In the heart of the summer of 1970, Michael Jackson and Madeline Winters met, and at once, the children became inseparable. Underneath that summer sun, an imperishable connection blossomed between them; a connection that, across their passage to adu...
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Wednesday, July 8, 1970
Madeline
As Grammie chatted with a helpful retail worker, I silently stood by her side as I looked around our surroundings. We were currently at Woolworth's, her most favorite department store, because she was searching for new bath towels. I had zoned out in the middle of their conversation, as the subject of towels wasn't super interesting to me, but I was interested in our area of the store.
While Grammie inquired about certain towels' softness, the music section had snatched my attention. I glanced up to her—who wore a green shin-length dress—as she remained chatting. It was obvious that she was going to take a couple more minutes to sort out her questions. Thus, I wandered across the aisle to the music section. Upon arriving, I saw multiple instruments—from guitars and trumpets to ukuleles and flutes—that were hanging on a wall behind a hollow, glass check-out counter. Boxed turntables were stacked upon shelves as well. I was rapidly attracted to the records, however. Two-tiered, double-sided shelves that held various albums sat in the center of the music section, and I was quick to skip over to them.
Taking slow steps along one wooden shelf, I scanned each album cover that my eyes spotted: In the Groove by Marvin Gaye, Let It Be by the Beatles, Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon & Garfunkel, Ladies of the Canyon by Joni Mitchell, Diana Ross by Diana Ross, Sweet Baby James by James Taylor, Lady Soul by Aretha Franklin, Cloud Nine by The Temptations, and much more. Continuing to stroll as I browsed, I hummed along to a familiar song that was coming from the overhead speaker in the ceiling.
"Weee can change things, if we start giving. Why don't you..." Diana Ross sang. "Reach out and touch somebody's hand. Make this world a better place, if you can..."
After viewing the records on one side of the shelf, I strolled around to the other side to view the others. I absorbed the artwork of each eccentric album cover as I continued humming along to Diana Ross. When I was nearing the end of the shelf, however, my eyes landed on a mostly-blue album that had totally stolen my attention because of its vibrancy. Colorful life-size cutouts of the first three letters of the alphabet—ABC—were on the center of the album cover, and I assumed that this was related to a popular song that was called, "ABC." A group of kids stood around the "A," "B," and "C" cutouts. I smiled as I took a closer look at them.
Within moments, however, my smile vanished as my heart soared out of my chest. I gasped. I know them! I thought. A strong sense of realization then swarmed my body at once, providing me with answers to why I had believed that the neighbors who had just moved in yesterday had been familiar to me: They had been familiar to me because I had seen them before, as I had suspected. But I hadn't seen them at the park, movie theater, or store.
I had seen them on television, in magazines, and on album covers.
Freezing, I stared at the record with an agape mouth and raised brows. As I stood in the music section of Woolworth's, I was gawking at Michael—my friend that I had just met yesterday—as he was positioned between the "A" and the "B" on the album cover. With him were his brothers, who I had also met yesterday. I realized that all of them made up the Jackson 5, a popular singing group that had great hits such as "ABC" and "I Want You Back." Until that moment, though I had seen glimpses of them in the past, I obviously hadn't been able to recognize them off the bat. But I had evidently seen enough of them to have thought of them as familiar yesterday.
