During our recent snowstorm lockdown, I ran across a Lawrence Welk show on TV.
I remember rolling my eyes at how much my mother and her friends loved watching the show every Saturday night.
Interested to see the show after twenty years or more, I was expecting to be carried away with a welcome change from today’s harsh sound.
Before watching it, I remembered it as being better, but just not my style. I am not musical or knowledgeable about music at any level, but the songs did seem a little flat and certainly were slower. I hate to say draggy, but they sang at a slower tempo than I remember. I thought they would never get to their destination when a female trio sang, “Sentimental Journey.”
Forgetting my efforts to not be elderly at 99, I have to tell you I did know the words to most of the songs. But where did all those horns come from? Were my beloved Big Bands filled with that much brass? I missed the guitars. I did enjoy the tap dancing, which you don’t see much anymore. They stood the whole time and didn’t get their clothes ruffled.
I do remember Lawrence Welk shows had beautifully made-up women with perfectly coiffed hair. I didn’t remember how pretty the men were! Oh my! Was that makeup on them too? I appreciate how they were so clean and shiny. There was not a tee shirt to be seen or a torn pair of jeans. Instead, the all-male orchestra were wearing bright yellow, perfectly tailored suits. Then, they sang a chorus number with the women in gorgeous pink evening gowns and the men in gorgeous pink suits. In a way all this pastel beauty is soothing. No hostile thoughts happen while this show is in progress.
And you do breathe more slowly. That has to be a good thing. Stick with me, I was hoping to like his show better, and now I feel unfaithful to my kinder, gentler era.
Maybe I am not as old-fashioned as I thought because Lawrence is definitely too old for me.
Jeanette Smith, 95, a Blythewood resident, has been active in the community’s civic affairs for over 50 years.