Music is an important part of my life. For as long as I can remember, I have loved music. Music fills our home almost daily, and over the course of years, I have come to believe that it adds significantly to my understanding of life. I cannot imagine my world without music.
My family loved music, too, and exposed Libby and me to it on a daily basis. If Mom was home, the radio was on. Or sometimes, she would load up a full stack of seven albums on the stereo turntable; one would play, then another would drop to play. When we were outside, Daddy often lowered the windows on the truck all the way down and released the sweet sounds of the 8-track player turned wide open. We traveled all over the region to attend all manner of Fiddler’s Conventions, patting our feet in time to the music until the wee hours of the morning.
I knew other music, too, music that was completely different from all of this. That music came from an old Edison phonograph that had made its way to Dad and Mom from my great-grandparents. Maybe I was so taken with it because Daddy only brought it out a few times a year so we could listen to the music, the recitations, and the funny stories on the tube-shaped records. The rest of the time the phonograph lived on the top shelf of the guest bedroom closet along with a whole big box full of cylinder records.
When Daddy did bring it out, though, what a fun time we had! Just looking at the titles of the records was an adventure. Some of them had such unusual titles, and often the titles and the lyrics went back to a language we didn’t completely understand. All of them had a funny, echoing sound to them, and some of them had been played so many times that it was just impossible to make out the words at all. I guess those were my then young great-grandfather’s and great-grandmother’s favorites.
After thoroughly reviewing each title, Libby and I would choose the record we wanted to hear and then fuss until we decided which one got to turn the big handle on the side to wind up the spring inside that would make the cylinder turn. Daddy always watched and cautioned us about w
inding it too tightly so as not to break the spring. (Learning that lesson well, I would do the same thing with our daughter, Ellen, when she was a small child!) Next, to keep things fair, the one of us who did not get to turn the handle would place the record onto the cylinder and push the small lever to start it spinning. Then, finally, Daddy would carefully move the needle over the edge of the record and lower it onto the moving cylinder. We would sit back and giggle as we sang along with the words we had learned by heart.
We had our favorites, and we always made sure to listen to each of those. Some were lovely waltzes, and some were instrumentals, but the best ones were the fast-paced songs and comedy sketches. We never passed on listening to “The Preacher and the Bear”. The cylinder was not so worn that we couldn’t understand the words, and simply the image of the preacher up in the tree praying, “Now, Lord, if you can’t help me, for goodness sakes, don’t you help that bear!” started us laughing.
If you’ve never heard what a cylinder record sounds like, you must, so I have included a link to our favorite preacher and bear. The words are a little hard to understand, so I’ve also included the lyrics. Both links follow. Enjoy! My family sure did!
The Preacher and the Bear
Lyrics Source: http://everything2.com/title/The+Preacher+and+the+Bear
The Preacher and the Bear, as performed by Arthur Collins.
A preacher went out a-hunting
‘Twas on one Sunday morn’.
Of course it was against his religion,
But he took his gun along!
He shot himself some very fine quail
And one big measly hare;
And on his way returning home,
He met a great big grizzly bear!
The bear walked out in the middle of the road,
And he walked to the coon you see;
The coon got so excited that
He climbed up a simmon tree!
The bear sat down upon the ground,
And the coon climbed out on a limb:
Then he cast his eyes
To the Lord in the skies,
And these words said to him:
Refrain:
Oh Lord, didn’t you deliver Daniel from the Lion’s den?
Also, deliver Jonah from the belly of the whale and then —
Three Hebrew children from the fiery furnace, so the Good Book do declare!
Now Lord, if you can’t help me, for goodness sake don’t you help that bear!
Dramatic interlude:
Now, Mr. Bear, let’s you and me reason this here thing out together, eh? (Grr)
Nice bear… (Grr)
Good old bear… (Grr)
Will you please go away, Mr. Bear? (Grr)
Say Mr. Bear, if I could give you just one nice, sweet, good juicy bite, would you go again then? (Grr, ending with falsetto crescendo indicating affirmative)
Oh, you would, eh? No? So I’ll stay right here!
Oh my. Ohhh my! Ohhh —
Lord, didn’t you deliver Daniel from the Lion’s den?
Also, deliver Jonah from the belly of the whale and then —
Three Hebrew children from the fiery furnace, so the Good Book do declare!
Now Lord, if you can’t help me, for goodness sake don’t you help that bear!
Zip Coon stayed up in that tree,
I think it was all night.
He said, “Oh Lord if you don’t help the bear,
Then you’ll see an awful fight!”
Just about then, the limb let go,
And the coon come a-tumbling down:
You could see him get his razor** out
Before he struck the ground!
He hit the ground, a-cutting right and left,
He put up a very game fight.
Just then the bear hugged this coon,
He squeezed him a little too tight!
The coon then lost his razor,
But the bear held on with a vim;
Then he cast his eyes to the Lord in the skies,
And once more said to him:
Oh Lord, didn’t you deliver Daniel from the Lion’s den?
Also, deliver Jonah from the belly of the whale and then —
Three Hebrew children from the fiery furnace so the Good Book do declare!
Now Lord, if you can’t help me, for goodness sake don’t you help that bear!
Say, Mr. Bear, I want to act (tropically ?) on the level of this here matter. Now I’ll fight you a finish, without gloves, Marquis of Queensbury rules, eh? (Grr)
No hitten’ in the clinches! (Grr)
And I want a clean break! (Grr)
Ready? Shake hands. Hold on, I didn’t say “go”, yet! Now, Go! (Grr, vocalized struggle with the bear)
Oh! Ohh! Oh my goodness, what are you doing? Let go! Let go, you hear me? Oh Lord! Ohhh Lord! Ohhh —
Lord, didn’t you deliver Daniel from the Lion’s den?
Also, deliver Jonah from the belly of the whale and then —
Three Hebrew children from the fiery furnace so the Good Book do declare!
Now Lord, if you can’t help me, for goodness sake don’t you help that bear!