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.