Parlor
Cowboys
Susie
Dunham
I
was born singing headfirst into a bedpan. Not a great beginning,
but I’ll take it. I look at it this way – it gave me
nowhere to go but up.
The house that held me as a kid sang constantly. Cowboy music,
mostly. I loved cowboy music especially when my Dad played it
on his accordion. His cowboy band would come to practice in our
parlor. The tiny room’s wallpapered seams tugged with a drummer,
a fiddler, a guitar player, and Daddy – the accordion cowboy
who hummed.
I’d squeeze my pajamaed self into that room, nestle between
the faded red couch and maple coffee table and let the noise flow
over me like hot fudge over vanilla ice cream. The music makers
always smiled at me. Bright, wide smiles. Singing, squeezing,
humming, strumming, banging, bowing. So many moving parts to watch.
I was dizzy with delight.
I hummed myself to sleep with those songs. “Your Cheatin’
Heart,” “I Can’t Help It,” and “I’m
Walkin’ the Floor Over You.”
I sang my favorite cowboys’ songs out loud, though.
Songs from Hop-Along Cassidy, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and Dale
Evans.
My parents would dance in the kitchen to country and western music
that floated out from the radio on top of the Fridgedaire. I wanted
to join them. Become them. Singing into myself, I watched from
the doorway. As they spun on the black and white linoleum, my
mother, gleeful as she danced with my dad, smiled towards me.
Other times when Dad wasn’t home, she’d grab me and
try to get me to jitterbug in the kitchen. My dancing was pretty
much like my singing. Out of step. Out of tune.
As I grew older, I’d softly sing the songs of little girls
who want to grow up, fall in love with a handsome boy, and get
married. “Blue Velvet,” “Soldier Boy,” and
eventually, “Wedding Bell Blues.”
I loved music, but that love wasn’t returned.
I was third clarinet, fourth seat in band. The instructor complimented
me on my porcelain skin instead of my musical ability.
Chorus couldn’t decide whether I was an alto or soprano.
Neither could my voice.
At the prom my date spent all his time in the Boys' Room drinking
with his friends. I didn’t dance once. A blessing in disguise.
No toes were broken that evening. Only hearts.
And in the senior play, High Button Shoes, the musical,
I sang my heart out in the chorus. Downstage.
But in the parlor with the cowboy band and the accordion cowboy
who hummed, I soaked the music into my soul and my soul is always
in tune.
Happy trails to me.
***
SUSIE
DUNHAM says she’s a Yankee with a southern soul. She’s
been writing fiction since she was a schoolgirl, which was when
she discovered the creative side of her brain could get her out
of scholarly corners. It wasn’t until she turned 50 that
she decided it was time to start taking her humor and her writing
seriously. Since then, Susie has been featured on the online literary
magazine Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal, has edited
and written a private newsletter, and currently writes a humor
column called All I’m Sayin’ Is… featured
in the Grassland Gazette near Nashville, Tennessee. Susie loves
being part of her Writers In CAPS group and is a proud member
of the Williamson County Council for the Written Word. She and
her newly retired husband live in Franklin, Tennessee.
©
Susie Dunham