Heartsong

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.