Senior Daze

by Katie Bourg

About Katie: Having arrived in time for the Great (?) Depression, WWII, and all other 20th century problems, I am endowed with long and varied memories. Writing classes have long been my home away from home. Other people's stories are fascinating, and sharing is growth at its best. Hope you seniors will join me with your stories. Try it. You'll like it.

Sometimes life seems a little like a well-worn garment that is still a favorite. Something triggers a thought long forgotten, and you must feel it between your fingers again. A thread. Maybe two or more. Different colors, different feel. Someone says something, does something, and there's that thread between two pieces of your skin.

I had two such threads in the last few hours. A friend from first grade called to say she had just cut her lawn, after a winter of aches and pains. She's up and at it again. Of course, she's younger than I am, by about four months.

It happened again today when I went singing, as I do every Tuesday and Thursday. I like old songs, and I like watching the faces of people we sing to. We communicate times and places where we never met before, but had the same experiences. This time someone spoke up and asked for a song. And there I was--back in that big living room, winding up an old Victrola. The one with the white dog looking into the golden horn. Head cocked listening for 'His Master's Voice.' That's what was printed right under the dog.

The thread: "Deep In The Heart Of Texas." We sang it with considerable gusto, and then we sang it a second time. Smiles on the faces in front of us were spreading wider with every word, and they sang with us. And when it was over, I couldn't help myself. I needed to tell them about my thread.

It was the mid-1940s. There were sad songs about longing for boys to come home safe. Others were peppy to keep spirits up in the middle of a nasty war. Sometimes Tin Pan Alley gave us silly songs, to keep our minds off our own worries. "Texas" was one of those.

My girlfriends gathered in our living room frequently because my father had found an old Victrola, and I spent my allowance on records--more than he approved of. But it kept us busy after school. My friend Marie was always there. We liked to move around a lot, dancing from room to room. Marie was normally a quiet girl until the music started. But she would forget that when the music was loud and fast. She danced from the living room to the dining room and back with much bouncing and twirling, causing some of us to duck and dodge on occasion. She swung into the middle of the carpet and backed into the couch, where we had laid a stack of 78s to be played next. She lost her balance and sat down hard on "Deep in the Heart of Texas." We all heard the crack, knew it was lost, and we rushed to mourn the destruction.

Oddly enough, "Texas" was still intact. Most of it, anyway. Right near the middle where the song would end, we saw the crack. I picked it up, and it didn't fall to pieces. I carried it to the machine, put it on the platter, and dropped the needle into the outer grove. We all relaxed, as it played almost to the end, where the needle found the hairline crack. And then it played 'Deep in the Heart of -Heart of-Heart of-Heart of-Heart of--."

A favorite, we couldn't throw it away, but used it over and over. Marie was teased with no mercy. She was a little touchy about the whole thing, but she still liked to dance, and chose not to leave us. Now she remembers no one...not even her daughters.

Come May, I will call and ask them to give her a kiss, and tell her I said "Happy Birthday." It will mean nothing to her. But it will to me, as does the thread that still sticks to my fingers.