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.

  

  

15. The School ... THE FARM IN PINE VILLAGE

At long last the day arrived! Robert was to enter the first grade at Pine Village School. He had spent the past two years wanting to go to school, and now he was finally going.

Ida had rehearsed with him everything that he was to do. Charles accompanied Robert to the pair of doors where he was to wait with the other children until the doors were opened from the inside. With his heart beating fast, Robert stood expectantly. He said hello to a boy who was also coming to school for the first time. His name was Mitch. He had a happy personality. Then Robert saw Susan, whom he already knew from church. She, too, would be in his class.

Suddenly, the doors were flung open, and the children crowded into the hallway. A teacher guided Mitch, Susan, and Robert to Mrs. Yvonne Hail’s room. It was at the far west end of the hallway. Mrs. Hail was friendly, but her demeanor made it clear that she expected compliance. Her eyes sparkled behind her pointy-framed glasses. Her red lipstick matched her red blouse worn beneath a stylish gray-checked short jacket and narrow skirt. When the room became too warm, she hung the jacket over her chair at the desk that stood in the front.

Mrs. Hail directed each student to an assigned seat. She wanted the class in alphabetical order by last name because she had so many students. Robert’s class was one of the largest in the school’s history! It was a huge elementary class by any standard and would have been split in a larger school. In the opening weeks, the students became acquainted with one another and bonded closely, forming many lifelong friendships. Robert liked everyone, and he liked learning. Mrs. Hail kept everything lively but orderly. Privately, she may have confessed that she had no idea how she would manage such a big class, but, in her room, day by day, she led her charges through the lessons with businesslike precision. In Mrs. Hail’s world, everything was shipshape!

Attending school measured up to Robert’s intense hopes.

Every noon, he walked briskly home to have dinner. Several of the children who did not ride a bus but who walked to school also walked home for dinner. Most farmers still preferred to call the noon meal “dinner,” rather than “lunch.” The former word implied a large meal, and farmers needed the energy from such large meals to continue their hard physical work throughout the afternoon. So Robert went home for dinner. Before long, though, he was calling the meal “lunch” because his classmates whose parents bought them tickets to eat in the cafeteria were on what was called the “school lunch” program. In the change from the word “dinner” to the word “lunch” could be detected a shift in farm life.

Robert had to hurry back so as not to be late for the resumption of lessons in the afternoon. Typically, he had finished eating in time to join his classmates for the recess after lunch.

Mrs. Hail had been Yvonne Lafferty when she attended the same school. She had married John Hail, who ran the elevator. When Robert was in elementary school, married women customarily were called by their husbands’ names. Accordingly, Mrs. Yvonne Hail should have been called “Mrs. John Hail,” but her first name was unusual in the town—so much so that people could not resist using her name. When she was called something besides “Mrs. Hail,” she was “Mrs. Yvonne Hail”!

Ida had given Robert strict orders that he was not to brag that he could read. She had told him that he was to take the reading lessons seriously, even if they repeated what he already knew. Had she only known it, Robert’s mother had no reason for concern. Robert had no desire to boast, and he enjoyed starting at the beginning and learning exactly how to read. For him, learning was the greatest joy.

One day at recess, Robert’s friend Dennis said there had been a fight on the playground between two older boys in his older brother’s class. One of the boys had sustained a bloody nose, and he had wiped his hand on a telephone post beside the road. Dennis, Robert, and a few of their friends took time out from the games to see the post. Sure enough, a red handprint was visible on the dark brown wood of the post. The sight turned Robert’s stomach. He wondered how anyone could willingly inflict such pain on a fellow human being. To him, a bloody handprint was a symbol of a terrible injury.

Robert’s ancestors were Quakers. They left South Carolina to come to Ohio in 1806, when Ohio had been a state for only three years. They migrated to Indiana in 1826 and 1827. Later, many would migrate onward to Iowa, but Robert’s ancestors stayed in Indiana. His great grandfather was raised in the Methodist Church, which had succeeded in attracting several of the Quakers. Even though there had been three generations of Methodists before Robert, several Quaker beliefs lay just beneath the surface of his upbringing. One was a determined belief in the efficacy of peace. The red handprint stood for whatever was the opposite of that peacefulness, and it was abhorrent to Robert.

Robert looked forward to the recess in the afternoon. Quite often, Mitch’s mother, who ran the cafeteria, brought trays of lettuce sandwiches to the playground for the children. The crisp lettuce, the fresh butter, and the soft white bread were delightful.

The girls’ restroom was adjacent to the classroom, but the boys’ restroom was all the way to the east end of the school. Those were the high school rooms. Again and again, Mrs. Hail told the boys to walk quietly in a line to the restroom, but, every now and then, a few of the boys would be boisterous—especially when cranking brown paper towels from the dispensers. The boys’ noise brought Mr. Taylor from his classroom. He always appeared in the doorway of the restroom as a towering giant with a yardstick in his hand. He slapped the wall of the restroom with the stick. The sound got the attention of all the boys. Mr. Taylor then patiently explained that they needed to remain quiet so that the high school students could learn their lessons. Robert was frightened of Mr. Taylor, but, years later, when Robert was in high school, he came to know and like him.

Mr. Horn was the principal. He demanded discipline, and his presence called for respect. One of his mannerisms was to slip his glasses from his nose, hold them in one hand, and wear a dignified expression on his face while gesturing with the hand that held the glasses. If he should step into the hallway from his office, an instantaneous hush would fall on any child otherwise inclined to cause a ruckus. He was known to paddle the worst offenders. Years later, Robert began to realize that Mr. Horn was a gracious gentleman who simply brooked no nonsense from students in his school.

Susan’s mother, Mrs. Brutus, was the secretary, and she, too, commanded respect. Robert knew her from church, where Mrs. Brutus played the organ, and he recognized that she had a kind heart.

In only a short while, Robert had settled into a pattern of schooling that would last for twelve years. He never regretted a moment of that time. 

Vacation Bible School 6 (Last Installment in This Series)

When I was in high school, I played piano for the services of the Methodist Church in Pine Village, Indiana. When the organ was wanted instead, Mrs. Brutus played that instrument. In those years, young people in formal conversation and most newspapers addressed married women as “Mrs.” So Barbara was “Mrs. Glen J. Brutus.” (Many will remember Barbara Brutus as the secretary at the school in town. They may also recall her performances on the organ at Shipps Funeral Home in nearby Oxford.) In most instances, I remain unaware of the first names of the women that I politely referred to as “Mrs.” During Vacation Bible School, I played the piano for the children’s song sessions. Mrs. Tom Builta ably led the singing. Several girls of junior high or high school age assisted Mrs. Builta.

Bible School Class of 1966 Posing for My Camera

The kids loved to belt out “I will make you fishers of men” with a powerful emphasis on that swishing first syllable of “fishers.” Illustrative gestures were dutifully taught and learned. To demonstrate the fishing, the children cast an imaginary line and reeled in a fish. As the phrase “fishers of men” repeated five times, the kids caught a lot of fish!

“I’m inright outright upright downright happy all the time” was another favorite. The kids pointed toward their hearts, outwardly in front of them, up toward the ceiling, and down toward the floor. They clapped their hands on the first syllable of “happy.” As I have no talent for playing by ear (an expression that means using no music), I had obtained a Zondervan Publishing album of children’s songs, and, while playing along, I noticed that, through the oral tradition over the years, our church had developed variations on the standard lyrics now and then. The printed words “Since Jesus Christ came in / And took away my sin” were sung “Since Jesus Christ came in / And freed my life from sin.”

“The B–I–B–L–E: yes, that’s the book for me” was a short piece that the children launched into with raucous abandon. Back when I was a kid myself, I needed a year or two to realize that the sounds I was making spelled out the word “Bible.” I wonder how many kids were as puzzled as I was by the spelling lesson.

Other favorites included “This Little Light of Mine,” “Jesus Loves the Little Children,” and “Zaccheus.” The kids pointed to the branches of an imaginary tree and shook their forefingers commandingly as they sang, “Zaccheus, you come down, for I’m going to your house today.”

“I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart. Where? Down in my heart! Where? Down in my heart!” sang the kids, nearly shouting the word “where” each time. When the lyrics moved on to “I’ve got the peace that passeth understanding,” the youngest singers were clearly bewildered, but they kept up by articulating sound-alike syllables, such as “piece-it pass-it under stand-it.”

If I close my eyes, I can still vividly see the rainbow hues of the stained glass windows casting prismatic patterns on the hardwood floor, I can yet distinctly hear the tick-tock of the Regulator clock hanging on the back wall, I can yet faithfully play the tall upright piano with its dark-toned cabinet, I can still joyfully remember all the lyrics without error, and I can yet happily hear the voices of the children so long ago. Few facets of life have made such indelible impressions on me.