Sidetracked

Musical Memoirs Continue with Wayne Newton 

When the call came late at night on my 14^{th birthday, my body tensed up, and I started breathing irregularly.}

^{Nobody calls that late.}

^{I answered the phone, and it was a nurse, who asked to speak to my mother. Now trembling, I woke my mom and followed her to the phone. There was a pause as the nurse broke the news. Then a horribly pained expression came over my mother’s face. My mom closed her eyes, tilted her head toward the ceiling and slowly cried out, “My mom!” and began to weep.}

^{We’d lost her.}

^{My Grandma Ruthie loved Christmas. She loved bubble lights, sending out Christmas cards and listening to Wayne Newton Christmas songs. There were others, too, but Wayne Newton – he was the guy.}

^{Raised in tiny Dyersburg, Tenn., my grandmother moved to Chicago after splitting from her husband – the grandfather I met once. For a time she worked as a waitress in a mob-owned restaurant, which supplied some good stories. One time, she said, she saw a couple of mob tough guys burn a guy’s ear with a lighter because they suspected he’d stolen money from the restaurant. Another time, she personally knocked a guy off a barstool.}

^{My grandmother was pretty but tough.}

^{She once showed me a book about the mafia, pointed to a picture in it and said, “That was my boss.” I wish I’d remembered his name, but he was well-known among the FBI.}

^{My grandma was also a funny lady. One time, when I heard some salty language on a CB radio, it was my grandmother who explained what the truckers were talking about. Embarrassed, I wished I’d never asked.}

When she lay in a coma, I had fantasies about possessing some superpower that would snap her out of it. I could even imagine the story about it in the paper: Boy Miraculously Pulls Grandma Out of Coma. But all I could do was hold her hand and tell her I loved her as her brain slept.

Even though it was my grandmother, I felt kind of silly — like I was talking to someone who wasn’t really there.

^{She was only 60 when she died. Back then, 60 seemed ancient. But as I get older, it seems more and more ridiculous that she died so young. I often think how odd it is that 26 years later her older sister is still living. And then I think about all the stages of my life she missed – college, marriage, the birth of our daughter, Sonora Ruth.}

^{To be honest, I always thought Wayne Newton was kind of a schmuck. But because my grandmother loved him so much, whenever I hear him do “White Christmas,” I can’t resist turning it up a little.}

Posted on January 6th, 2009 by Pat
Filed under: Songs in the Key of Life: My Musical Memoirs