one I got from a high school student (my response to her is below)...

Hello! My name is Brittany and I am currently a Senior at Brush High School in Brush, Colorado. I am writing to inquire on your article about Pop Culture 101. My music teacher Mrs. Darline Miner has had your article clipped out and lying on the table in her office. It caught my attention and wanted to let you know that she teaches a History of Rock class every semester and thought that your article was very informative.

I think that there should be more media classes like your Pop Culture 101 and our History of Rock because I'm only 17 and to read that a 21-year old never heard of Paul McCartney is like a sin. LOL. As a matter of fact, I am writing to you from her office and I'm...sort-of the Teachers Aid, and we are listening to anywhere from The Doors to Ray Charles, just in todays lesson!

The class starts off at the beginning of the semester listening to the roots of Rock, like Blues and Country. Then we slowly transition our way into Elvis, Buddy Holly, Bill Haley and his Comets, and The Beach Boys. Then come the 60's and 70's, Woodstock, Beatles, The Who, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Kiss, Fleetwood Mac, The Byrds, The Animals, and Cream (plus alot more, this is just off the top of my head). And by the near end of the semester we get into the 80's and 90's....like 80's rap and hip hop, theres alot but just to name a couple, Nirvana, and Bruce Springsteen.

We watch many movies too. She has a set of History of Rock dvd's that range anywhere from Chuck Berry and Elvis to Britain invades to Punk like the Sex Pistols and The Ramones. We also watch the rock opera Tommy by The Who (one of my personal favorites), Blues Brothers, School of Rock, The Wedding Singer, Wizard of Oz with Dark Side of The Moon by Pink Floyd, and probably a few more.

I hope this gives you some ideas and hopefully some interest in our class here at Brush High School. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to e-mail me back! Thank you for your time!

Brittany Colerick

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Brittany,
Wow! You have single-handedly renewed my faith in the younger generation! Mrs. Miner is obviously doing a great job out there in Brush (I used to live and work in Brush when I worked for the Fort Morgan Times and the Beetdiggers will always have a place in my heart!).

I am very glad that your school has taken this bold move (I don't think this class was there when I covered Brush). Just to hear a 17-year-old talk about Bill Haley, The Doors, The Ramones and Jimi Hendrix makes me so happy. My sons are pretty much forced to listen to this stuff (Actually, the first song they knew all the words to was "Rock and Roll All Nite" by Kiss! ... of course there's only about 12 words in the whole song... but it was still cool).

Anyway, I'm very impressed with your class and your curriculum... (although I think you meant that you watched Pink Floyd's "The Wall" and not "Dark Side of the Moon," right? Speaking of Dark Side, though, I talked to everyone here in my office. Only one other person knew the name of the album from the cover and had ever heard of the album ... I work in a warped world, huh?).

So, please pass along my sincere appreciate to Mrs. Miner and the rest of your class and I am very glad there will be some young folks out there who know who the Walrus is, what the "pompitous of love" is, what "the day the music died" is, as well as any pre-black album Metallica! Outstanding!

Now if you can get your history teachers to make sure they cover everything that is mentioned in Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" song, then you pretty much have all the basics!

Thanks for writing,
Jared