BETHALTO ILLINOIS---I report this week from open computer number two in the bowels of the Bethalto Public Library. I am in the early stages of Carson Watch 2011-2012.
Carson is the name given to the unborn male child of my oldest son, Andrew, and his wife Alicia. He is due by the end of the week…but you know how those things go. I will remain in Bethalto until the blessed event and then start the long and arduous road trip back to Snyder, Texas a few days after the pup is birthed.
This morning, I fought the elements to get my wife to Lambert St. Louis Airport in time for her flight back to The Republic. The St. Louis weatherfolk were dead wrong when they said it was too warm for snow accumulation. Two people lost their lives in the morning commute…and many times on my journey from Pere Marquette Lodge to the airport….I wondered if we were going to make it.
My stay at the Lodge reminded me of the years I spent working on my doctorate and the place where I hid to get all the work done. It was at a hideaway near Grafton owned by old friend Ted Prehn. I helped name the cabin. Ted was…and I am sure still is….a very Republican kind of guy. I suggested a play on words from the Bush compound. Instead of Kennebunkport….Ted could name his cabin “Teddy-bunk-port.” He liked it and a sign was erected on the outside wall.
Why Ted liked me….and allowed me free rent at Teddybunkport is a mystery to me. Because I engaged in a number of cruel and juvenile pranks exploiting his inability to remember song lyrics over the course of his life. It all started with the Bethalto Homecoming where Ted was asked to sing the national anthem to kick off the Labor Day festival many years ago. I was standing in the crowd next to Ted before he was introduced to come forward to sing.
“You know….it would be horribly embarrassing if you got in the middle of the song…..and forgot the words,” I whispered to him seconds before he went forward. He smiled in an uncertain way at me and proceeded.
About one line into “The Star Spangled Banner,” Ted started moving the mic away from his mouth….and started to mumble the words. He was lost within the song. I only remember him concluding strong with the words, “And the home of the brave…….I’m sorry.”
A few months passed and Ted roared into the United Methodist Church to sing “O Holy Night,” as a solo during the Christmas Eve service. I had nothing to do with this disaster….it was all on Ted. He wanted to give the organist the score…..so he raced into the church office and stuck four pieces of paper into the copy machine. Instead of copying four pages…..it copied the first piece of paper, four times. He gave the original score to the organist and kept the copies for himself.
When the time came…..it was obvious that Ted didn’t know anything other than the first stanza of the piece….and had to stop in mid-song.
That takes us to the last of the Ted Trilogy. He came in the next Christmas Eve prepared. I was working the sound and lights for the service and he----once again----raced in late and handed me a cassette tape before running to the front of the sanctuary. I asked someone-----Why did he take the cassette cover case? They replied----because he has the lyrics written on it.
That’s when I decided to do a bad thing.
As the music started and Ted walked to center stage, I found the controls for the spotlight and background lights. It was obvious that he had the cassette in his hand and he was hiding it while making wide, sweeping hand movements so he could read the case.
As the song progressed…..I started cutting the intensity of the lights.
I mean I made the stage almost totally dark with the exception of a faint blue light on Ted. Even Superman could not have read a cassette case in this darkness. On cue, Ted screwed up the piece….and refused to talk to me for about a week. After that, he got over it. In don’t know if I could have been so forgiving.
As I drove past Chautauqua..and Teddybunkport… this morning on the Great River Road, I thought about my old friend Ted….his cabin….my weekends of dread as I pursued my last degree….and how difficult it is for some people to memorize lyrics to music.
God Bless You, Ted.
Carson Watch will continue and I am sure this space will be devoted to the birth of the boy…..when it occurs.
Stay Tuned.
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