Family
Daddy Sang the Love Songs
When I was a baby, plagued by colic, for some reason they discovered there was
comfort for me in my Daddy’s young hairy chest, and he would lie down on the bed, with me there, on his chest, place his foot against the footboard, and sway the bed to comfort me. He told me many times he fell asleep and would wake up still rocking the bed by his foot on the footboard.
Since I was supposed to be a boy, the best I could manage was to be a “tom” boy.
So I tracked along anywhere he would let me go - fishing, hunting, working on the
car, mowing the lawn. I loved it all, and while we were on the way, in the car, we
sang a lot. There were a lot of good songs in the 30s and 40s and we did them all.
I never even thought about the fact that we were singing love songs. They were
just some that we liked.
In my baby days, Daddy and Mother would take me and a stick of dentine chewing
gum to the movies. Ten cents! I was quiet and good when I could taste that
dentine chewing gum every little bit. Whatever the theme song was, by the time
we got home, Mother would touch the piano keys and play the song while Daddy
sang it. All that came early to me and to two sisters later on.
I learned to bait my own hook, shoot my own gun, and when the day came for
me to purchase a car my Daddy found a pretty good body and a pretty good motor,
and required my help putting the motor in the car! It was an old “streamlined”
Pontiac with leopard interior and Indian red two tone paint. A stick shift. I will admit, most of what I did was hand him the tools, but I learned a little.
But from the infant colic days till I was all grown up, the music went on and as
far as I was concerned, Bing couldn’t hold a candle to my Dad. We sang “Goldmine In The Sky”, “Old Buttermilk Sky”, “Far Away Places”, “Memories”,
“The Last Mile Home”, “Always”, “Sweetheart of Sigma Chi”, “My Happiness”
“Near You”, “Cruising Down the River”, “That Old Gang of Mine”, “Five and
Ten Cent Store”, “Mexicali Rose”, Melancholy Baby”, “Shanty In Old Shanty
Town”, “I Love You, Truly”, “Tea for Two”, “Blue Room”. “Blue Moon”,
“Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree”, “White Cliffs of Dover”, - it would take
an encyclopedia to hold them all! On one trip in the car when I was in my forties,
Daddy, Mother and I sang a good 3 hours together, never stopping, never repeating a single song. And then there were the hymns - all the standards, plus many more, and we sang them all over and over again.
Daddy said he knew he wanted to marry Mother when he was 15 years old. He lived with his grandparents, and that year he went to California to lay steel. He was small -98 lbs, 5'10", but the work that summer and a growing spurt brought him home at 160 lbs , 5'11". While he was working the he wrote the words to a popular song off in a letter to Mother, “How Deep Is The Ocean”.
“How much do I love you?
I’ll tell you no lie....How deep is the Ocean, How high is the sky?
How many times a day do I think of you?
How many roses are sprinkled with dew?
How far would I journey, to be where you are?
How far is a journey, from here to a star?
And if I ever lost you, how much would I cry?
How deep is the ocean?
How high is the sky?”
Daddy wasn’t sexy...he was romantic, and all my parents lives it was that way.
When they were 75, Mother told me he would want her to lay her head on his
arm and he would pat her shoulder and say, “Mama, you’re so pretty!”
In the last month of his life, he was in his chair, dreaming of his yesterdays... reminiscing old times....hating to leave us. This time he was recalling the fishing
trips we had taken together. He said, “ I guess I won’t do that again....but...
I can dream, can’t I?”
I looked at him a minute and then sang softly , “I can see....” (He joined me then)
“no matter how near you be.....you’ll never belong to me....but I Can Dream, Can’t
I....Can’t I pretend that I’m locked in the bend of your embrace....for dreams are
just like wine, and I am drunk with mine.....I’m aware, my heart is a sad affair, there’s much dissolution there, but I can dream can’t I? Can’t I .. adore you...
Although we are oceans apart...I can’t make you open your heart....but I Can Dream, Can’t I”? A very romantic song...a little complicated...he sang every word.
It was our last song together.
He left us in Feb. 1995. Eight years ago, and I’d still like to say Happy Father’s Day. Eight years, and I’d like to ask, “Am I doing alright?”
He was so young when I was born - only 18. Not having a family, he married
Mother and made his own home.
One day when he was nearing the end, my husband came to his bed and said,
“Dale, I’ll make a deal with you - if I get to Heaven first, I’ll wait at the gate and
watch for you....if you get there first, will you wait for me too?” Daddy ( a very
conservative man) raised his trembling arm up in the air and raised his chin, to
affirm the deal.
Daddy was a good man. I will always, always, miss him.
Joan Clifton Costner
COPYRIGHT
http://underhiswings0.tripod.com
Ref. poems:
“When A Good Man Dies”
“The Departure”
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