A return to Lincoln’s haunts

Nearly 100 years ago, Springfield, Ill. poet Vachel Lindsay penned a poem, “Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight.” In 32 lines of verse, the poet spoke of the President stirred from his grave, walking the streets of the city he called home for more than half of his life, restless even in death because of unrest in the world. 

The central Illinois poet was troubled himself by the discord in the world in 1914. World War I had begun. 

Lindsay’s poem is powerful, but many of us who frequent Springfield know that it wasn’t just on a night a century ago that Lincoln’s spirit walked the streets of the capital city. 

Those of us who spend much time there, who study the 16^th President, his life and his legacy, know that, ghost-like being or not, the aura of Abraham Lincoln lives on in the town to which and the home of the people to whom he said he owed everything. 

In the rooms of the Old State Capitol or the Lincoln-Herndon Law Office,  in his home and along the streets he walked, if you stop, close your eyes for a second and open yourself to the possibility, it’s not at all hard to see this tall, lanky prairie lawyer in the city he called home. 

Because I live in mid-Missouri now, instead of an hour from Springfield, as I did for more than a decade, I don’t get to return to Lincoln’s adopted hometown as often as I once did. On Oct. 18, I returned for an opportunity of which I’ve dreamed for nearly two decades. I visited Springfield to speak about Abraham Lincoln. 

The occasion was the national conference of an organization in which I found tremendous value and through which I met vibrant leaders, encouraging mentors and brilliant communicators, when I was a member early in my corporate career—the Association for Women in Communications (AWC). The Springfield chapter of the organization served as host of the event, which has been held in a number of large communities across the nation through the years. 

One of my bucket list items was to speak on the national level sometime, somewhere. Another was to deliver a speech about Abraham Lincoln.  

I’d fulfilled the second of these wishes on a small scale on a number of occasions when I lived in the Bloomington-Normal area. I’ll bet if you asked them, you’d be surprised at the number of Sunrise Speakers Toastmasters members who could tell you that I opened their eyes a number of times at our 7 a.m. meetings with information that inspired them to learn more about Abraham Lincoln. As I shared my lifelong passion for his story, I guess I whetted their interest in him a little, too. If so, I did what I hoped. 

But, I’d never spoken about Lincoln in Springfield, the city where his legacy lives and inspires every single day.

On Friday afternoon, nearly 100 professional communicators gathered to hear “What Communicators Can Learn from Abraham Lincoln.” As I’ve studied Lincoln, I’ve noticed a number of similarities between things he did in his life and things communicators do in theirs. I believe there are 10 lessons that we can take from his life and example that can help us in our own social media efforts, our careers and our lives. 

I won’t share them all here today, but will give you a hint. For the last few minutes, you’ve been practicing one of them. To be like Lincoln, read. Read every day – and share what you read. Share it in a conversation over lunch or dinner, in a blog post or on Facebook, in a tweet.

This weekend, more than 100 women from across the nation gathered in Springfield to hear speakers, ranging from a Paralympic champion to this communicator who is more than a little bit nutty over a President from the Prairie State. I’d like to think they left with a bit more enthusiasm and knowledge about Lincoln than they had when they came. I do know they left inspired by the example, enthusiasm and nurturing of this dynamic group of women – and thankful to the efforts of the Springfield Chapter who showed them why the community and its people meant so much to the development of the president whose legacy is honored there.

Yes, Lincoln does still walk in Springfield – and not just in the light of the moon.

Flames, passing can’t snuff out memories

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 21^st 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

The power of words and music: Dan Fogelberg remembered

As I was scrolling down my Facebook page on a recent evening, I stumbled across a post on late singer/songwriter Dan Fogelberg’s tribute page. 

The post included an image of a letter a young girl had written to Fogelberg, asking the meaning of a line in one of his songs. What made the image all the more exciting, all the more powerful, was Fogelberg’s handwritten reply in return. 

He answered, that yes, though the words were literal, the related metaphorical meaning was much as she had suspected. 

The song in question was my favorite Fogelberg tune, “Same Old Lang Syne.” It’s a song reportedly based on a real event in Fogelberg’s life—a chance encounter with an old girlfriend in the grocery store on Christmas Eve. 

The tune captures all the surprise, awkwardness, giddiness, memories, regret, warmth and more that such an encounter elicits. It has an uncanny ability to draw its listener into the song, to invite her to watch as a silent observer as the two experience more emotions than they must have imagined possible in such a short time. 

Perhaps the reasons it struck me so strongly, years ago when I first heard it, and as I listened to it on tapes, CDs or car radios through the decades, are twofold—I’ve seen the song from the outside looking in and inside looking out. 

I spent nearly 30 years of my life in a grocery store, from the high school days when I met my first steady boyfriend in the check-out lane until I was a middle-aged mother and grandmother, watching much younger coworkers re-live those same excitement-filled moments. 

Grocery store clerks see and hear a lot. 

We witness those hugs and “Oh my gawds” when parted lovers home for the holidays see each other—sometimes after months apart, sometimes years. We watch warmly as widowers or divorcees bump into someone from long ago, and we can see a spark, long smoldering, begin to re-ignite. And, yes, we see those who have their regrets, bumping into old flames they let slip away, those who have built a life with someones new. 

And, too, because I lived in a rather small community, it wasn’t unlikely for me to have my own “Same Old Lang Syne” moments. 

On more than one occasion, I’d look up and see, across the counter, someone I’d met years earlier in the check-out lane, the library, the old neighborhood, or in a small town nearby—and had dated a time or two or a season. 

As with Fogelberg and his “old lover in the grocery store,” it was awkward at first, giddy at times, and sometimes warm—for the lives that touch ours, no matter how fleeting, often do bring with them memories worth remembering. It doesn’t take a six-pack from the liquor store or a songwriter’s recollection to warm us with memories of days gone by, even when we’re ever so thankful of the love we know today. 

Though Peoria’s Dan Fogelberg, singer/storyteller to the world, didn’t have his encounter in the frozen food aisle of the store where I worked all those years, I saw scores of Dans and lovers meet again.

Through his words, from time to time, as the song played in my mind, those others faded and Dan came into view. Tonight, writing this, I see his face again and, as I do, the music plays anew. 

© Ann Tracy Mueller 2013

Image via

A funfetti kind of night

One of my young family members loves funfetti birthday cake—a white cake full of hard candy sprinkles with even more sprinkles in the frosting than on the cake itself. 

There’s something about that kind of cake that just says “happy,” don’t you think?

Last year, Barry Manilow came to the community where we lived. 

We’ve never been big Manilow fans, but the guy is a music legend. So were Elvis, Liberace, Frank Sinatra. We weren’t particularly big fans of any of them either and never saw any of them in concert; yet, when they were no longer, I always regretted not seeing them in person. 

That’s why I bought the concert tickets first—and told my husband later. If I had asked before ordering tickets, I thought he’d think of every reason why we couldn’t go. I envisioned him saying things like: 

“You never listen to Barry Manilow. Why would you go to his concert?” 

“We’re too busy.” 

“The tickets are too expensive.”

“Shouldn’t you be packing (or writing a blog post, or doing the laundry, or grooming the dog)?” 

Oh, wait, we don’t have a dog. 

Get the picture? 

I ordered the tickets, though, dragged hubby along to the concert, and noticed as we looked around that we were among the youngest people in the audience. It hit me that night, as it does every time my husband and I go somewhere in the community of seniors where we now live, that our peers aren’t as young as they used to be, nor are the artists of our era.

As I watched the guests filling the arena, though, I noticed an aura in the room, an air about its occupants—and it wasn't from the glow sticks we received when we arrived. The concert-goers may have looked “old,” but they acted young. These were the same girls who screamed for the Beatles and begged Elvis to grind his pelvis, and the same guys who rolled up their sleeves and cruised in muscle cars for that cool guy-look of the 1950s and early sixties. 

Although Manilow was recovering from hip surgery when we saw him in concert, the almost-septuagenarian put on a show that would have many people half his age panting for air. The evening was a nice mix of storytelling and song, with such signature tunes and crowd favorites as “Mandy,” “I Write the Songs,” and “Can’t Smile Without You.”

Looking back on that night of nearly a year ago, my husband and I have to agree that, though Manilow wasn’t on our bucket lists, we know now each of ours would have been a bit less full without the experience. 

From the oldsters-turned-young-again to the gotta-sing-along tunes to the entertainer-extraordinaire, our night with Manilow was one we’ll long remember. 

As the concert drew to a close with one of Manilow’s most energetic classic tunes, the performer had one more trick up his sleeve. In some sort of super-stage magic, confetti-like streamers of at least a half-dozen different colors shot from the front of the arena to almost the back of the crowd—a spectacular end to a back-in-time kind of night, one that made us greater Manilow fans than we’d imagined possible.

When we go places where large crowds congregate, my husband is one to say, “Wait. Let the crowd thin out before we leave.” I’m not one to just sit, or even to stand and wait, so I used the time to gather a big batch of the streamers, making sure I had one of each color. 

When we got home, I took this picture to capture the essence of our funfetti night—and to remind me to stay always young, to live a funfetti kind of life. 

What about you? Do you maintain the youthful exuberance of Manilow and his fans? Are you living a funfetti life? 

Believe me—that kind of outlook makes life as sweet as a cake with sprinkles, no matter how many birthdays you’ve got behind you. 

© Ann Tracy Mueller 2013