Words and Music

I worked in the mess hall, but I got injured while delivering a cup o' Joe, as we called in them days, to General Lucius Clay. The danged driver let the clutch pop and the Jeep ran over my foot.

I'd seen that General Clay any number of times and was most impressed. Did you know he was the durect descendant of ole Henry Clay, the man who said he'd rather be goldanged right then president. Now there's a man who shoulda been president instead of that danged old Eisenhower. The General, not Henry.

I seen Ike, as we called him, numerous times too, always pouring sugar and creamer in his Joe. Never trusted a man who used both.

Anyway, my foot was getting better and I decided to get out of the house. Ma, God rest her soul, was always telling me go rake this, go pick this and go milk that and she was getting on my nerves, although it warn't her fault. She missed Pa since his tractor rolled in '39. He was drunk acourse, but we all missed him all the same.

I was going to the Strand and figured I'd call my old buddy Bob Eshbach about going. Well, his sister CeeCee was home from college (not many women went then, no need for more educated fools in the world) and we got chatting and I asked her out despite the fact she musta had a real bad cold because her voice all husky.

I picked her up in the Model A I'd bought for $5. She looked elegant in her green and orange komono, covering her kabukied up white-as-snow face with that little pink fan, a' batting her eyes at me.

I was enamoured and said the first word that came to my mind: "Golly." I was going to follow up with "Am I mistaken, CeeCee, but have you grown about seven inches and beefed up since we last met," but a gentleman never asks a gal if she's beefed up. It ain't polite. Pa taught me that with a whipping.

We rode along quiet for a while, both bursting with anticipation for the evening when I said "We're going to the Strand. That okay? Have youu seen the movie? Shucks, I don't even know what's playing."

"Tom, it's 'Words and Music.' Do you know anything abour it?" she replied.

"It's about them musical brothers, the Strausses or something, ain't it?"

"Rogers and Hart. Lorenz Hart was gay, you know. Does that bother you?"

That peeved me some, asking a question like I was rube or something. "Gay! Bother me? Hecks bells, no. Any feller who wrote about the corn being as high as an elephant's eye or an all decked out surrey ought to be gay. Them's wonderful, happy songs, especially to farm people like me. CeeCee, sometimes I'm gay. Not around, Ma of course. She wouldn't approve. In Berlin I was gay any number of times."

Why I could see her blush through her pancake make up as she fluttered her fan, cocked her head and cooed in a gravelly sort of way, "Oh really."

Well we got there on time and settled in with pop corn and pops. I didn't think Mickey Rooney was gay at all in his portrayal of Hart...just Academy Award level acting. While watching all the wonderful technicolor singing and dancing about small hotels and mountain greenery, I drank a big RC Cola so about half way through when Lena Horne started to pipe up, I excused myself for the little boys room.

When I returned, CeeCee had our box of pop corn on her lap and right away tilted it toward me and asked "Want some, hun." Well I reached in there and there warn't a lot of popcorn left, but a surprise at the bottom like the Cracker Jacks has.

It was a real eye opener.

We dated the rest of the summer, until she was drafted and sent to Korea and mysteriously disappeared from the ship taking her there.

Whenever I see "Words and Music" (And it's daily since I bought it at Amazon) I think of my poor CeeCee.

It is a wonderful movie, just right for them that's four to them that's 104, and I ain't referring to no sick bed temperature. Buy it today. You'll love it.