Well, I was searching the web when I ran into this:
Margaret Priebe is 85 years old...and a huge Metallica fan!!! She's
going to the show on Oct. 3 with her son, Jim Priebe. While Margaret was
fighting cancer - and getting chemo - she'd stay up late and listen to
Metallica on her MP3 player, especially the band's live recording with
the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. She says the heavy metal band got
her through the tough times. "I always liked rock music," Priebe said.
"I love drums, and I like the way they play."
LARGO — Jim Priebe will never forget how he found out: Nine years
ago, he called home to check on his mother, a routine how-ya-doin' in
the middle of the day. Margaret Priebe — in her mid 70s at the time —
was just fine . . . in the garage, car doors open, stereo cranking.
Jim shouted into the phone:
"What's that noise, Mom?!"
She shouted back:
"Metallica!"
Metallica: the iconic thrash quartet, four surly dudes hammering dark, demonic nightmares at head-splitting volumes.
Mama, it turns out, was a metalhead.
• • •
 |
| “I always liked rock music,” said Margaret Priebe. “I like the way they play.” |
She's 85 now, and still into it.
Mother and son have tickets to Metallica's show at the St. Pete
Times Forum on Saturday. They wouldn't miss it — not after last year, a
hard year for Margaret. She battled lymphoma and chemo and lonely nights
in the hospital when the only thing she could do was untangle the
headphones of her MP3 player and tune out:
Enter Sandman,
Bleeding Me,
Devil's Dance.
Heavy metal for heavy times.
"I like Metallica — there's nothing wrong with them," says Margaret,
who knows she's likely to be the only person at the concert born during
the Coolidge administration. "People think I'm weird. But I'm sorry, I
like it loud."
At home, on a table next to her favorite chair, are an
Art of Knitting DVD, a giant magnifying glass,
The Rough Guide to Heavy Metal
and a magazine devoted to the four men in Metallica: singer James
Hetfield, drummer Lars Ulrich, guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert
Trujillo.
"Mom likes Lars," says Jim, 48, who builds Koi ponds and waterfalls. "She likes drummers."
"Lars is cute," says Margaret. "But I like 'em all." She also digs
Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest. "And I like the Molly Hatchet."
• • •
This isn't some hard-of-hearing joke, mind you. Margaret doesn't use
an aid; she hears well enough. This is about someone who for eight
decades was denied her inalienable right to rock. And now it's time.
Margaret grew up in Detroit, a fan of drummer Gene Krupa. But: "My
mother and father never cared for the orchestras — they thought they
were too
jazzy."
 |
| Lars Ulrich talking with Margaret Priebe. |
She took piano lessons to quench her musical thirst. But: "I hated
what I had to play. The scales and music you didn't hear on the radio.
Why couldn't I play what's popular?"
After inspecting plane engines during WWII — B-24s to be exact —
Margaret met the man who became her husband. They moved to Cleveland,
then Florida, and enjoyed a 44-year marriage until his death.
Well, mostly enjoyed it. "He didn't like the hard music. I couldn't turn on the stuff when he was around."
Now it's just Margaret and Jim. They share a house in the
buttoned-down Lakeside Estates neighborhood. About nine years back,
Margaret turned on the radio and heard Metallica's 1999
S&M
album, recorded with the San Francisco Symphony. She bought it; she
blasted it. For the first time in her life, there was no one to tell her
no.
"It soothes me," she says, surely the first time in the band's
28-year history that anyone has made that claim. "Metallica takes your
mind off of things when you listen to them."
Margaret has been cancer-free for a year. But she still "always has
Metallica with her," says Deanna Vannatta, her nurse at Morton Plant
Mease Primary Care. "She rocks out!"
Vannatta, 50, remembers the first time she asked what Margaret had on her MP3 player.
"Metallica," she answered.
"Oh," Vannatta said, pausing, "are you
sure?"
The rockingest band Margaret ever saw was the Trans-Siberian
Orchestra, so hearing Metallica live will be like going from lighting
cherry bombs to jamming your head in a cannon. She's pumped, however,
and she doesn't care if people stare. Margaret likes to live life
loudly.
She encourages her son to do the same. Lately, Jim has been teaching himself how to play guitar.
"I think it's good for him," says Margaret. "You don't have to be a certain age to start."
Click me for the original post. Awwww, it felt nice xD.
