This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt suggests music and
dancing. According to my mother, Daddy
was a good dancer while she was not. His
mother taught him. The thought of my
granny dancing fills my imagination with all kinds of pictures. Sadly, there are no real pictures of such joy
when a mother and son are dancing.
However, Daddy put those lessons to good use, supplying
me with one good photo. My dad attended
at least one high school dance. The BIG
one. Maybe it was a prom or maybe the
Senior dance for the Class of 1945. I don’t know for sure, but
it was important enough for the school to take a group picture.
 |
| Daddy is in the second row, third boy from the left as well as third boy from the right. Babbs is partially hidden but is on Daddy's right. |
Daddy’s date was a girl called Babbs. But theirs was not a love story.
 |
| Me with my two grandfathers. Momma and Daddy are at the door to our trailer. |
A long week of study often led to relaxed weekends at
football games or shared meals in the cramped quarters of those white trailers. Momma and Daddy used to laugh when they recalled “the
Babbs stories” from those days.
Babbs Story #1
Sometimes when they got together, they played Twenty
Questions. It was Babbs’ turn. One of the questions was “Was he a
politician?” Babbs’ response was, “I
guess you could say he dabbled in politics.” After Jimmy, Momma, and Daddy used
up their twenty, Babbs proudly revealed the answer that had stumped students of law and of architecture:
Adlai Stevenson. Imagine their
reaction – a mixture of laughter and anger and frequent echoes of “dabbled in
politics” said with a combined exclamation point and question mark.
Babbs Story #2
Babbs was sitting at the table with paper and
pencil. “How do you spell porken?” she
asked. The others were puzzled. “Porken?
What’s that?” In all sincerity
and innocence, Babbs said, “I’m working on my grocery list and I need ‘porken
beans.’”
For more stories of dancers and musicians and those
dabbling in blogging, visit my friends at Sepia Saturday.
© 2015, Wendy Mathias.
All rights reserved.
Great post! Most chuckles for a long while over Babbs stories.
ReplyDeleteGood -- I'm glad.
DeleteHilarious stories. Hurray for the Babbs of this world. Their stories continue to make us smile long after they are gone.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't thought about Babbs in years. Finding this dance photo brought back some fun little memories.
DeleteProBABly a good thing for you that your father didn't marry Babbs :-)
ReplyDeleteOoh groan. You've had too much rest! Go outside and play.
DeleteYes, Daddy made the right choice.
I agree with Jo. A lucky escape. :-)
ReplyDeleteAll's well that ends well.
DeleteA lovely post.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteI had a little friend as a child who told me she had "cartogets" which turned out to be car tickets. Now that I have poor hearing I wonder if she had hearing problems too. Great photo and funny stories.
ReplyDeleteWhat's a car ticket??
DeleteThat Babbs was a character wasn't she? As soon as I saw, "how do you spell porken," I knew what was coming. Wow. It was fun reading your post.
ReplyDeleteShe WAS! She was one my parents' favorite friends.
DeleteThose were the days, when people really dressed for the occasion. Poor Babbs, little did she know she’d be the cause of our chuckles so many years later.
ReplyDeleteI know -- and now I'm hoping her daughter or someone related doesn't stumble upon this blog. My parents found Babbs to be fun and funny, not dumb, so I hope this blog doesn't sound like I'm making fun of her. These were stories my parents used to repeat as a fond memory.
DeleteI loved the Babbs "porken beans" story. Too funny! It appears in the first formal picture the group has just performed the Grand Procession (I think that's what we called it?) where two couples on opposite sides of the dance floor process up & around & come down the center in fours - each foursome in turn then going back up the side of the dance floor to come down the center in a line of eight, & so forth. I did it once where the final line was 16 across. Fun!
ReplyDeleteNot familiar with the Grand Procession but it sounds lovely.
DeleteYour father was lucky to be towards the front in the photo. Those poor couples in the back! Unless the photo they got was a large one.
ReplyDeleteOur family is rarely that lucky.
DeleteLove the stories - and I love the photos as well. That first one of the High School Dance is full of social history.
ReplyDeleteThe dresses! The corsages! Social history abounding!
DeleteWhen I saw your first photo I thought it was some kind of marching band! But where were the trombones?
ReplyDeleteProbably stashed in a corner. You know how those trombones interfere with corsages.
DeleteAt first I thought oh too bad that she's hidden, but I guess she wasn't meant to be anyway! I like that pork and beans story too!
ReplyDeleteHA -- yeah, since I seem to have given the wrong impression of Babbs, it's a good thing she's hidden.
DeleteA lucky escape for Daddy, but not so much for Babbs who went through her married life as Babbs Boggs!
ReplyDeleteHA --yeah, it is a quirky name combo.
DeleteI'm still laughing over the porken beans! The more I think about it, the funnier it gets...
ReplyDeleteI know -- I've been giggling off and on about it too since I wrote this post.
Delete