|
My favorite movies were Westerns. My favorite radio program was
The Lone Ranger.
If I listened to music, it was Country/Western.
A music teacher came to Mound school once a week. She led
“teaching games” in Music Appreciation. I didn’t realize the thrilling
theme music for The Lone Ranger
was Rossini’s William Tell Overture
or the music that called up pictures of dust clouds around horse’s hoofs
was from Liszt’s Les Preludes. The
teacher brought recordings of music by Bach, Beethoven and Brahms (The
Three “B’s). She used games as a way to help us identify and remember
what we were hearing. Maybe she sensed our boredom, because one
day she led a game on contemporary music. We were supposed to think of
titles of songs having to do with seasons, children, flowers, etc. When
the music teacher announced the subject, “trains,” I spouted off, “Wabash
Cannon Ball,”
and heard giggles and titters as a response. Joann gave the
correct answer, “Chattanooga Choo Choo.”
Joann knew the latest songs because her sister, Doris, was in
high school and could play them on piano. I began listening to
Your Hit Parade on radio and bought
the magazine with all of the printed words to the songs. It didn’t take
long to find the words to Chattanooga Choo Choo.
People listened to the radio in those days the way people watch TV
now. I don’t remember which night
Your Hit Parade came on.
I couldn’t wait to get home from school to listen to
The Lone Ranger.
Joann told me about
Lum and Abner, and I became a devoted
follower of that program. On Sunday evenings many families gathered
around the radio to listen to their favorite programs. My dad had some
hearing loss, so he usually read the newspaper or calculated lumber
estimates while my mother and I listened. That is what we were doing on
Sunday evening, December 7 when all programs were interrupted for
President Roosevelt’s announcement of the attack on Pearl Harbor. We
turned up the volume so my dad could hear. A few weeks later my brother,
Ben, was sent to New Guinea.
Our school music teacher also planned the Christmas program. She
decided Joann and I had voices that blended and we could sing a song in
the program. We began our practice on the way home on our bicycles. As
we sang, Joann found places I sang do re
when it should have been re do.
The school was filled to overflowing with families and neighbors
the night of the Christmas program. People were sitting in the entrance
where we hung our coats and our tin drinking cups. Besides singing the
song with Joann, I had a lead role with Claudie in the play.
Claudie, Joann, Lois (a girl who had started first grade at the
same time as Joann), Kenneth (who had a brother and sister in the
school), Lloyd and I were in the sixth grade. Six of us. We were the
largest class. One day when we were reading our history lesson, the
name, Juan Ponce de Leon, struck me as having a wonderful meter. I had
written poetry in third grade in the other school and that teacher had
sent one of my poems to Wee Wisdom Magazine. I put the story of Ponce de Leon’s discovery of the “Fountain of Youth”
into a poem and turned it in with my lesson. The teacher read it for all
to hear and I became the school poet.
The study of poetry came up in our Language class. The poem Joann
wrote for that assignment was better than any poem I had ever written. I
was proud and happy.
|
When Dusty Baker managed the Chicago Cubs
in 2003, he had Slammin’ Sammy Sosa bat 3rd and the dependable hitter,
Moises Alou bat 4th (cleanup). The strategy did a lot toward getting the
Cubs in the playoffs. Had Sammy batted 4th, the opposing pitcher would
have walked him any time there were men on base. Batting 3rd, Sammy
still got his share of walks, but his hitting seemed to improve. He
still hit home runs, but he also got more base hits. The pitchers soon
recognized that Moises, a good hitter, was a better hitter with men on
base. It didn’t work out to walk Sammy to get to Moises. Sometimes I
watched and wondered if Sammy’s own home runs made him any happier than
to score on Moises’ homer, then wait at home plate to greet Moises as he
came around to score. |
When Joann’s mom and dad took her to movies, I was invited to go
with them. My mother always sent me with money to pay my way, but I
never did. After the movie, Joann’s dad would suggest we go for ice
cream. My mother intended for me to pay for that, too. But I couldn’t do
it. I remember the uneasy feeling as I carried that money back home in
my purse. But I was Joann’s friend. For my 11th birthday she
gave me a framed poem by an anonymous writer. Except for my years in a
dorm room, it has hung on a wall wherever I have lived in all the years
since.
|
