The Prettiest Girl in the World

It was the middle of winter in 1923, and Daddy was snowbound in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. He'd gone there to help one of the new salesmen on his team. They'd eaten dinner in a local diner and then had the whole evening before them. Daddy saw a notice for a dance at the Methodist Church. Being a preacher's kid, he knew there were always pretty girls at Church dances. He and his friend went, and sure enough, there they were--lots of pretty girls.

     As soon as he'd hung up his coat and hat, Daddy saw a girl and then had eyes for no other. Her dark hair was piled softly around her face. Her eyes sparkled, full of life. She was, without a doubt, the prettiest girl in the room, and he wasted no time asking her for a dance.

     "What's your name?" he asked.

     "Marguerite," she said, "but my friends call me Margie."

     Daddy stopped dancing and walked her to the orchestra. He made one request. "Can you play the song Margie?" They could.

     He danced with her as often as he could, but she was popular, and there were other young men waiting for their turn. Finally, he asked to take her home and she agreed.

     Mother told me he put her galoshes on her feet. He helped her with her coat and hat and they joined mother's friend Genevieve and her beaux. (Mother was rooming at Genevieve's home.) It was cold and the snow deep, but daddy said he never enjoyed a walk more in his life. They walked slowly for daddy knew when they got to Genevieve's home he'd had to let mother go. On the porch he asked mother to remove her hat so he could kiss her goodnight. But she was not an easy catch and refused.

     Daddy immediately began to figure out ways to court her. And it wasn't easy. He had a sales territory to cover and she spent her weekends with her parents on the farm. When daddy visited, he brought a box of candy for grandma who sat in the living room with them hinting that it was getting late and didn't he think he should go home. Finally, Carl (mother's older brother) came to the rescue. He and mother slipped out through a bedroom window. They couldn't start the car until they were some distance away for fear of getting caught. Carl pushed and mother steered until it was safe. Then Carl drove to town and picked up daddy. The three of them went to a variety of dances (all the churches had their social calendars) and had coffee and donuts in the diner. And then one night, grandpa caught them as they were climbing back in the window. Grandpa was a tiny fellow, half the size of Carl, but nevertheless he whipped Carl with a belt (and Carl let him). That was the end of their escapades. If daddy wanted to see mother, he came to the farm and sat through the hour of grandma's scrutiny.

     Daddy proposed and mother accepted. The only problem was that the ring he gave her had a large diamond, too big for this shy girl. And he was a traveling salesman. Mother was sure people would talk. So he returned the ring and found a beautiful setting with a more appropriate diamond. They were married in June.

     Daddy never tired of telling the story. One afternoon in 1988, while mother and I were visiting daddy in the nursing home, he raised his glass of wine, looked at mother and said, "I've known many girls, kissed a few, loved but one, here's to you." Sixty-three years and despite all the lumps and bumps of married life, his affection had not dimmed. He still claimed to anyone who would listen that he had married the prettiest girl in the world.



Road Trip Songs

     I took a road trip last weekend. Went to Portland (Wilsonville really, but who's heard of Wilsonville?) to visit dear friends Cynthia and Laurie Whitcomb (and Laurie's little 20-month old Binny). My friend Jeanne Barker is taking a 10-session class in screen writing from Cynthia. Jeanne was delighted to have company for the 3+hour drive, and I got to be a passenger. As we rode along, we talked. When I was a girl, we sang.
     People didn't travel much when I was young. They had little reason. Most had families nearby. There was no Disneyland. No Branson, MO. Vacations were spent at home, fixing the house, taking day trips to the beach, or just lying around in the shade. But we had a new house that needed little fixing, lived at the lake, and Daddy was never one to lay about. So we did road trips.
     My sister Mary Ann and I had the backseat. Mother and Daddy in front. About an hour into the trip (before the "are we almost there" began), Mary Ann and I started the sibling thing. "She's got her foot on my side." "She's looking out my window." Daddy once tried piling the luggage between us. Didn't help. And so we sang, and the squabbling ended. I don't recall if Mother sang. She might have, but Daddy was the star.
     In his high quavering tenor he always began (in a German accent): "Oh, Dunderbach, oh Dunderbach, how could you be so mean. To ever haf invented that wonderful machine. Where dogs and cats and mice and rats would never more be seen. They'd all be ground to sausage meat in Dunderbach's machine.
     "One day there something happened, and the machine she would not go. So Dunderbach, he climbed inside, the reason for to know. His wife was having nightmares and was walking in her sleep. She gave the crank an awful yank, and Dunderbach was meat."
     I'm sure Mother shuddered. Not Mary Ann, nor I. We begged for more, and Daddy was delighted. He sang college songs, drawing-room melodies, songs he'd learned as a boy. One of his favorites was: "One evening when the sun went down and the jungle fires were burning. Down the tracks came a hobo hiking and he said, 'Boys, I am yearning. I'm heading for a land that's far away beside the crystal fountains, so come with me and we'll all go see the Big Rock Candy Mountains. In the Big Rock Candy Mountains there's a land that's fair and bright. Where the handouts grow on bushes and you sleep out every night. Where the boxcars all are empty and the sun shines every day, on the birds and the bees, and the cigarette trees, on the lemonade springs where the blue birds sing, in the Big Rock Candy Mountains.
     "In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, all the cops have wooden legs. The bulldogs all have rubber teeth and the hens lay soft boiled eggs. Where the brakemen have to tip their hats, and the railroad bulls are blind. Oh I want to go where there ain't no snow, where the rain don't rainy and the wind don't blow in the Big Rock Candy Mountains. In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, you never change your socks. And the little streams of alcohol come atrickling down the rocks. Where the farmer's trees are full of fruit and the barns are full of hay. There's a lake of stew and a gin late too, you can paddle all around it in a big canoe, in the Big Rock Candy Moutains." There were more verses, and we sang them all.
     Another favorite was Abdul Abulbul Ameer. Thirteen verses! He sang them all. "The sons of the prophet  were brave men and bold and quite unaccustomed to fear. But the bravest by far in the ranks of the shah was Abdul Abulbul Ameer. The heroes were plenty and well known to fame in the troops that were led by the Czar. But the bravest of these was a man by the name of Ivan Skavinski Skivar."
     The last two verses left us in tears.  "A tomb rises up where the blue Danube rolls, engraved there in characters clear. Oh, Stranger, in passing please pray for the soul of Abdul Abulbul Ameer. And a Muscovite maiden, her lone vigil keeps neath the light of a pale Polar star, and the name that she murmurs so soft as she weeks, is Ivan Skavinski Skivar."
      We sang songs of the Victorian era. Our favorite was Daddy's version of After the Ball is Over. "After the ball was over, Katie took out her glass eye. Put her false teeth on the mantel, hung up her wig to dry. Put her peg leg in the corner, took off her bustle and all. Not much was left of Katie, after the ball."
     A Bicycle Built for Two gave Mary Ann and me the chance to try something new. On one of the trips, it began to rain. Don't know who thought of it first, but Mary Ann and I began. As the windshield wiper touched one side, we sang one word, "Daisy." When it touched the other, we sang another, "Daisy." It sounded like this: "Daisy...Daisy...give...me...your...answer...do..."
     Mother interrupted. "What are you girls doing?" We told them to guess, but they gave up immediately. Try it. It's harder than you think. Kept us occupied for hours. Drove our parents crazy.
     Another singing game Mary Ann and I played was on the count of three we each started a song. Our challenge was to sing our song all the way through in time and on key (in the style of Charles Ives). Once we started with the same song and dissolved into giggles.
     Mary Ann and I sang while we did the dishes. You can't argue while you're singing. We took turns with the alto parts. Can't remember the title or composer, but have never forgotten this one. "I heard a bird at break of day, sing from the autumn trees, a song so mystical and calm, so full of certainties. No man I think could listen long, except upon his knees. Yet this was but a simple bird, alone, among dead trees." Still brings tears to my eyes.
     With Daddy we sang love songs (Bendemeer Stream, Danny Boy), sentimental songs (My Ole Kentucky Home, Beautiful Ohio), silly songs (My Old Shanghai Rooster, St. Olaf Fight Song with a Norwegian accent). Our most vigorous singing was on a return trip from camping at Rice Lake, Wisconsin. A fire had started deep in the woods and by the time we packed and left, it was blazing. We had no choice but to drive through on a narrow dirt road. I remember Daddy's back hunched over the steering wheel, my mother's handkerchief clenched in her fist. At one point I looked out the back window and saw a tall pine tree flare up in seconds. Daddy had us sing every song we knew, all the verses. Our car was covered in ashes, our faces too, but we were safe. I smile when I think of how I knew Daddy would never let anything bad happen to us.
     I'm sure you have your own songs. So, with your loved ones and friends, find any excuse, and sing.