We could hear
the bass line and rhythm of the music all the way out in the parking lot. Indeed, it even seemed as if while we were
still on 315, we could hear the tight vocals and major chords of some positive
Christian rock song, written to lift the spirits of young people like us,
wafting its way over trees, freeway exits and embankments. My heart would flutter each time I would see
the Ackerman Road exit, because I knew in a matter of minutes I would be
walking through the door of Heartsong.
I fumbled with
the stereo, trying to get the tape to the beginning of just the right song, so
that it would be at just the right part
of the song when the tires of my 1979 Delta ’88 crunched into the parking
lot. Things like this meant a lot to
teenage girls, especially when there were going to be so many ‘GCG’s standing
around to check us out while we piled out of the car. We had to have something other than looks
alone to get their attention. We had to
make sure that they knew we were Christian metalheads too, and we had to give
them more evidence than just enormously teased up hair and t-shirts that said
things like, ‘Benchpress This’, with an artist’s rendition of a bruised and
bloody Jesus lifting Himself up from the ground with the cross on His back
emblazoned on the front. And so, upon
arrival, we needed the stereo to be blasting just the right part of just the
right song, from just the right band.
In addition to
the ‘GCG’s, there were a few weirdos that frequented Heartsong, too. You couldn’t have a place like that on OSU
campus without drawing a few moonbats.
They all had nicknames. Who can
forget Rob-Bob, Will-dude, Crazy Bob or Tissue Bob? Tissue Bob especially, really freaked all of
us girls out. The ratio of ‘GCG’s to
weirdos, though, averaged out to allow Heartsong to remain a positive, if not
sometimes interesting, experience.
‘GCG’s were
gorgeous Christian guys – husband material – and they were always clustered on
picnic tables or on top of somebody’s trunk of their car, with a well-worn
Bible squeezed under an armpit as they traded Stryper for Def Leppard with
their ‘unsaved’ friends that they had finally talked into checking the place
out instead of going out to get wasted.
These were the biggest reason girls like us went to Heartsong in the
first place, but little did we know upon our first arrival, that Heartsong
would have a lot more to offer us than just ‘GCG’s.
Today there are
no more tearful, late night talks with Rich and Karen. There are no more boisterous games of pool,
no more bobbling sounds from PacMan or Centipede, and no more life changing
music videos thundering in unison on a grid of Sony TV’s. The smell of pepperoni pizza and popcorn no
longer lingers at the corner of Olentangy River Road and Ackerman. There are no more midnight worship sessions,
with the lights turned out and everybody face down on the carpet in tears
before the Lord, wondering if the person doing the same thing just a few feet
away might one day be the father or mother of their children. All that is left of Heartsong, and the bar
that was next door to it, is an empty lot of perfectly manicured grass. The building that once housed my friend
Patricia’s first wedding reception, where so many lives were changed and so
many now married couples met each other as teenagers, is gone. All we have left are the memories, and the
joy of knowing that the song never left our hearts.
