The coastland times. [volume] (Mnateo [i.e. Manteo], N.C.) 1947-1959, 1954-08-13
THE HIGHER
THE FEWER
There's Always Plenty of Room
At The Top
By
NANCY ]. MIDGET

As was vending my way home
the other evening l heard the
strains of some radio of phono-
graph playing "Oh, dem golden
slippers. 1t took me way, way
back to my youth and l could see
my father standing in front of the
fireplace in the living room hap
PLY singing away and taking a
peek every now and then at him.
self in the mirror over the mantel,
the way men do when they think
no one is looking. Of course to hear
them talk one would think it was
only the women who did an eyes
right or left when passing a glass
or shop window but believe me,
many a male does it too.
Both Dad and Mother did quite
bit of singing for their own bene-
fit and in the confines of the home.
| can't remember that Dad was a
bath-tub singer but he did manage
a semi-strangled hum when he
was shaving. In view of the fact
that he used the old cut throat ra-
Zor even doing that must have been
somewhat dangerous. The one
thing about Dads shaving that
most interested my younger broth
er Ken and myself were his leath-
er strops. Mother used them to
show US the light when the first
and second asking or warning had
failed to stop us doing whatever
we were determined to do regard
less of her wishes or our own plain
common sense.
She never really whipped US
with it but the fact that we knew
she would give US enough of it to
bring US to order gave US not only
a healthy respect for her and it
but even for the kitchen dresser
drawer in which it was kept. When
we saw her go toward the drawer
and pull it open, if we had guilty
conscience, Ken and / would take
off to the bottom of the garden,
which didn't do much good for the
chicken-run was there and a dead
end. Not that Mother ever lowered
herself in our eyes by running aft
er US; she knew we would have to
go back in sooner or later and we
knew it too so as we got older we
quit the running and got it over
quickly.
Dad rarely whipped US but he
could talk to US when we had done
wrong, or had worried Mother I'M
til she was in tears and we would
feel like something that had crawl
ed out of a cheese. When l think
now of the nasty little things we
sometimes were / wonder that
they were as patient as they were
Besides the song "Oh, dem gol-
den slippers" another of Dads
favorites was 'The Bells of Saint
Mary's". Either of those songs
takes me back and brings memoir
les that ordinarily are in the back
ground; the present generation on
reading this, if they read this, will
be thinking l should be under the
ground by now e. on the other
hand they may never have heard
Of the songs so won't be able to
date me by them.
1t was the old Scotch songs that
my Mother used to sing,-some-
times when she was working about
the house but mostly when she
was at the sewing machine much
as the old folk in the days of home
weaving and spinning would sing
as they worked. After all that is
the way the old songs started, the
folk songs, either in rythm with
the movement of the work in hand
or telling of the job being done or
both. And the ballads telling the
tall tales of deed and daring, his
tory in rhyme and music. Maybe
that is why the modern song has
the wilder, noisier and more errat-
ic form for the modern world is
certainly not a haven of peace.
There isn't the surface quiet even
in the countryside unless one goes
into the depth of a jungle, the
higher peaks or the far north.
Country at home, not too far
from my home town, where in my
youth you could stand still, as l
often did on walks with my father,
and listen and hear space so to
speak, with just the nearer sounds