The first bit of sad news came in a text from my husband as I sat, late Easter afternoon, writing in my home office: “Ted’s Garage burnt down.”
The next appeared in a Facebook post a week later:
“Ozark Opry catches fire.”
The third was another text from hubby, as he sat in
his recliner watching TV: “Annette Funicello died.”
My text response to that one? “Aw-w-w.”
The Facebook post I
wrote a few minutes later, linking to a YouTube video, read, “RIP, Annette Funicello.
A little of me died today. “
The flames that
engulfed Ted’s Garage and Lee Mace’s Ozark Opry took a bit of me, too, it
seemed.
As I mused over these
three—two landmarks and one lady—I dug through the rubble of the losses for
some memories I could hold tight and cherish forever.
Here’s what I found.
The
common bond
The Clinton, Ill.
eatery, the Osage Beach, Mo. music hall, and the Mouseketeer had something in common.
Each of them had a way
of beaming us from the 21st century back to a place and time, when
we were younger, more idealistic, perhaps, and less distracted by a 24-hour
news cycle and the technology that keeps it and other interruptions in front of
us. When we stepped through the doors at the 50s-style diner, sank into our
seats at the Opry or watched Annette on the black-and-white TVs in our parent’s
wallpapered living rooms, we left distractions behind and lived in the moment.
Ted’s
transported with classics
Classic food and
classic cars—that’s what you’d find when you stepped into Ted’s Garage. The retro eatery next to the community’s Chevrolet dealership was known for
its décor and oldies menu reminiscent of Arnold’s on “Happy Days,” and for classic
cars at the front of the restaurant and in a glassed-in showroom.
My hubby and I didn’t
visit it often—maybe a half-dozen times or less in the 11 years we lived
nearby—but each time we went there was a special time. Maybe that’s why we
went infrequently—to keep it special, to make each visit a step back in time—to
make us feel young at heart, to help us remember those days when kitchen tables
were of Formica, chairs were covered in vinyl held on with silver thumbtacks
and when a burger, fries and a chocolate shake, cherry Coke or Green River were
a really big treat.
When my husband and I
moved from our house in Central Illinois a year ago, we knew we were also
leaving favorite places. Some we’d see again, some we wouldn’t.
Ted’s was one
of those.
Now, gutted by fire,
it’s less likely we’ll return, but we can still close our eyes, look back and remember the taste of a tenderloin, the sound of Chubby Checkers on
the jukebox, the shiny chrome on a ’57 Chevy. A wind-fed fire on Easter Sunday
can’t burn those records on the turntables in our minds.
Mace’s
mesmerized with music
When my husband and I first started vacationing at
the Lake of the Ozarks more than 20 years ago with several members of our
extended family, we were looking for kid-friendly activities. He remembered visiting
a music show a decade or so before. He said it was comical, entertaining and
fun. He thought the rest of us might like it, too.
Though I always hate to type these words, that day
hubby was right.
We didn’t just like Lee Mace’s Ozark Opry. We loved
it. Everyone on the stage—from the piano player pounding out “Great Balls of
Fire,” to the guitar,- sax-, harmonica-, fiddle-playing, banjo-picking talent
in the band, to Goofer, the comedian—looked as if they enjoyed entertaining as
much as the full house enjoyed being entertained.
It wasn’t just that way the first time we visited.
It was that way every time.
As annual visitors for a number of years, we came
to notice several things about the Ozark Opry—for instance, the way the parking
lot attendants, ticket agents and popcorn servers seemed to enjoy what they
were doing as much as the cast. It was as if they were all family. I learned
later, some of them were, by blood. The rest were, I think, related by their passion
for the magic that was Mace’s.
I also noticed that Joyce Mace, widow of the founder
and man for whom the show was named, could always be found in the same seat
when the lights were dimmed and a spotlight shone on a big bass fiddle as a
recording played of Lee Mace singing “Ragged Old Flag.”
And, I came to learn that if you told the ticket
office attendants who you were, where you were from and that you had little
kids or guests new to the Opry and asked politely, they’d do their best to get
you a seat up close to the front.
When we moved to the Lake of the Ozarks full-time
last year, we lamented that the show had closed its doors a few years earlier,
but were grateful the building still stood, much like a monument in a cemetery,
a sentinel standing guard, paying tribute to the times so many cherished.
I drove past the charred building the other day, leaving
the window rolled up to keep out the smell of smoke and keep inside the car the memory of the late Steve Tellman singing “Forever and Ever Amen,” Helen Russell
clogging, Goofer wearing his comical
collapsible cardboard hat—and the warmth we felt each time we entered there.
Mouseketeer
kept us kids
Seems like forever ago sometimes, like yesterday
others, the era of black-and-white TV,
when the number of channels was only three, when up too early or awake too
late, all that looked back at us was the test pattern.
In those days long past, TV time was limited. If we were
lucky, we watched Captain Kangaroo in the morning, Lawrence Welk and Mitch
Miller on Saturday nights, The Wonderful World of Disney, Lassie and Bonanza on
Sunday, and the Mickey Mouse Club of an afternoon.
The years have wiped away the memory of most of the
Mouseketeers, but if there’s one name most Baby Boomers remember above all others,
it’s Annette Funicello.
What was it about Annette that made her every young
boy’s sweetheart , the girl each young lady longed to be—her big brown eyes,
the bounce in her step, or the way she seemed so wise and full of life?
Even before she became a beach movie babe, she was
one of a handful of girls who epitomized her day.
We watched her grow to a teen, remembered her locked
somewhere twixt the two—Mouseketeer and movie star—until the day, when growing
older, she shared with us her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis.
We wished well for her, remembered her in our
prayers and shed tears on learning of her passing.
With us always
One thing’s certain, though—until we join her and
Walt Disney at the Mickey Mouse Club in the sky, we’ll remember her ever.
To those who don’t know better, it looks as if a
restaurant and an empty building burned and an aging has-been television star
died. These are the kinds of stories that are texted, tweeted, posted on
Facebook, buried in newspapers and read by an anchor on the local news nearly
every day.
To this Baby Boomer, they’re more than that. They’re
pieces of my past.
A fire may have claimed the buildings and death the
star, but just as I died a little hearing of their losses, remembering them
helps me to relive moments I’ll never forget.
Each of them—Ted’s, the Opry and Annette—leave a legacy
that can never be extinguished.
© Ann Tracy Mueller 2013
