Damariscotta, Maine.
It is the height of the summer here, not perhaps the longest period of daylight or some other officially recognized thing, but it's that fifth or sixth day in a row which sees you beaten down by heat before three and by six you are dead. This is just context.
The point is I should be perhaps singing a Korean folk song, but I am not. Maybe Arirang, which no one here knows but is almost the unofficial national anthem of Korea and something on long-ago hot days my mother would sing (even though it mentions the hardship of crossing a mountain pass, the snow and so forth).
Most people have a song or two they fall back on. A tune they whistle or hum when nervous. This is often done without a realizing of the doing. For me it is a piece made well-known by Gene Autry who saw it rise to Number One in the popular music charts in 1949 at Christmas.
Mister Austry was born Orvon Grover Autry at the end of September in 1907 and died 91 years later about three months after Roy Rogers (Leonard Franklin Slye), who was also a famous western man. For his part Mister Autry developed a code for his kind of cowboy that is apparently as follows:
- The Cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage.
- He must never go back on his word, or a trust confided in him.
- He must always tell the truth.
- He must be gentle with children, the elderly, and animals.
- He must not advocate or possess racially or religiously intolerant ideas.
- He must help people in distress.
- He must be a good worker.
- He must keep himself clean in thought, speech, action, and personal habits.
- He must respect women, parents, and his nation's laws.
- The Cowboy is a patriot
The song of his that accidentally I sing is called Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Not Valentino or Giuliani or Steiner or Nureyev or Hess or Virchow or Schlecter. And these are only all the Rudolphs I know of.
I consider it, the humming and whistling, to be proof, more than any certificate, of my final Americanization, for it is unconscious, even at this time of year. And very American. Mister Autry, after all, flew bomber planes across the Himalayas during the Second World War. As for matters close or somehow connected to my own home, he recorded a song, Daddy's Last Letter, based on the writings to his son of Private First Class John H. McCormick, a soldier who was killed in the Korean War when I myself was also much younger.
He is the only person (it says here) to have so many stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one in each of the five categories as maintained by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce:
Motion pictures, located at 6644 Hollywood Blvd.
Radio, located at 6520 Hollywood Blvd.
Recording, located at 6384 Hollywood Blvd.
Television, located at 6667 Hollywood Blvd.
Live theater, located at 7000 Hollywood Blvd.
The only problem I suppose is more a thing of what others think (as is so often the case). Singing Sweet Home Alabama (while not strictly true) would not cause comment. Equally, whistling a few bars of Amazing Grace would raise no eyebrows at the meat counter while waiting. This Rudolph however, in the midday heat of July, sees more questions in the eyes of others than I feel able to answer.
And always just the first few lines, over and over. It is very hot tonight.