And There I Stood with My Piccolo

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6. JUST THINK, TOMORROWS KIDS WONT know anything about the thrill of hearing Sousa's band. I hope the newbutton-pushing, streamlined, jet-propelled, atomic-powered age won't also eliminate things like hammers and flatirons. Wouldn't it be horrible to grow up without ever having cracked black walnuts with the flatiron? We had two flatirons at our house with only one handle—a detachable one that had a little thing to press so you could release the cold iron and pick up the hot one—and, looking back, it seems to me that the biggest comfort of my whole childhood —next to the flannel rag with bacon grease safety-pinned around my neck whenever I had a cold—was that big old friendly, kind family hammer . Through the years its claws pried open all the exciting Wells Fargo Express boxes, like pecans from Uncle B.B., maple sugar from Sears Roebuck , the Flexible Flyer and the post-card pro44 jector and the flute from Chicago. And those claws pulled the nails out of the tree house in order to build the fort, and out of the fort to make the steering device for the pushmobile, and out of the pushmobile to build the clubhouse "down over the hill," and out of the clubhouse to build the stage for the Rose Theatre down-cellar, admission one cent (will settle for six pins). We spent more time making the pushmobile "steer" than we did riding in it, and more time making the theater curtain roll and unroll than we did acting. All our plays called for a gun to be fired from ambush on account of this allowed us to simulate rifle smoke by blowing talcum powder onto the stage through the prop rifle barrel as it protruded from the wings—a highly dramatic effect. We named the Rose Theatre after Mama, hoping to get a little special consideration on carpetbeating days. Mama had played the lead in a great many local productions when she was a belle around Brighton, Illinois, and she tried to give us some histrionic coaching. Lady Audley's Secret was Mama's big role, and although we were impressed with her scrapbook and all, we were too filledwith that native impatience, so characteristic of the New World, to settle down and learn a few principles. 45 Now I guess I don't have to say that I'm not one of the look-how-much-better-they-do-it-inEurope type of Americans. But I gotta point out that we've always been too quick to rush out onto the stage, fumble around by trial and error, and just get by. That's how a lot of us spent the years when we should have been hitting the ball in the rigid confines of a conservatorysomeplace . Gershwin, for instance, never learned to orchestrate till he had already composed the "Rhapsody in Blue" and the "Piano Concerto in F." I know, I know—of course "he did all right," but he might have left the world some four hundred-odd symphonies like Papa Haydn instead of a handful of beautiful melodies. However, that's America, and I guess our impulsiveness has paid off in the production world, and as for the artistic end—we're learning, we're learning. Mama also tried to get us to study up and memorize some dialogue. She bought us Handy Andy and Madison's Budget, but we preferred just to roll up the curtain, fire a talcum-powder volley, ad lib a couple lines, fall dead, and call it a scene. No, a hammer is a wonderful thing all right, and that includes the sledge hammer of the circus roustabouts. Boy, was anything more exciting than seeing ten of those giants circle a four-foot tent 46 stake and sledge 'er down into the ground like pushing a candle into a chocolate cake? Please—you Thomas A. Edisons of tomorrow —please leave room for sledge hammers and family claw hammers and flatirons. 47 ...