I just learned another musical icon passed away January 21 this year. Every year, the family would drive from Los Angeles to Tucson, Arizona, to celebrate Thanksgiving with my mother's aunt. It's an 8-hour drive under the best of circumstances, but of course the traffic leaving LA on a long weekend, and returning after, was always a nightmare. My father would get off from work Wednesday afternoon, pack the car (and three kids), drive all night and arrive Thursday morning. My father would then crash and wake up about 3pm, just in time for dinner.
I'm sure we were little shits during the drive, but oddly I just have fond memories of those trips. Things I loved:
- My great-aunt Irene, who was a real firecracker.
- The food was fantastic (especially the turkey sandwiches on white bread with cranberry sauce the next day)
- Driving past the Cabazon Dinosaurs, which were always closed.
- Driving through the desert. To this day, I love the desert.
- My father's DIY roof racks (before roof racks were popular).
Things I didn't like:
- My great-aunt's dogs. This was before asthma relievers, and I would lie awake all-night struggling to breathe. I often ended up at the hospital for a shot of adrenalin. Imagine drinking a dozen cups of coffee and you'll have a rough idea of how much fun that was.
- My great-aunt's clock, which chimed every 15 minutes. As my brother and I slept in the lounge, this was maddening. When I grew up I learned there was a simple lever that would silence the clock.
- My great-aunt's corset, which hung on the back of the bathroom door for as long as I knew her. I later learned she was a can-can dancer in her youth, and that was obviously a memento from that time.
- My great-uncle, my great-aunt's brother, who lived next door and was very unfriendly. After my great-aunt died, and he was on his own, I still visited him at Thanksgiving each year, but never liked him.
- Tucson. The entire town was a retirement community, and anything that might have been interesting was closed for Thanksgiving apart from the cinema. In November it was always cold and wet (although one year it snowed).
- Doctor Demento always played Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. You could only hear this in Los Angeles and I always wanted to leave early enough to catch this, but we never did. When I was 16 and had my license, I volunteered to drive the entire way, and refused to stop the entire way, but still missed it. (I was an adult before I finally heard it, and it was absolutely worth the wait. I even travelled to Carnegie Hall, in New York City, just to hear Arlo Guthrie play it live.)
But what I remember most about these trips was my father had a set of tape cassettes that he only played on these trips. Music from Roger Miller, Johnny Horton, Bing Crosby and Jimmie Rodgers, that clearly shaped my musical tastes. When I grew up, it was easy to find CDs with all the other music but Jimmie Rodgers had disappeared. (It did not help that he shared the same name as another singer from the 1920's/1930's.) I was able to record my father's albums, and eventually was able to find CDs, so I'm still able to enjoy such maudlin classics like "It's Over," "Their Hearts were full of Spring," and my favourite, "Waltzing Matilda" with the wonderful lyrics:
Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong,
Under the shade of a Coolibah tree,
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled,
"You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me."
Down came a jumbuck to drink at that billabong
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee,
And he sang as he stowed that jumbuck in his tucker bag
"You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me."
Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda,
You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me,
And he sang as he stowed that jumbuck in his tucker bag
"You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me."
Down came the squatter mounted on his thorough-bred
Up came the troopers one, two, three
"Who's that jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?
You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me."
Under the shade of a Coolibah tree,
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled,
"You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me."
Down came a jumbuck to drink at that billabong
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee,
And he sang as he stowed that jumbuck in his tucker bag
"You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me."
Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda,
You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me,
And he sang as he stowed that jumbuck in his tucker bag
"You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me."
Down came the squatter mounted on his thorough-bred
Up came the troopers one, two, three
"Who's that jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?
You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me."
From Wikipedia: "The title was Australian slang for travelling on foot (waltzing) with one's belongings in a "matilda" (swag) slung over one's back. The song narrates the story of an itinerant worker, or "swagman", making tea in a billy (metal bucket) at a bush camp and capturing a stray jumbuck (sheep) to eat. [Tucker means food.] When the jumbuck's owner, a squatter (landowner), and three troopers (mounted policemen) pursue the swagman for theft, he declares "You'll never catch me alive!" and commits suicide by drowning himself in a nearby billabong (watering hole), after which his ghost haunts the site."
My great-uncle passed away in 2000 and my last trip to Tucson was in 2001, which I wrote about here.
P.S. I hope I don't have to keep doing these, but Alex Hassilev, the last surviving member of the original Limeliters, is 89, so expect another tribute soon...
