So I turned over to FoxNews, and Geraldo was interviewing some idiot that claimed to have had sex with Eliot Spitzers' prostitute...not exactly very "newsworthy" in my book.
So I cruised around and everything looked boring, demented, or downright ignorant. So I did as I often do on Saturday evening. I turned to my old faithful friend, Lawrence Welk.
The Lawrence Welk Show really (let me get my word book...) evokes good memories for me on several levels.
When I was a little kid, my Daddy worked all the time. He worked Monday through Saturday, 10 to 12 hours a day. When he got home he was tired. He had 4 little kids and a wife to attend to. And he always got it all taken care of. But no matter how tired he was, or how much he had going on, he would almost religiously take Momma and us kids to his Grandmothers' house (my Great Grandmother) on Saturday evening for a visit. Effie Knighton Alexander was her name, but she was called "Mammie." It was the highlight of Mammies' week for her grandson and his family to come on Saturday evening to watch "The Lawrence Welk Show" with her.
She loved my Daddy, Momma, us kids, and Lawrence Welk. For me and my brothers and sister, the only thing worse than the President being on all three channels was The Lawrence Welk Show. We hated it with all the passion that children could muster.
Mammie lived in a "shotgun duplex" on an old street right down by the Red River. The old linoleum was curled up in alot of places. Down the hallway, and around the walls were jugs of water she would fill up in Hot Springs. And she always had a 6 1/2 oz. Coke, and crackers with butter for us kids.
A shotgun duplex if you don't know, has a living room in the front, a narrow hall with a tiny bathroom, a tiny bedroom, and the hall opens into the kitchen in the back of the house. Then the other side of the house is a mirror copy.
Mammie moved to town from the country back in the late 40's. Her husband was so lazy that he literally wouldn't "hit a lick at a snake," and she finally left him and moved to the "big city" (about 10,000 population at that time) to make a living for herself.
She was the hardest working person you would ever meet. She always had at least two jobs. She worked at a theater, a furniture store, grocery stores...you name it! She bought that old shotgun duplex and rented out the other side to help pay for it. At her funeral there were more than a few old married couples that had rented the other side as "newlyweds." She was like a mother to all of them. It was quite touching.
By the time I came along she was semi-retired. But she still had a "cleaning route." If you don't know, that's where you go around to your customers, pick up their dress shirts or dry cleaning, and deliver back the clothes from the previous week. She had an old Ford (Falcon, I think) with venetian blinds in the rear window, and a clothes bar across the back seat. The blinds were there to keep the sunlight from bleaching out the clothes.
Anyway...Saturday night was a boring time for us kids. So we would always go sit out on the front porch while the adults watched Lawrence Welk. I remember that old screened-in porch for good memories! We kids would play, and sing, and read books to each other, and swat mosquitos, and just have a high old time! The most fun of it all was that we didn't have to watch Lawrence Welk.
Fast Forward 25 Years! We were living in an area that had two television channels, CBS and PBS. Our boys didn't have much television to watch, but they found The Lawrence Welk Show reruns on PBS. And they loved it! It became a ritual with our family to sit together on Saturday evening and watch Welk. To the boys it seemed "the hokier the better." The more corny the scene was, the more old-fashioned the setting, the more righteous the song...all the better for them. They especially loved it when the band would do a dance tune, and all the old folks with the coke-bottle glasses would get up and cut a rug. Those boys would just giggle like little girls.
I never watch Lawrence Welk without thinking of my Great Grandmother Mammie, or the good times with the boys...so little entertainment that even a hokie "old folks show" held their interest.
Mammie lived with us for a while after she had some surgery, but eventually broke up housekeeping and went to a rest home. When they were cleaning out her house they found a shoe box with several thousand dollars cash. She told them "Oh yes, I forgot about that. I always wanted a brand new car, and I was saving up for one. Guess it just slipped my mind."
Mammie spent her last several years in a nursing home. No matter how tired Daddy was from the week, he would go spend Sunday afternoon with her visiting. She loved him, and he loved her. Her old duplex is gone now. The whole street is gone. It's been swallowed up by an outdoor shopping mall development and entertainment district by the Red River.
Two of my boys are gone to parts afar, and one more leaves us soon.
I sure hope PBS never cancels Lawrence Welk...
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Don't cuss nobody out, okay?