It was the first time you heard a particular note, drum beat or electronically created sound that made your ears tingle, your heart skip a beat and resonated with your soul. This is “My Song” – a series where the music that makes the person is spotlighted. Vickie Bullock writes about a song that is intertwined with a most traumatic moment in her life.
Spring of 1964, growing up in rural Virginia, free-spirited and memories to last a lifetime, I was 9 years old, my cousin, Darveen was 8. My older brother and sisters and cousins would always surpass us little ones to get off the school bus first everyday. Darveen and I always were the last to get off the bus, waving back at friends still heading home on bus #27. That spring day changed my life. As I headed home, Darveen crossed the highway to follow me, I heard tires squealing and saw a cloud of red dust, as If in slow motion, I saw what I thought was a doll baby being tossed from the car. I ran to my house to tell my mother and grandmother about the doll on the ground, sitting on the table was our old brown leather cased radio with the song playing “It’s In His Kiss” the Shoop, Shoop, Song by Betty Everett. My cousin Darveen was accidentally hit and killed that spring day by her own school teacher, I remember seeing rescue workers placing Darveen’s covered body in our front yard by the lilac bush, that we both played around so much. The smell of lilacs and the song “It’s In His Kiss” is still on my soul (and to a certain extent haunts me) to this day.
