21. The Storm and the Show ... THE FARM EAST OF PINE VILLAGE

Joe, Ida, Charles, and Robert were watching a singing act on The Ed Sullivan Show in the kitchen that was also a family room while listening to the sleet, now like tiny shards of glass pinging against the windows, now like the tiniest brass bells sounding, and again like handfuls of sand being flung across the panes. Abruptly, the TV went dark, as did the house.

Everyone sat silently for the moments necessary to come to the realization that the electric service had stopped.

Joe summarized the now obvious fact: “Well, I guess our lights are out.” He set his teaspoon beside his coffee cup, and, as he could see neither, he struck the cup a loud blow.

“Careful, Joe,” said Ida.

He carefully scooted his chair back from the kitchen table and stumbled toward the Hoosier, where he opened a drawer and removed a flashlight. He went to the enclosed porch and returned with his Van Camp kerosene lantern, which he soon had lit. Charles borrowed the flashlight, went to his room, and slowly brought his Aladdin lamp with its mantle of hanging ash. The lamp made its way to the kitchen table without disturbing the delicate mantle. Charles lit the lamp, and, soon enough, the mantle was a brilliant star that nobody could look at without wincing. Charles gingerly placed the frosted glass shade over the lamp, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

“No telling how long we’ll be without electricity,” Joe said.

Back when the family lived in town, occasional lapses in the electrical service had occurred. One time, an ice storm caused a long delay. The lights came back on in the night. The next morning, Joe discovered that the hot wire was lying on the ground and that Spot had been jumping over it again and again as the dog patrolled the corners of the yard. The instances of being without lights were more frequent and more sustained in the country.

Ida cut apples and sliced wedges of cheese for everyone; then she produced a card deck. Joe, Charles, and Robert gathered around the brightly lit kitchen table and played euchre. For a Methodist, Ida could sure play a mean hand of cards! Joe and Ida had belonged to the Euchre Club for many years. Quite often, Ida brought home the top prize while Joe earned the booby prize.

During the blackout, Charles was Joe’s partner; Robert, Ida’s.

“Pick them up, Robert. I’m going alone,” Ida said more than once.

From having played many times, Robert was well trained. He knew never to trump Ida’s ace, and he always led the next suit of the same color.

Ida and Robert won the first game. Joe and Charles wanted revenge. The euchre match continued in the light of the Aladdin lamp, until it was bedtime for the senior and the sophomore who had to board Glen J. Brutus’ bus the next morning.

“Well, Ida,” Joe said, smiling and touching Ida’s arm, “once again, you showed us how it’s done.”

The electricity came back on in the wee hours of the morning.

The next afternoon, Robert sat at the Yamaha piano and composed a short piece of music for the offertory. During his freshman year, Robert had become the principal pianist for the Methodist Church, and he liked scoring his own compositions for the time when the plates were passed down the pews. Ida walked into the living room. Drying her hands on a dish towel, she sat in the rocking chair that had once belonged to Grandma Rhode. “Have you decided whether to try out?” she asked Robert.

The Delta Theta Chapter of Kappa Kappa Kappa had contracted with Jerome H. Cargill Producing Company of New York City to perform a variety show on stage at the Attica High School Gymnasium on April 3rd and 4th—with proceeds donated for a new Coronary Care Unit at the Community Hospital in Williamsport. The revue would sport the name Hello Follies!, a rather unlikely echo of the title of the musical Hello, Dolly! The director, Vance Henry, moved about the United States, rapidly training local talent to present a full-length program in two acts with an intermission, each town or city coining its own title. Henry was looking for a pianist.

“I’m only a sophomore,” Robert said. “The show probably needs somebody more professional.”

“I think you should go,” Ida said. “It never hurts to try.”

“Alright,” Robert said.

Robert already had his driver’s license: a fact that annoyed Charles, whom Ida had made to wait until his seventeenth birthday. With her second son, Ida was relaxing her caution.

“You can take the Pontiac to your audition,” she said.

Joe had purchased a used 1967 tan-colored Pontiac Bonneville. On Saturday morning, Robert drove from Warren County into Fountain County over the Paul Dresser Bridge crossing the Wabash River, lying peacefully in its broad floodplain, and toward the Harrison Hills Country Club in Attica, where Henry was holding a dance rehearsal in the Tudor Revival clubhouse. When Henry took a five-minute break, Robert introduced himself.

“Oh, yes!” Henry said, holding his glasses in one hand and smoothing his dark hair back with the other. “I’m looking for a pianist who can play the scores effectively. Take a seat at the piano.” He opened a rehearsal binder to the chorus of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Shall We Dance?”

Robert began the song.

After only a few notes, Henry exclaimed, “No, no! The tempo is faster.” He cradled a clipboard against his argyle cardigan and smacked it with a pencil like a noisy metronome. He sang, “Shall … we … dance, bu—bump  bump, bump, on a bright cloud of music shall we fly, bu—bump  bump, bump.”

“That’s a little too fast,” Robert thought but said nothing. He began again, holding to Henry’s speed.

“Better!” Henry said, tossing the clipboard onto the piano. He commanded, “Now, jab it more! Bu—bump  bump, bump!”

Robert obeyed.

“Louder!” Henry ordered.

Robert did as he was told.

“That’s great!” Henry interrupted. “You’re my pianist. Kay will give you a rehearsal schedule.”

With that, Henry spun on his heel and walked briskly away. Robert caught up with him.

“Do you mean that I will accompany rehearsals but someone else will play the shows?” Robert asked.

“No!” Henry exclaimed in the tone of a director with a million things on his mind. “You’ll be the pianist for the shows.”

Robert walked back to the piano, closed the binder, and took it with him.

For rehearsals at Attica High School on school days, Robert drove to the drive-in on South Council Street to have a quick hamburger. He felt very grown up to be eating on his own. After gulping down dinner, Robert drove on to the school. Seating in the gymnasium stood taller than what he was accustomed to in the gym at Pine Village. To Robert, the gym in Attica felt cavernous. He wondered if he would be nervous when all those seats were filled.

The performers were devoted to doing their best. One fellow, though, worried Robert. The gentleman, who had chosen to sing a solo, had an uncertain sense of rhythmic exactness. Robert could not predict what might happen.

The pit orchestra sounded professional, and the sets and costumes were all they needed to be.

The audiences were huge. For both performances, the gym was packed. Robert felt a healthy nervousness—not the fatal kind—and, the moment he began playing “Shall We Dance?” with the Bu—bump  bump, bump, his confidence banished all anxieties.

On the evenings of the shows—to Robert’s great relief—the singer with ambivalence about where the beats should fall turned in creditable performances.

Talent in music ran deep in the class ahead of Robert’s. Becci, Jill, Darci, Dia, Debbie, Gail, and Betsy formed a singing sensation known as “The Farmers’ Daughters.” By their senior year, their rendition of the 1941 hit “Chattanooga Choo Choo” was equal to the best anywhere. The Farmers’ Daughters brought top-notch musical entertainment to audiences in many towns and cities of the region. Had the singers been discovered—and had they recorded an LP—they easily could have gained a national following.

Like Big Pine Creek, music flowed through Benton, Warren, and Fountain Counties. From the heartfelt singing in the churches on Sunday morning, through the school bands, to the garage ensembles, to the homegrown performers whose talents and abilities rivaled the best on television, Pine Village’s fields were alive with the sound of music.