Sunday, February 19, 2023

THE SOUND OF SILENCE

 "Since I was a very small child, I've had a kind of reverence

for the past, and I felt a very intimate connection with it."

Hilary Mantel

Our family's worn brown leather autograph book, slightly larger than a checkbook, now takes up space in a safety deposit box at the corner bank.  Ferrante and Teicher, a dynamic duo who played twin black polished Baby Grand Piano's, appeared at our local Jr. College one night. After the performance my mother took my hand and the brown autograph book with an ink pen back stage, where we stood in line to ask these men to sign their names in our book. One of them asked my name and I replied, Letty. He wrote To Leddy, Ferrante and then he passed the book over to be signed by Teicher. I didn't care how they spelled my name because their music made me feel happy inside.  Ferrante and Teicher

My father was a golf professional, and over the next few decades we collected the names of great golfers: Arnold Palmer, Patty Berg, Mickey Wright, and Jack Nicklaus. These names were mixed in with other musicians from stage and night clubs. I learned to play a Baby Grand piano but never advanced past the themes from Moon River and Exodus because I didn't like to practice indoors. Instead, I left the music behind and turned my energies to playing golf. Over the next twenty years I played golf in between finishing college degrees, marriage, and raising three children.

Andy Williams Sings Moon River 

Golf became my escape from the noise and demands in my life as a teacher, mother, and wife. Whenever, I could not relax I hummed a tune. Now I wonder whether it was golf or the melodies in my head that helped me escape the daily angst.

Sometimes, I imagine my father whirling my mother on the dance floor as the band plays Begin the Beguine, a tune that visits my soul often, making me smile as my body sways to the rhythm.

Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell Dance to Begin the Beguine

By my fifties and sixties with more time to be outside my internal music collection flowed  easily. Whatever test or challenge I put before myself I found that it was easier if I could sing a song. 

Theme from A Summer Place by Percy Faith 

Into my seventies I still seek the challenge of competitive golf. However, I do enjoy playing partner golf now. It seems only logical that the game becomes easier when two of us can take turns and carry each other through the tough shots and hazards, much like a marriage working hand and foot.

It should have been so easy, we could have won, we would have been a great team, but for the music. She asked, “What music do you want to listen to?” I shook my head sideways, “The sixties, I guess.” The latest trend in the golf world seems to be who can play the loudest music while playing golf. For several years, I have quietly gone along with the idea of listening to boom boxes blare, even though I cannot concentrate on my game, conversations, or music at the same time. 

You Were on My Mind by the We Five 

How many times can you answer a question, wrong? I didn’t realize that I needed quiet tunes without words.

The day came that I needed hearing aids. I knew for sure that my problems with golf, talk and music from a boom box would be solved, that I could hear and understand both noises and still play golf. I was wrong again.

On a cold bitter winter day I experienced an ‘epiphany.’

I do not need music and boom boxes on the golf courses, I can rely on my soul to provide that. If my golf partner asks me, “What music would you like to hear?” I can reply, “The Sound of Silence. Please, the instrumental version only, or perhaps the music of the birds nearby.” 

The Sound of Silence--18 String Harp Guitar 


**Thank you friends for your responses and suggestions. Here are some new websites that might interest readers:

88 Keys at 88 Bunkers at Southern Hills  A beautiful match up of piano keys and golf. What could be better

Barron Ryan from Tulsa, Ok.

Edgar Cruz Solo Guitar

Saturday, February 11, 2023

It's Only Funny Now

One day in late January I lost my car key (FOB; REMOTE KEY; KEYLESS ENTRY; the thing that opens the door).  My mind raced back and forth to everything I had done and everywhere I had been the last two days.  “The thing has to be here in the house. How else could I have driven home?” I begged Jack for an answer. He stood bewildered with his head shaking side to side.

Meet Helen Reddy

Over the next few days we turned the furniture upside down, checked every pair of jeans we ever wore, searched every coat pocket even if we didn’t use the coat, vexation does that to me. I become frantic, thinking I’m losing my mind.

On a warm sunny day I searched the backyard grumbling and kicking sticks. I continued to use Jack’s key, and kept my eyes peeled for wherever I might have dropped the fob.

FOB is the correct usage. 

One day, out of nowhere, Jack met me in the hallway with matching keys, one in one hand and the other in the other hand. “Look what I found in my coat pocket. I must have picked up your key and then later picked up my key.”

“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Now I won’t worry about my brain,” I smiled with relief.

Not a month, not a week, but two days later Jack could not find his car key fob to my car, Helen Reddy. “No,” I sputtered not angrily but bewildered, “You stood in that hallway not two days ago with two keys in your hands. How could one have disappeared?”

I grabbed my purse. There in the side pocket I felt my fob. "At least we have one," I spouted.  

Immediately, we retraced every step we could imagine. No (expletive) fob.

Days began to pass and we continually, like we had the previous weeks, looked, searched, and dug through drawers in vain.



The next day we were all three awake before sunrise, but two of us sat and thought about nothing much, while Murphy having been inside during two rainy days was ready to run. The sun began to warm the east side of our house and rainbow prisms appeared on one wall. Spring was returning.

“Let’s go to Press and Plow for breakfast,” Jack suggested.

“Yes, and let’s take Murphy with us so we can go to Ruby Grant Park and let him run in the mud.”

“Are you sure you want a dirty dog?” Jack inquired.

I could only laugh. “If we don’t bundle up and take him to the park after breakfast then we will get nothing done today except play with Murphy.” Jack laughed and we headed to the car without a key! No FOB key! How can that be?

I realized at last that Jack and I were suffering from ‘the gray sickness.’ I had heard women at the Miami Country club refer to ‘the gray sickness’ when they lost something, which seemed fairly common in my young mind. I would certainly never suffer from that disease.

We stood in sad silence. Frantically, we began to reach into pockets, scatter the items on the counter top, and I dug through my purse. “Ha. Found it in a different pocket. Let’s go before we misplace this one again.”

I ate my entire croissant stuffed with crispy thick bacon and scrambled eggs, with a side of avocado and tomatoes, while Jack only ate his eggs and half of a pancake. We sipped on hot tea and coffee letting the sun warm the air. Relaxed, how sweet.

Our romp at the park refreshed us. Thirty-seven degrees in the morning sun and light wind from the southwest worked magic on our souls.

Home by 10:00 and ready for the day. First, clean mud foot Murphy before entering the house, which I did, but Jack began to look through his tool chest. I understood. He was looking for the key fob.

With Murphy cleaner we once again searched the car and everything cubby and bag in it. We were on a mission, either locate the black fob or drive to the dealership and purchase two more keys if not three.

By 12:30 no cotton-pickin’ ear-scratching fob had appeared. We were truly distraught.


Later, I took a bag of 50+ pencils and pens 
(found during the cleaning of drawers) to be donated to Bridges and placed them in the front car seat. I memorized the code to get in, just in case I do something stupid! I stood beside Helen Reddy and said out loud, “Please tell me where the key is?”

Nothing.

Jack’s heavy coat, thick enough to walk a dog in an Arctic blast, lay on the car hood. As I picked up the coat to go in the house, Helen Reddy whispered, “Unlock me.”

I threw the coat on the workbench, walked back and locked the car. Picking up the heavy black coat I walked back over to the car, placed my hand on the car door and like magic it unlocked.

Rushing through the house I nearly fell on Jack as I threw the coat at him and said, “Find hidden key in there.” Buried deep in small side pocket a black fob appeared. No words were exchanged about how many times we had searched our coat pockets.

By 12:40, we held two car keys. Mine now is on a key chain. We laughed and sighed in relief. It looks like we will have to learn how to live with “the gray sickness.”

 

*The ‘gray sickness’ is a memory I have from my summers working at the Miami Country Club. Several of the women suffered from the ‘gray sickness’ when they would misplace  billfolds, house keys, cash, a blouse they should be wearing in the clubhouse over their bra tops, and more. I vowed at age fifteen I would certainly never suffer from that disease. In the midst of our angst over the lost fob I remembered that Rose Pratt named it the ‘gray sickness’ that comes when a person’s hair coloring matches it. Others who experienced the same disease were Lois Garwood, Gladys Wetzel, Lib Lillard, and Helen Stapp, who was a blonde.

**Doggone FOB. After I wrote the first draft it occurred to me that I could not use the word KEY and have the story make sense. Any reader would say, “Go to the nearest box store and have several copies made of the master car key.” I wish I could. I realized that I had a problem as did the story. Will it change my word usage from car key to FOB, I don’t know.

***Writing the story using the incorrect vocabulary can prove embarrassingly humorous.  In an earlier story used a word incorrectly: When we ran down the streets our thongs would sometimes fall of us or cause us to fall on the asphalt. Depending on the age of the reader this may or may not make sense. (Thank you for laughing and correcting my language, Dede Tebeck Sparkman, RIP)