I don’t know how long I’d have stayed in Cayuga and what all would have happened to me at the hands of Babette if it hadn’t been for Tops for Toys the next Saturday on channel six.
Julie and I were performers. For as long as I could remember, we had been featured at least a couple of times a year at the Azalea Heights Music Study Club and had been a regular act at all the talent shows all over the Shelby County area. We’d go to Tenaha and Joaquin and Shelbyville and San Augustine and perform at the high school where there was always some money awarded at the end to the best act according to a panel of local judges. Julie played her pearl blue accordion while I sang and danced and snapped my fingers in my bobby socks and saddle oxfords. Sometimes we would harmonize, with Julie singing alto and me singing soprano. Mother always had the numbers all lined up and about a week before the performance, she’d make us start practicing. We never really had any say about the numbers; it was always something cutting edge that nobody had ever heard anybody do yet except the singing stars on the radio or Ed Sullivan’s t.v. show. We’d learn a few and then just use those four or five everywhere we went the rest of the year. We finally got to where we could do “Boom Boom Ain’t It Great to be Crazy,” “Sweet Old Fashioned Girl,” “Sad Movies,” and “Tan Shoes and Pink Shoe Laces,” without even thinking about it. I’ll bet we could have successfully walked the dog with a yoyo while singing those songs and never missed a beat at either task (except that Julie would have had a little trouble balancing the yoyo-dog on the string and playing her accordion at the same time.) After a few years of this we didn’t even know what stage fright was. Most of the time we would win, but Daddy would always make us turn around when the man would give us the money and hand it right back to him. Julie would have to say, “My little sister and I would like to donate our winnings to be used by your school as you see fit.” (This was a stupid thing to do as far as I was concerned, but Mother would tell me that we could get something special the next time we went to the Green Stamp Store.)
Sometimes they would call for an encore, and we always had a few religious numbers ready for those who needed something a little heavier. “Out of the Ivory Palaces,” “Mansion Over the Hilltop,” and “I Saw A Man” were our standbys. Because of these religious numbers, somebody got the idea that we needed to be invited to their Sunday afternoon singings out in the woods under a big roof with no walls. One Christmas for the Music Study Club, Mother came up with the idea for Julie to play “Silent Night” on the piano while I recited this poem called “Happy Birthday, Jesus.” This was a big hit, and blue-haired ladies would cry and delicately dab their eyes with their lacy handkerchiefs and hug us as though we had been inspired and made the whole thing up ourselves.
Somebody heard about us over in Shreveport and invited us to come be on their t.v. show called “Tops for Toys,” so now I was leaving Cayuga to go back home to get ready for our first and only t.v. appearance the following Saturday morning at 10 o’clock. I figured that this was probably the Great Whisperer’s way of rescuing me from Babette, especially now that she was all fired up from successfully handcuffing her first niece to the schoolhouse.
From Out of the Chute in Azalea Heights- Chapter 19
