I sat there and tried not to let the tears flow. I really did try…but in the end I lost the battle…again.
Bing Crosby put me over the edge.
On a Sunday afternoon while home with my husband and son, I
had the urge to watch a movie from my childhood. I wasn’t born until the mid
1970s but I grew up on black and white musicals from the 1940s and 1950s that
television would broadcast on Saturday and Sunday afternoons much to my parents
liking. That, for us, was family time. Stars such as Jane Powell, Fred Astaire
and Mario Lanza would come thru the speaker of our 1960s Sears floor model
television while I lay on my stomach watching intently.
Was this what people did in real life? Walk around and burst
into song? They did it so, naturally, I followed suit. The hallways of school,
the grocery store, dancing down the street: there wasn’t a place I could hide
my excitement for life. I was like a human
version of Linda on Bob’s Burgers. At least, that’s what my family says.
It’s true.
I can remember Debbie Reynolds telling (or singing) to Gene
Kelly “Here we are: Sunset and Camden!” during Singin’ in the Rain. Now, being
46, I arrive at a destination to drop someone off I will sing the same thing.
There’s not a lamppost I haven’t hung off of or a park bench I haven’t tapped
my feet under as I sit. It was all so REAL growing up, I have made it part of
my life…part of me.
Sometimes it embarrasses my husband or my son. They have
become pretty used to it and have ignored my theatrics for the most part. There
are those times though. There are things they just don’t understand. Once I am
able to tell them why I do the things I do, they are able to see me in a
totally different way and I think I come off as not so crazy once they do.
While sitting on the couch watching “Going My Way” starring
Bing Crosby I knew the part was coming up. I certainly tried to hold myself
together but the dam burst and there I was wiping away the tears on my shirt
sleeve.
Elder Father Fitzgibbon (Barry Fitzgerald) had come in out
of the rain late one night and was put straight to bed by house keeper Mrs.
Carmody (EIly Malyon) and Father Chuck O’Malley (Bing Crosby). The subject came
up where Father Fitzgibbon had not been home to Ireland in 45 years. He missed
his 90 year old mother. He always said he would go home if the church’s
problems were solved and there was someone there to take care of things while
he went for a visit. To fight off a bit of chill, Father Fitzgibbon mentioned
that hidden in the bookcase was a music box that held a decanter of whisky and
two shot glasses. When the case was opened the old Irish tune of “Too Ra Loo Ra
Loo Ra” began to play and made Father Fitzgibbons think of home. After a quick
drink, Father O’ Malley sings the elderly priest (almost) to sleep while
singing along with the music box.
It’s at this point of the movie my husband and son look at
me like I’m completely nuts. What on earth could possibly make me bawl? It
wasn’t like we were all watching Marley and Me all over again.
When the movie was over and I could breathe through my nose
again, I said to them there was a reason I was crying. I explained the vivid
memories of when I was a little girl.
There wasn’t a song my father couldn’t sing or whistle for
that matter. Hearing my father’s voice boom throughout the house with a song
from Bing Crosby or Perry Como was a normal thing on a weekend. My mother would
play the records while she cleaned and my father would sing along. His voice
was truly amazing. He sounded just like the records and the men in the movies I
had watched over and over. Sometimes he would sweep my mother off her feet and
dance her around whatever room they were in and sing at the top of his lungs.
It was like watching “The King & I” on a Broadway stage right in our very
own living room.
Back in 1974, the year I was born, Hoffman Distillery
bottled their whisky in decanters shaped like leprechauns. The alcohol would come
out of their hats and they had a music box attached to the bottom. My parents
owned two of them. One of the played “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” and the
other “Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ra”. Being little and loving music, I would ask for
them to play the music box of the latter. My father would sing along to that
music box and, to this day, I can still hear his voice: Strong, deep and
gentle. Bing Crosby had nothing on my dad.
Emphysema and COPD has silenced that beautiful singing
voice. 65 years of smoking can do that to a person. He stopped smoking cold
turkey six years ago after a heart attack scare. Doctors say he is with us now
because he let go of that nasty vice. My mother followed suit a few years
later. Each year, each DAY for that matter, that passes is another moment with
them. I am so grateful.
My husband and son now know another little piece of why I am
the way I am and do the things I do. If you see me in the grocery store dancing
with my shopping cart or if I suddenly start singing my answers to your
questions, you’ll now understand why.
It’s just me being me and thinking about my dad when he sang.
