Dead, Dead, Dead

Dead, Dead, Dead

A conversation between my parents

Philadelphia

Saturday Night, 1996

While there were so many similarities that my parents shared, they differed somewhat on what they found to be entertaining. My dad loved to regale in the music of his good old days. My mother loved to keep current in all types and interest in the entertainment world.

This difference was most pronounced on Saturday nights in their home at 7 PM. That was when reruns of the Lawrence Welk show were aired. My father would inconspicuously turn on the TV and attempt to settle down and listen to the music that had soothed him for the last 50 years. Things would be fine until my mother, all in another room, would hear the familiar greeting from Lawrence Welk.

“Turn that off”, she went shout out to him, “remember I told you we can’t watch these shows from a hundred years ago. Watch something new that isn’t so depressing”.

“But it’s not depressing to me”, he would chime in, “I love this music”.

“Daddy”,  she would complain, “everyone there is dead, find something where everyone you listen to isn’t dead!”

 “They’re not all dead”, he would respond defensively.

And that comment would bring her charging into the living room, where she would walk up to the television and begin to point out,” Dead, dead, dead, dead and dead. They’re all dead. Stop watching dead people.” And with that he would laugh and she would change the channel.

A few years later, my mother died.  I went to visit my father on a Saturday night and he turned on Lawrence Welk.  We listened to the entire dreadful show and I thought to myself, “Where is that dead woman when I need her.”