Harper Valley PTA - Illustrated

Copyright

Harper Valley PTA - Illustrated

Copyright © 2026 Rollie Lawson

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-105-82259-9

Prologue

Harper Valley PTA

I wanna tell you all a story 'bout
A Harper Valley widowed wife
Who had a teenage daughter
Who attended Harper Valley Junior High
Well, her daughter came home one afternoon
And didn't even stop to play
And she said, "Mom, I got a note here from the Harper Valley PTA"

Well, the note said, "Mrs. Johnson
You're wearin' your dresses way too high
It's reported you've been drinking
And a-running 'round with men and goin' wild
And we don't believe you oughta be a-bringin' up
Your little girl this way"
And it was signed by the Secretary
Harper Valley PTA

Well, it happened that the PTA was gonna meet
That very afternoon
And they were sure surprised
When Mrs. Johnson wore her miniskirt into the room
And as she walked up to the blackboard
I can still recall the words she had to say
She said, "I'd like to address this meeting of the Harper Valley PTA

Well, there's Bobby Taylor sittin' there
And seven times he's asked me for a date
And Mrs. Taylor sure seems to use a lotta ice
Whenever he's away
And Mr. Baker can you tell us why
Your secretary had to leave this town?
And shouldn't Widow Jones be told to keep
Her window shades all pulled completely down.

Well, Mr. Harper couldn't be here
'Cause he stayed too long at Kelly's Bar again
And if you smell Shirley Thompson's breath
You'll find she's had a little nip of gin
And then you have the nerve to tell me
You think that as the mother I'm not fit
Well, this is just a little Peyton Place
And you're all Harper Valley hypocrites"

No, I wouldn't put you on because it really did
It happened just this way
The day my mama socked it to the Harper Valley PTA
The day my mama socked it to the Harper Valley PTA

 

Writer: Tom T. Hall

Singer: Jeannie C. Riley

Copyright 1968, Unichappell Music Inc. o/b/o Morris Music Inc.

 

***

Harper Valley PTA was a major hit in 1968 for singer Jeannie C. Riley. Written by singer/songwriter Tom T. Hall, it ended up as Number One on both the Billboard Hot Country Singles and the Billboard Hot 100 (the pop music chart). It debuted at number 81 on the Billboard Hot 100; a week later it was at number 7, the fastest rise in the decade.

Lyrically and stylistically, the song was simple and plain, with a catchy tune and without any choruses. It proved such a hit for Riley that in future years she would sing it twice during her performances, first at the start of a show, telling her audience she knew why they were there, and then again at the end of the show. Her audiences loved it.

Harper Valley PTA told the tale of a teenaged girl who brought a note home from school to her widowed mother. The PTA was complaining that the mother was wearing skirts that were too short, drinking, and running wild in the streets with men. They demanded she mend her sinful ways. That didn’t work out too well, since she barged into the next PTA meeting and read them the riot act, telling them just how much she knew about the goings on of the members of the PTA Board. Her daughter watched it all and bragged about it in the final verse.

The sins the PTA complained about fell into two categories, explicit and implicit. The explicit sin was drinking, with Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. Taylor, Mister Harper, and Mrs. Thompson specifically named. The implicit sin involved sex, which was simply not something that could be mentioned in the 1960s. This was implied by Mrs. Johnson’s short skirts, Mister Baker’s old secretary having to move away suddenly (the implication being to either have a baby out of wedlock or to obtain an abortion), and the need for the Widow Jones to close her blinds. That sort of thing simply couldn’t be talked about in the 1960s except obliquely.

Several of the phrases and references in the song are somewhat dated and might not be familiar to anybody who grew up in later years. First, the home refrigerators common in the ‘60s were almost invariably single door models, with a very small freezer compartment. They didn’t have automatic icemakers and had barely enough freezer space for a pair of ice cube trays. If you were going to have a party or ‘entertain’ as Mrs. Taylor does, you’d have to go out and buy bags of ice.

Another phrase that might not be understood by modern audiences is the final line, about how ‘mama socked it to the Harper Valley PTA.’ It’s hardly used anymore, but ‘sock it to me’ was much more common in the late ‘60s. Most people heard it first on a very popular comedy variety show, Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, where it was one of the show’s catch phrases. Even Richard Nixon, then running for election as President, went on the show and asked, “Sock it to me?”

The final reference is to Peyton Place. Hardly remembered now, Peyton Place was a 1956 book and a 1957 movie and then was made into a primetime soap opera in 1964. The show ended in 1969, but by then it was code for small town hidden secrets.

Anyway, this is my interpretation of an old favorite. Enjoy!

Verse 1 - Family History

I wanna tell you all a story 'bout
A Harper Valley widowed wife
Who had a teenage daughter
Who attended Harper Valley Junior High
Well, her daughter came home one afternoon
And didn't even stop to play
And she said, "Mom, I got a note here from the Harper Valley PTA"

***

1968

“Mom! You’re home early,” said Christina Johnson.

Margaret ‘Maggie’ Johnson smiled as she came in the door. “Worried I might find you up to something?”

Chrissie laughed. “That’s it, Mom. The girls were about to come over and raid the liquor cabinet before we started doing drugs. I’ll have to call them now and make sure the guys don’t come over, too.”

Maggie laughed and looked in the kitchen cabinet that served as the liquor cabinet. “Well, you can cancel the girls, booze, and drugs, but don’t get too hasty about the boys. Maybe we can have some fun.”

“MOM!” protested Chrissie.

Maggie just laughed. “Mister Morton had court and Mister Jason was going out of town. They told me to take the afternoon off.” Maggie worked as a legal secretary for Carson and Carson, Attorneys at Law; Morton and Jason Carson were brothers. Around the office it was everybody’s habit to identify them as Mister Morton and Mister Jason.

“How was school?” asked Maggie. Her daughter was fifteen and in her final year at Harper Valley Junior High.

“It was okay,” Chrissie replied with a shrug. “Can I ask a question, Mom?”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“How old were you when you started dating?”

Maggie rolled her eyes and smiled. “Why?”

“Mom!”

Maggie simply snorted and sat down on the living room couch. She pointed to an armchair and said, “Have a seat.” Chrissie sat down and looked at her mother. “Dating, huh. I was probably around your age, fifteen or so. It depends, I guess, on how you define a date.”

Chrissie gave her mother a curious look. “I don’t understand.”

“Yeah, that can get a little complicated, just like everything else about dating and boys. If by dating, you mean two people boy-girl dating, then not for another year or so. Group dates, probably about fifteen.”

“Uh…”

Maggie nodded. “Okay, let’s take it from the start. I probably started looking at boys somewhere between thirteen and fourteen. I was in grade seven or eight, I guess. That was in the old school system.”

“The old school system? Not the school I’m in now?” Chrissie asked.

Maggie shook her head. “No. The old system had schools that dated back to World War One, maybe before. There was what we called grade school, which was grades one to five; middle school, which was six, seven, and eight; and high school, which was nine through twelve.”

“Oh, and I went to elementary school, one to six, junior high, which is seven to nine, and high school, which is next year, for ten to twelve.” Maggie nodded. “Why did they change?”

“The old schools were really old and falling down. The county decided to build new schools back in the Fifties. Anyway, I was in middle school, so I must have started noticing boys in grade seven or eight.”

“Noticing them? They weren’t around before?”

“They were around. I just didn’t notice they were different. Anyway, no way were your grandparents going to let me date boys when I was in middle school. That didn’t happen until I got to high school. They let me go on group dates when I was a freshman, your age now.”

Chrissie looked confused. “Freshman?”

“High school is supposed to be grades nine through twelve. Freshman, sophomore, junior, senior. Right now, you’re in the ninth grade, so you’re a freshman, but it doesn’t mean as much since you aren’t actually in high school. Next year, when you go to Harper Valley High, you’ll start there as a sophomore. Don’t worry, it will make more sense then.”

“Is that when you met Dad?”

Maggie smiled. “No, not then. I met him the summer between my sophomore and junior years. Before then, I simply went on group dates, you know, where a bunch of us girls would go to school games or dances and meet a bunch of guys. Your grandparents weren’t going to let me go on real dates until I was a junior, grade eleven.”

“What was Dad like.”

Maggie smiled. “He was just a dreamboat.” She grinned at her daughter. “I think you kids would say he was hot.”

“Oh, God! Gross, Mom, gross!”

Maggie laughed. “Hot and sexy!”

“MOM!”

Maggie just laughed, even as she remembered…

***

1950

“Hi,” said the tall guy.

“Hi,” said Maggie McSorley. She’d never seen the tall student before, but he was very big and very, very cute. “Are you new here?”

He nodded. “I just started here today. What’s your name?”

“Maggie. Maggie McSorley. Who are you? It’s late in the year.”

“I’m Tommy Johnson. We just moved here. Dad got a job, and we couldn’t wait until the end of the school year.”

Tommy Johnson was very easy for Maggie McSorley to talk to. He was so cute and dreamy she almost missed her first class, and she made him promise to meet at lunch. Then, after almost missing her first class after lunch, they met at the end of the day before Maggie had to get on her bus. By the end of the week, she was totally smitten with the boy.

That Friday, she asked her mother, “Mom, when did you start dating?”

“Meet somebody interesting?” Mary McSorley asked. She didn’t wait for her daughter to answer but replied, “Probably your age, sixteen or seventeen. Who is he?”

“He’s a new guy at school. His family just moved here from California and he’s a year ahead of me.”

“What’s his name?”

Maggie smiled and sighed. “Tommy Johnson.”

Mary rolled her eyes; her daughter had it bad. “Okay, time to remember what we talked about last year after you had to take Health class.” She motioned her daughter to sit down at the kitchen table with her.

***

1949

Maggie would remember Health class simply for the fact that it had been so confusing. None of her classmates had been any more understanding, and she had heard from some of them what the boys had been told.

The boys had been taught the class by one of the gym teachers, Coach Campbell. He had told them there were three rules:

1. A boy needed to maintain his purity, so that he would be able to ensure the safety of the young woman who would one day marry and bless him with children.
2. He should never ever commit the unpardonable sin of abuse because he needed all his vital bodily fluids to compete on the sports field. Abuse was not defined.
3. There were coin-operated vending machines for foil-wrapped rubbers in the men’s bathrooms at the Valley View Drive-In, the Esso truck stop south of town, and a variety of gas stations, bars, and restaurants.

The girls were taught by the school librarian, Miss Crumkin, a fifty-seven-year-old spinster who lived in a home she inherited from her parents and that she shared with three cats. She gave the girls several rules as well.

1. All men wanted it from women. What it was wasn’t specified, but all men wanted it.
2. Holding hands with a boy would lead to disease.
3. Kissing a boy would lead to pregnancy.
4. Worst of all, holding hands or kissing would result in the girl becoming a ‘loose’ or ‘fallen’ woman, something to be avoided at all costs.

That was the part that she understood the least. She had seen her mother and father holding hands and kissing many, many times. They frequently walked down the street holding hands, and she had seen her parents kissing, sometimes even in public, but Mary McSorley was not what anybody would call a loose, fallen woman! She was a good mother, a good wife, took her family to church every week, and volunteered with the school and church.

When Maggie explained all this to her mother, Mary sighed and shook her head. Health class was not going to teach her daughter about the birds and bees, so it would be up to her. She stood and grabbed a banana out of the fruit bowl on the kitchen counter and said, “Come on. We need to talk about this upstairs.”

Maggie followed her mother up the stairs and down the hall to her parents’ bedroom. Mary sat on the bed and patted the bed, “Sit here. We need to talk about sex.”

“Sex?” What was her mother talking about, and what was the banana for? Was her mother hungry? Maggie sat down next to Mary and heard the bedsprings squeak.

For the next forty-five minutes, Mary told her eldest daughter exactly how humans had sex and what was involved. She didn’t hide behind euphemisms or cute expressions but used real words for real body parts and real activities. Maggie couldn’t believe what she was hearing, and then it got stranger. Mary pulled open a drawer in her nightstand and reached inside. She came out with a small flat square. She tore it open and explained that inside was a condom, colloquially known as a rubber, that went on a man’s erect cock and kept a woman from getting pregnant. Then she took the banana and showed her daughter how a rubber went on it.

Mary teaching Maggie about rubbers

Afterwards, Maggie went to her own bedroom with an expression of shock. Mary peeled off the rubber and tossed it in the trash, and then peeled the banana and ate it. After that, she took another couple of foil packets and carried them over to Maggie’s bedroom and knocked on the door. Maggie opened the door to find her mother handing her the packets and telling her to put them in the bottom of her purse, ‘just in case.’

It took Maggie a few days to process what her mother had told her, but certain things suddenly became clearer. When she sat on her parents’ bed and then got up, she heard the bedsprings squeak. Later that night, after she went to bed, she heard those bedsprings squeaking rhythmically for almost half an hour. That was when she realized her parents were having sex, making love, or fucking, all expressions her mother had used. Then, over the next week she heard those bedsprings squeaking almost every night. Saturday, in fact, right after dinner her mother and father went upstairs, and she heard the bedsprings squeaking. Then her parents came back downstairs wearing their pajamas and robes. Later that night, when they went to bed, the bedsprings began squeaking a second time.

It really became obvious to her a few weeks later. Her parents had gone upstairs right after dinner and came down forty minutes later smiling and wearing their pajamas and robes. Her father sat in his favorite armchair and her mother sat on his lap, and they snuggled together. They watched television on the little black and white television and then sent Maggie’s sisters up to bed. From where they were sitting, they couldn’t see Maggie, but she could see what they were up to. First, they began kissing, and not just little pecks either. No, Mary and Sean McSorley were kissing with open mouths! Then Maggie watched as her father slipped a hand inside her mother’s robe and Mary moaned quietly. She slipped a hand into his robe, and he got a happy expression on his face. Their hands began moving and then they stopped. Maggie hid as her parents got to their feet and went up the stairs, with Sean rubbing Mary’s bottom through her robe and pajamas. Two minutes later, the bedsprings began squeaking again. That was also when Maggie began noticing that her father would often rub her mother’s bottom whenever he thought their daughters couldn’t see him.

Maggie spying on Mary and Sean

Obviously, her parents were having sex a lot more often than what the school seemed to think was appropriate! She began to wonder what it would be like. Still, Maggie was nervous, and she didn’t want to be considered a loose and fallen woman, whatever that was. She would wait until she met a nice boy and got married.

***

1950

Tommy Johnson drove any thought of waiting until marriage straight out of Maggie’s mind. When she was in school she wanted to be near him, when she was near him she wanted to be with him. He had an easy smile, a great sense of humor, and was simply gorgeous. A few days after they started talking, he touched her hand and she almost fainted. Then he actually held her hand and her heart felt it was going to explode. When he asked if she could go to the movies with him, she knew she’d do anything to go to the movies with him.

Her parents threw a bit of a cold blanket over the idea when she mentioned it to them. Both her mother and father said that before she could go out with a boy, they had to meet him. Maggie was told to bring Tommy to Sunday dinner. She protested but was told no Sunday dinner, no Saturday dates. Maggie told Tommy, who simply shrugged and smiled. He would be over on Sunday afternoon.

That first meeting went very well. Sean and Mary were impressed by the young man, who seemed smart and well behaved. He was perfectly charming and well mannered, and they agreed to allow Maggie to go to a sock hop after school on Friday. Then Tommy laughed and told Maggie that the following Sunday she would need to meet his folks, to see if she met their standards. Maggie’s mouth dropped in disbelief, but her parents laughed loudly.

It was the end of the school year, with Maggie finishing her sophomore year and Tommy finishing his junior year. It was too late to plan for the spring formal, but that didn’t bother either teen. Following the sock hop and meeting Tommy’s parents, the pair were inseparable. Just looking at Tommy made Maggie’s pulse race, and for the rest of the school year they went to any sock hop or dance or movie they could.

When school was over, the two teens planned to spend all their time together, though Tommy had found a part-time job working at the Esso gas station on Sussex Avenue. Still, one day Tommy called and asked Maggie on a picnic. Her sisters were at their grandparents’, so Maggie said yes, and began preparing a picnic basket. Tommy picked her up about eleven, driving an old pickup his father let him drive. Maggie climbed into the cab and set the basket on the floor, then moved across the seat to be closer to Tommy.

Tommy drove out of town and over to the back side of Fogarty Pond. Maggie didn’t know where they were going, but she trusted him with her life. He pulled off the road and drove down a side lane towards the water. Tommy parked and they got out. Maggie picked up her picnic basket and Tommy pulled an old blanket out from behind his seat, and a small cooler from the back of the truck. They went down to the water and Tommy laid the blanket out in a small grassy spot. He sat down and kicked off his shoes. Maggie sat next to him and kicked off her saddle shoes. Then they took off their socks and Maggie began sorting through the basket. She had packed a couple of sandwiches and some leftover fried chicken. Tommy opened the cooler and pulled out two bottles of Coca Cola.

Lunch was pleasant, but dessert was much, much better. After putting the remnants back in the basket, Maggie set the basket aside. Then, Tommy smiled at her and lay back on the blanket. He crooked a finger at Maggie, and she lay down next to him. He turned towards her and took her in his arms. She wasn’t exactly sure what would happen next, but it both scared her and excited her.

First, Tommy pulled Maggie closer and put his lips to hers. He had kissed her before, always to her delight, but this time seemed more serious. He opened his mouth on hers, and his tongue reached out to touch her lips. Maggie moaned at the touch, and as her lips opened, his tongue slipped inside, to duel with hers. His arms were around her back, and she moaned even more when his hands began roaming across her blouse. Maggie was wearing a white blouse and a bright blue calf-length poodle skirt. Tommy moved slowly, but deliberately. His fingers could feel Maggie’s bra beneath the fabric of her blouse, and it took all his willpower to refrain from tearing her clothing from her.

Instead, he continued kissing her lips, even as his hands moved around her back, and then lower, to caress her bottom through the fabric of her skirt. The sensations were almost too much for the teen. She pulled away and whimpered, then moaned, “Tommy, oh, Tommy!” Then she pushed her face against his again and resumed kissing him frantically.

Tommy couldn’t believe what he was sure was about to happen. A year older than Maggie, he had a little more experience with girls. Back in California he and his girlfriend had gotten almost as far as they could go. He had gotten some stinkfinger with Jenny, and Jenny had given him a blowjob, not once, but twice! He was sure they would have gone further, but the sudden move across the country had blown that all to hell. Still, it looked like Maggie McSorley was going to be the one, and she was absolutely gorgeous! Maggie had long golden-blonde hair, long legs, and the body of a movie star. She looked like Veronica Lake, only prettier.

Tommy kept kissing Maggie and then began kissing her neck. He slowly brought a hand around to the front of her blouse and popped a button, but as he did so, he kissed down her neck. A second button had him kissing lower, and a third had him licking and kissing her cleavage. Maggie couldn’t believe what she was feeling, it was nothing like she had ever felt before, not even that time she had spied on her parents in the living room. She was moaning and whimpering as her boyfriend drove her insane with…lust! That was what she felt, lust, and it was like nothing she had ever experienced.