(Host)
This Father’s Day writer, book designer and commentator Dede Cummings
will be thinking about her own Dad – and a family tradition that
involved singing a song.
(Cummings) Hearing a random song on the
radio from an old Broadway musical the other day, reminded me of a
scene from my family album of memories: there we were, the five Cummings
girls, all lined up on a hot summer night; the oldest three in our
muumuus, the two baby girls in their tops and frilled bottoms. No
slippers, only bare feet, toughened by early summer’s running. All lined
up, in order of age, by our mother, with her kerchief, dark tan, and
Lily Pulitzer dress, overseen by Dad in his loafers, cold beer in hand
and a lit cigarette balanced on an ashtray.
Our guests for the
evening were the Chattertons, relatives who also happened to be our
next-door neighbors. Uncle Allie had a trick in which he took the shirt
off another man’s back without removing the man’s suit jacket. This
became a legend to patrons at Theater-By-The-Sea where years later a
waitress would run in exclaiming, "A man just pulled a button down shirt
off a guy at the bar without removing his jacket!" To which I, fellow
waitress, calmly replied, "That’s my uncle!"
Most likely, our babysitter
Anita, whose boyfriend wore a Brando t-shirt and rode a motorcycle,
would be looking down the lane in anticipation of his arrival.
Dad
had requested a song and we would sing it just for him, a man
surrounded by women: sisters, mother, wife, and daughters, his own
father having long ago departed due to a bout with the bottle and the
crash of ‘29.
Mom directed us – her own mother Catherine having
had a modest musical career. Catherine had learned to play the "piano"
on a piece of cardboard because her father had been run over by a
trolley so her family didn’t have much furniture to speak of – much less
a real piano, but she went on to play at the Copley piano bar.
Our
mother would fuss over us, a little uneven line of five girls born in
seven years; she’d smooth our hair, hum a pitch note under her breath,
and proudly say, "Okay girls." The song was "Hey Look Me Over," from the
musical "Wildcat" with Lucille Ball as a feisty Texas oil prospector.
And as he flipped hamburgers on the grill for dinner, our father sang
along. It was his favorite, and we always nailed it.
Our father
egged us on, swinging his spatula like a conductor. My younger sister,
Ann, sang in an end-of-the-music-line, drama queen way. I would scrunch
my brow and scowl over the lyric, "Hey pass the plate boys, mortgage up
to here," imagining that it somehow referred to nasty boys being better
than my smart singing sisters!
After the applause died down, and
my mother went to "freshen her lipstick," we’d line up again, this time
holding up white paper plates, with our upturned faces like radiant
little globes.
We’d collect hamburgers from Dad, who was still
singing and doing a tap dance by the grill. "Hey look out world," we
sang together, "here I come."