MAMA-OLD
MAMA - OLD
In the last years of my Mother’s life, her conversations were mainly stories from her past; some of them told over and over again, with little change in content or expression.
Her favorite story went like this: “When we were young, we didn’t have a lot of things to do, but we had the Young People’s Society at church. We would meet twice a month, once for business, and once for fun, and ohhh, did we have fun! There were over fifty of us and we’d play games. . . the hired men from all the farms around would come, too. We would always put on a show every spring, in the Ricketts Dance Hall. And we would sell out two nights!”
The small town of Ricketts sat in the valley next to the river; it had two very active saloons, a post office, several grocery stores, a creamery, a black smithy, and a place to sell eggs. Toward the north end of the village stood the Dance Hall. The space was almost church like, with high windows on the sides, a stage at one end, and a balcony with seats and little tables on the other end. Here, dances would be held each week with local musicians coming in to play the folk music of the time.
“We would write plays and skits,” my Mother would say with a dreamy smile, “and we really sounded wonderful when we sang!” Then she would sing the songs that they wrote, in the thin reedy voice of the very old. “Oh, I wish you could have seen us! We had costumes and everything, and one time, old Bill Blunk laughed so hard he fell over backwards in his chair!”
“What did you do, Mama?” I would dutifully ask, “Oh, I did EVERYTHING! I sang, I danced, you know. . .aahhh, we knew how to have fun!”
When Dad died, we had to move our mother to an assisted living facility. In the process, I uncovered a playbill from one of the performances of the Young People’s Society. On it were all the names of the people my mother talked about so much, listed as participants in the various duets, trios, skits, musical numbers and little plays. Mother’s name was not among them.
“Mama, where is your name?” I asked, puzzled, “Here is Edna and Esther and Ted and Paula and even Dad’s name. . . but I don’t see yours listed.”
“Oh well,” she said, “I didn’t actually do any of those things. . .I wasn’t good enough to get on the stage. . . I just helped, you know. They had to have their costumes sewn and someone had to keep track of the music and things. . . ohhh, we had fun, let me tell you; what could you expect? Fifty young people together. . . we’d put on shows. . . I wish you could have seen us! We’d sing, and dance and put on skits; old Bill Blunk laughed so hard he fell over backwards in his chair!”
