In the fifty-one years we’ve been married, only a few possessions have followed us everywhere. There’s some sterling silver flatware, a set of china, Hank’s slide rule, one surviving Pyrex mixing bowl, and some jewelry.
Those few things, and the ukulele.
The ukulele had performed magic before, after all, starting with me.
About thirty-five years ago, my son Ben was home sick from school. I was teaching kindergarten that year, and he called me in the small building where I worked. “Hey Mom, did you know we have bats?” He continued with the story of how he happened to be in the attic looking for the bats, something about bat guano under the pull-down attic steps. But when I got home, he related that he had found not only the bats but an old ukulele. Did I care anything about it?
“No, it’s yours,” I said, hoping I had aroused some newfound interest in music following his ill-fated piano recital of the previous year. That would be the one where he stopped in the middle of Peer Gynt and walked off the stage.
The ukulele had performed magic before, after all, starting with me.
Sometime during middle school, on a day trip to Lake Spivey with my friends Anne and Phyllis, in the back seat of Anne’s daddy’s cavernous ‘62 Chevrolet sedan, the girls got out their ukuleles and began to strum “Michael Row the Boat Ashore, Alleluia,” “26 Miles Across the Sea,” and a few other songs I can’t remember. We sang the whole way from Atlanta and tried some harmony. Four chords, that’s all you needed: C, A minor, F, and G. Even the largest ukes have small enough necks to accommodate small hands. I was hooked.
I talked my parents into buying me this used baritone ukulele. I’m not entirely sure where it came from — my daddy always knew where to get stuff — but I played it to death. It was smack in the middle of folk music’s heyday: the Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul and Mary. I loved it.
I taught those four chords to my brother Frank, who is four years younger than I, and he taught them to my next youngest brother Joel. They formed a band. Imitating the Beatles, they let their hair grow and got my mom to make shiny satin costumes, and The Prince and the Paupers was born. They played those chords on electric guitars all through the 60s at high school dances — where they once ignited their PA system — at Elementary Halloween Carnivals, skating rinks, a Church of the Latter Day Saints youth group event, and Uncle Charlie’s Attic in Decatur. I think they even played at the opening of a gas station once. Baby brother Jeff, still in elementary school, played drums on the picnic table and guitar with a broom.
I took my ukulele off to college, joined a sorority, and played the ukulele in our washboard band during rush week and sometimes to entertain other groups. “There’s A Meetin’ Here Tonight,” “This Land is Your Land,” “San Francisco Bay Blues,” “For Baby,” and some protest songs. (Despite the fact this was the mid 60s, we knew nothing about protesting.) We even made an album, The Sounds of Alpha Chi. Three of us sang “Plaisir d’amour,” made famous by Joan Baez. I found our version on YouTube once, accompanied by the caption, “The only existing recording of this performance is on the private press album.” The private press was a recording studio in Athens that would have recorded dogs howling if you paid them. It was some of the most fun I ever had, before or since.
After college, I got married. Hank and I moved around the country, first to El Paso, Texas. He loved folk music as much as I did and knew more about it. We stuck that ukulele in the back seat of his 63½ Ford Fairlane, and we sang those songs across five states. “Gypsy Rover,” “Gilgarry Mountain,” “Golden Vanity,” and his favorite, “The First Time Ever I saw Your Face,” he sang to me. What he lacked in musical talent, he made up for in charm and passion for the song. The car drank oil, and as a honeymoon prank, my brother-in-law had dumped several bags of what later became known as “chads” inside the car. Every time we turned on the heat (there was no A/C), we were showered with chad confetti. And the radio didn’t work. The ukulele was the only entertainment we had.
While Hank was in Vietnam, I went back to Atlanta to teach school. I added a Kermit the Frog decal to the Alpha Chi Omega decal and sometimes sang to my second graders for fun.
Later, the ukulele accompanied us to Delaware, and back again to Texas, and finally to Aiken. We added John Denver to our song list, and I got a guitar. I played it some, but guitars are harder to play. You have to have bigger hands and callused fingers, and I never got very good.
Over the years, I got busy, and started singing in the church choir. Ralph Vaughn Williams replaced Joan Baez, and I didn’t play the ukulele much anymore. A few years ago, my brother Frank started building guitars and ukuleles from scratch. He is a patient, talented luthier, and he built me a new ukulele. I rarely play it, but it’s nice to have, just because he made it.
Not only does Frank build guitars, he plays them well. Now in his 60s, he sings with a newfound strength and confidence. And he finally discovered he likes folk music.
Sad to say, Joel passed away several years ago; but he left behind his wife, a church organist and singer herself; a son; and a talented daughter who teaches chorus.
Jeff played in several bands around Atlanta during the late 70s. They played at high schools, including a gig at our high school where, in an attempt to imitate KISS and set off some sort of explosion, they, again, shut the gym’s power down — twice. They played high school sock hops and Georgia Tech fraternity parties until he finally graduated and went to work. Later, when he was playing music solo, this time to pay the electricity bill, he recorded his own back-up music: drums, marimbas, horns; and he became Jeff and the Camaros. Nowadays he plays Trop Rock to Parrotheads for beer and fun on the Florida Panhandle, and he’s made some CDs with songs often based on the semi-wild ride that has been his life. He is as much a poet as a musician.
During the recent unpleasantness, for lack of anything else to do, we started cleaning out the attic. At the far end, away from where the bats had been, under the louvers, I spotted the old ukulele. Decals still attached, a layer of plywood edge peeling away, there were quarter-inch holes sprinkled across its sides. I texted my sons, who I expected were responsible for whatever had befallen the historic instrument.
Ben responded, “Oh yeah, Mom, you didn’t know? We used it for target practice in the attic. Those are from BBs.” Retribution for his unhappy musical experience, maybe?
Two of our sons did learn to play. Ben didn’t, but wishes he had. Paul and David play Frank’s guitars and sing, pretty well in fact. When they play together, their voices blend as only brothers’ voices can. And they tell me there are still a whole lot of songs you can play with just those four chords: C, A minor, F, and G.
