Me and Guy Lumbardo

Guy Lumbardo played a big part in my formative years. My father and mother loved his style of music, and trying to fit in, I loved it to. The muted trombones I think, were my favorite, but the twin pianos, when you saw them on the Ed Sullivan Show, were something special.

When it was my turn to do the dishes, I would put on a couple of the Guy Lumbardo and the Royal Canadian albums and wash away all my worries with the dinner dishes. It was great fun, and good music too! Other nights we would harmonize with Mitch Miller, but that’s for another story.

One night Dad came home from the office and announced he had been given tickets to go to the Royal Canadians New Years Eve Party at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City. This was wonderful! Not only were my parents going to get dressed up and go out for the evening, but they might be on television as Guy Lumbardo and his band always played Auld Lang Sygn at midnight when the ball dropped in Times Square, and my parents were going to be there!

New Years Eve came and I don’t know who was more excited, my mother, or my sisters and I. We watched her get dressed in her beautiful dress bought especially for this night. It was a silvery satin with a very straight skirt and a bolero jacket; very much in style and looking wonderful on her. To me she was the most beautiful woman in the world, and my father, the most handsome.

That night my sisters and I stayed up as late as we could, watching our blurry television, hoping to get a glimpse of our parents, dancing or sitting close to the orchestra. We knew they would be given the most important seats, as they were our parents and where else would they be seated? I did get to see one of our family friends sit in on the piano during one of the orchestra’s breaks. That was so exciting! No one ever knew anyone who was on TV, especially on New Years Eve.

I don’t even remember my parents getting home. It must have been very early the next morning, but when they woke up, they told us all about the night, the music, the dancing, all the dresses and fur coats the women wore. It was like we had been there with them! My dad told me he had gotten something for me and handed me a menu from the restaurant addressed: To Carol, Happy New Year, and many more from Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians. Addressed to me, and the whole orchestra had signed it, there was Guy and his brother Carman, even the singers had wished me good luck. I guess they couldn’t believe that a silly little eight-year-old girl could be a big fan. Maybe they were hoping to influence the next generation one little girl at a time. Well it worked for me for a little while. And then I discovered the Everly Brothers and it was good-bye to Guy and friends!

I didn’t think much of that incident for many years. Oh I would find the menu, I kept it in the linen closet for years, it seemed like a safe and flat surface to keep an oversized menu from an old New York era, and every once in awhile I would take it out and look at all those names, and wonder how many of them were still alive, shake my head at the prices of the food and the amount of things they offered for dinner. It was amazing to me. You see the menu was still important to me, but not for all the signatures on the inside cover, but for the history it told of celebrations, and restaurants, and inflation. It was a large wedge of Americana, of a time long gone by. But I was still that little girl whose father had thought enough of her to ask for the autographs.

That is until about 45 years later, when my father was reminiscing with me.

“Do you remember how much your sister Margaret liked Guy Lumbardo? I never could understand it.” He said with a soft smile on his face.

“Dad, It was me,” I said patting his hand and smiling at my elderly father.

“No, it was your sister. I remember as if it were yesterday. She would play those records just about every night. Nearly drove me crazy, I’m more a Frankie fan, you know.” He said.

“Dad, that was me” I said not smiling but still patient with my dear ol’Dad.

“No, I would remember if it were you. You never liked that sort of thing. Now Margaret, she was such a cute kid, why on weekends we used to go out in the woods for breakfast. We would get up early in the morning and pack eggs and a fry pan and hike way up on the hill. Gosh I loved those times.” He shook his head and looked off, smelling the eggs and bacon. Seeing his daughters exploring all the nooks and crannies of those woods.

“Dad, that was me” I said, now wondering who this man was, obviously he wasn’t the same one who had made breakfast for my younger sister and me all those years ago. Out in the woods, eggs had never tasted so good.

“It couldn’t have been you. Why are you doing this? You know you never liked Guy Lombardo! You liked Paul Anka and who was that other guy you girls all swooned over? Kookie or something?” he waved his hand in the air as if to dismiss me, and my memories.

“Dad, it was me, who liked Guy Lombardo. I used to sit on your lap in front of the stereo and listen to that album with you. Don’t you remember that?” Now I was pleading with him to remember I had been there. I wanted him to remember me.

“What are you making such a big deal about it? Why are you lying to me? Don’t you think I know who I brought that menu home for?” he pointed his finger towards me to emphasis the point, “ It was for your sister! She isn’t here to defend herself, so you have decided to just say it was you. Well I know better, don’t think I don’t remember,” he said in an accusatory voice. “I may be ninety, but I still remember.”

I opened my mouth to say, to plead, with him to see me, but it was too late. The time was gone. I was gone. That little girl was gone. It didn’t matter.

I moved not long after that conversation with my father. As I was packing up the linens and towels from the hall closet, I found that long ago menu. And just to make sure I really wasn’t going crazy, I looked to see who Guy had wished a Happy New Year, all those lifetimes ago..