Even though we divide our months into neat squares of days, I think of time as circular. Like a roulette wheel, the calendar of my life spins round and round and halts in my memory at significant blocks of my existence. Many of them, such as Christmas, Thanksgiving or July 4, are repetitive, yet different in the details.
When I spun my internal wheel the pointer stopped at the trunk in my mental attic that’s labeled “May.” I rummaged through a deep stack of memories about the 500 Mile Race that used to be run on Memorial Day Monday, rather than Sunday.
I envied my friend, Wanda, because her family went to the race. I sat at our round dining room table and listened to it on the radio. In my mind’s ear I still hear faintly roar of the cars, the playing of “Taps” and the commercials: “R C Cola hits the spot! Twelve full ounces, that’s a lot!” The Stark & Wetzel commercial was introduced with a whistle — “whoo, whoo, whee, whoo.”
There was this cheery little ditty for laundry soap, “Rinso White, Rinso Bright — Sing a little washday tune!” Yes indeedy. Women were so happy doing the washing in their wringer washers and then hanging it outdoors to dry even on cold days that they just sang and sang!
In those days before I-70, people who lived on Main Street (Road 40) in Knightstown sat on their front porches watching the traffic of those heading to the race. Sound hokey, doesn’t it? — as if they had nothing else to do. Actually, they didn’t have much else to do in that era before television, computers, fancy telephones, social media and shopping malls. Also, the stores and bars were closed.
Bill’s family came several times to spend the weekend of qualifications with us. “Clarke parties,” as Vicki called them, were great fun. Children could stay up as late as they wanted since smutty language was forbidden. People slept on the floor all over our house. I fried chicken; everyone brought coolers of drinks and food; and on Saturday morning a caravan of us set off for a day at the track. Eventually Bill’s sister, Pat, and I stayed home. We put on our bathing suits, sat in the sun and drank margaritas rather than going to the track.
The Clarkes loved to sing. In the evening, until the wee hours of the morning, they sang the songs of the American Songbook and the favorite songs of each generation. Bill’s brother, Rick, loved “I’ve got a girl, just like the girl who married dear old Dad.” His wife, Esther, would start the group off on “Grandma’s Lye Soap” or a Michigander song, “Johnny Brubeck,” about a little Dutchman who ground the neighbor’s cats and dogs into sausages and spec. We sang the songs of the next generation: “Where have all the flowers gone?” and “The Mashed Potato.”
We sang the English music hall songs that Bill’s English father taught them. “Henry the Eighth I am, Henry the Eighth I am, I am.” One was about a drunk who couldn’t find his house. When the evening grew late Bill’s brother, Jack, would start, “Ah’ve got a loverly bunch of coconuts” and we’d form a Congo line and snake through the house.
A few days ago, Bill’s niece, Lynn and I fell to reminiscing, and she e-mailed some pictures. One night at our Ritter Ave. house, Bill and his nieces and nephews formed a group called the “Do-wahs” and used spoons and a potato masher as their microphones. Bill and I were trying to fall asleep under the dining room table when his nieces and nephews decided to have a dance contest. We were supposed to be the judges. Tom and Mary Jo waltzed in. “Wake up you guys. How would you rate us?”
Several of the beloved voices have been silenced, but I hear them still . . . wclarke@comcast.net