Hayter for April 16, 2023
“Shucking Down the
Corn & 
Kay and I just finished watching “Bourne Legacy”. That’s the one with Jeremy Renner. We saw it 11 years ago when it came out. I have a tendency to forget stuff after 11 months.
Following the Bourne movie, Kay announced that she was going to take a shower, and then read herself to sleep. I only take a shower after playing racquetball or doing anything that causes me to sweat. Looking for the TV remote, walking out to get the newspaper… stuff like that.
Since Kay left the living-room, I started using the TV remote to check on three of the 86 networks I have to choose from. After the Bourne movie, nothing excited me, so I decided to go to my study and write my article with you in the room. After turning off the TV, I could still hear a song from the Bourne movie.
It was Kay singing in the shower. -- “O’ Babe! O’ Babe! Then it fell apart, it fell apart! O’ Babe—” -- It was Moby’s song “Extreme Ways” from the Bourne movie. And Kay was knocking it out of the park!
The girl seldom sings in the shower. She’ll hum musical notes from commercials but never sings lyrics. I refused to disturb her because she was coming across great. -- “I would stand in line for this. It’s always good in life for this—”
I really don’t know what you and I would be talking about had Kay not been singing in the shower. Right before getting your attention, it hit me. BONK! What did pioneers sing while they were bathing? I doubt they took many showers. Bathing likely amounted to someone pouring water over your head. When you’re depending on someone else refilling the water bucket, you don’t want to upset them by singing “Oh Suzanna, don’t you cry for me.”
Hold on a second. I’ve got to check on something. – I’m back. -- I just did a little research on early American bathing habits. There wasn’t a lot of bathing going on back then. In fact, I read that the original settlers in North America (indigenous people) tried to get the Pilgrims to take baths. They let them know that their smell was “off-putting”. In fact, that’s the first time an American settler ever heard the word off-putting. Maybe.
The Puritans were the worst. Of course, they had a good reason for staying stinky. The only way to get a thorough cleaning is to disrobe. The Puritans feared that disrobing might cause them to risk going to hell. And for what? So the few Mohegans would quit calling them “Stinkers”.
Bathing aside, what songs did settlers sing, while in or out of the tub? I imagined it depended on where they came from. The Germans likely played tunes that caused them to slap at the heel of their raised foot. One foot at a time, of course. It cost several Huns their lives before catching on to that.
During my many days in elementary school, our music teacher taught us some foreign songs. I managed to remember the odd words to one of the songs. I think it was German, because it was hard to smile while singing it. Once I caught onto the words, I sang it for Dad.
I don’t know what possessed me. Here I am trying to find something that might give my dad cause to respect me, and I sing him a German song, about a a person losing a part of his or her clarinet. I didn’t know then or now that a clarinet had something on it you could lose. But it got lost, all right.
The chorus of the song was a constant mumble of words sang to the same melody… over and over. Daddy asked me if I knew what I was singing. I feared that would happen. I was going to make up something, but after seeing the look on his face when I finished the song, I thought it best to just let it rest. Dad didn’t ask me to sing the song to the family over supper.
I don’t think he mentioned it to anyone, except maybe Mom. If any of my siblings happen to read this, it will be the first time they heard of what I sang to Dad. He must’ve taken the story and the horrible rendition of the song to his grave.
Returning to the original subject, I’m reminded of the only thing that halfway made me envy American settlers. It was corn-husking. Farmers took turns helping one another to shuck corn.
As the corn was harvested, every farmer within
a multi-mile area would gather at someones farm to shuck corn. During the
outing, they drank corn liquor, feasted on corn cakes, corn bread, and corn
pone.
Beg pardon? Oh, corn pone is cornbread
without the milk, eggs, flour, or anything else that might taste good. In other
words, it’s cornmeal with water and salt, fried in bacon grease. For me, the
only way to make the stuff edible would be a bucket of cream gravy.
The great thing about a corn-husk was that
the little kids got to husk corn with distant friends. And the teenagers got to
see kids of the opposite sex. In all of the movies, there seemed to be very few
choices for tentative husband or wife selections. Kind of like the town of Jarbridge,
Nevada.
And that’s what came from me and Kay watching “The Bourne Legacy.” I think it’s time I find out if Kay and I can harmonize. – “Extreme ways are back again; Extreme places I didn't know. I broke everything new again; Everything that I'd owned” I wish I could’ve sung that song for Dad.
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