For Father's Day - #3 The Burglar Bold

Doral couldn’t hold a tune. But still he sang songs for us like The Burglar Bold”. When I checked the internet to find songs he sang to us, they are more tuneful than the melodies he sang for us. Best to say he could take a tune and make it into twentieth century atonal music and not even know he was doing that. I can enjoy Sam McGee, the Grandad of Guitar Pickers,

But  when Sam sings, it is a completely new tune for me.  I can’t sing along with him.  His isn’t singing the tune I learned. For me Doral’s music was heady stuff – his melody the was picked up by my ear, one that was trained to place every note on the musical staff of my mind. I acquired the unusual ability to sing his song perfectly, mirroring his off-key voice with every phrase.

... she took out her teeth and her big glass eye,
and the hair all off her head ...

Doral would pantomime the lyrics as he sang. 

He would take out his false teeth on the phrase, “she took out her teeth”.

And he would act as though he were gouging out his own eye at the line were she takes out her big glass eye.

Doral swooped it out with his index finger and I could see it flying across the room, bounce, bounce, bounce and into a corner.

I can see him taking a slow, dramatic swipe of his hand over his own bald head as he sang that she took “the hair all off her head”.

And then he went on to sing the rest of the song sans dentures, twisting his lips, the upper one to the left, the lower one to the right, sometimes pressed both lips inward or maybe both lips thrown to one side of his mouth in a cone, winkles around his lips, terror in my heart to the end of the song, holding one last dramatic pause, and then … he …. became grandpa again, putting his teeth back in his mouth and letting the dramatic moment lift.

As I grew older and watch him sing this song to my children, another kind of terror ran through me, wondering if someday I would be taking the teeth of my mouth, me, an old white-haired woman, hair already swept back from her head, but running my hand over it to model baldness, gums writhing, singing about old maids and handsome you robbers and unwanted alliances.

Here are the lyrics our family sings, thought I don’t know why I am posting them, since they are burned into everyone’s memory:

I’ll tell you about a burglar bold who went to rob a house.
He opened the window and crept right in as quiet as a mouse. 

The burglar looked about him. The folks were all asleep,
And so he said, “By jiminy, I think I’ll take a sleep. 

So under the bed, the burglar crept, he crept right against the wall
He didn’t know it was the old maid’s house or he wouldn’t have been there at all. 

About nine o’clock the old maid came in, “Dear me, I’m tired,” she said.
She didn’t know there was anybody there, so she didn’t look under the bed.

She took out her teeth and her big glass eye and the hair all off her head.
And the burglary had about fourty-eleven fits, as he shook under the bed.

From under the bed the burglar crept, he was a total wreck,
The old maid wasn’t asleep at all and she grabbed him by the neck

She didn’t scream nor holler, but was as cool as a clam.
And said,”Pray Saints, at last I’ve found a man.” 

She took a pistol from under her pillow and to the burglar said,
“Young man, if you don’t marry me, I’ll blow off the top of your head.' 

The burglar looked about him. There was no place to scoot.
And so, he said, “By jiminy, madam, for Pete’s sake ... shoot.”

(#3 of 15, to be continued)

Arta