Determined To Succeed

Hey, everybody. How’s it going on this Friday? Well, I hope. I wanted to share something with you guys that was inspired by a random visit to my local ACME grocery store on Ash Wednesday. I really do believe our loved ones are with us wherever we go and no matter whether your parents are with us or not that it helps trigger for you a wonderful, warm memory that takes you into the weekend and brings the sun out in your lives.

According to Wikipedia®, the song “If I Knew You Were Comin’ I’d've Baked a Cake” was a popular song written by Al Hoffman, Bob Merrill and Clem Watts published in 1950. As with many songs before and after, it was recorded many times in many countries by many artists over the years (even including a 1969 version sung by Ernie to Cookie Monster on the very first season of a little show you might have heard of called Sesame Street). The big hit version of the song was recorded by Eileen Barton in January 1950. The recording was released by National Records and when the song became too big a hit for National to handle, it arranged with Mercury Records to help with distribution. The record first reached the Billboard Magazine charts on March 3, 1950 and lasted 15 weeks on the chart, peaking at #1.

Why do I bring all this up? Why am I mentioning a song that hardly anyone remembers anymore and is sixty-one years old this year? Simple. On Ash Wednesday 2011, I just happened to be at my local grocery store and a woman who easily is in her mid-to-late sixties (at least) was bantering back-and-forth with her co-worker and she sang that song. As she sang the main part of the song she smiled widely and bopped side to side having fun the entire time. I could tell she was remembering how much fun she must have had as a child listening to that song on her record player and singing it with her friends, you know, like the kids do nowadays with their fancy-schmancie iPods.

“If I Knew You Were Comin’ I’d’ve Baked a Cake…”

Instantly, I felt a memory rush back to me that I had long forgotten. It was from my childhood. It was of my sweet mama, JoAnn, singing that song to me in our apartment in Hyde Park. I don’t remember what would have prompted her to sing the song (maybe it was one of our birthdays or somehow we got on the subject of cake) but I now remember vividly her singing the song to me. And it wasn’t the only time she sang it. We were at our local grocery store one day and she burst into song there, too.

“If I Knew You Were Comin’ I’d’ve Baked a Cake…”

I am ashamed to say I also remember how I felt at the time as she sang that song to me. I thought it was silly and thought my mom was a bit loony for doing it. I mean really, who comes up with lyrics like “If I Knew You Were Comin’ I’d’ve Baked a Cake” anyway? Moreover, when we were in public I felt embarrassed that my mom was singing out loud this silly, weird song and all I wanted to do was walk away until my mom stopped this wild, wacky behavior. However, in retrospect, she must have felt as the grocery clerk did on Ash Wednesday. My mom must have remembered how it felt to connect to a song when she was a child (she would have been eleven-years-old at that time) and how much fun she must have had listening to it on her fancy-schmancie contraptions of the time, most likely her radio. As the memories came back I pictured her as she sang to me, smiling widely, bopping back and forth, trying to get me to smile.

I came home and told my girlfriend, Laura, about what had happened and I almost cried. I told her about the woman in the store and how her singing that silly song brought up such a powerful memory of my mother and how I just miss the sound of my mom‘s voice. Sure, I miss everything else about my mom, too – her smile, her laugh, going to the movies or to the store – but most of all, I miss her sweet and tender voice because when that voice wasn‘t trying to reassure me that everything was going to be O.K. with the world it was trying to make me smile and laugh with silly, goofy and weird old songs sung out loud at home and at the store.

Well, Ma, the smiles were there, then and now.

Ever since that day in my local store I have thought about that song, singing the refrain in my own head. And thanks to computers and websites like YouTube® I can not only hear it but see Eileen Barton sing that song (well, at least see a photo of her as a recording plays over my speakers). Hell, I can even see Ernie sing the song to Cookie Monster and remember what it was like to be a child having fun and singing silly songs because that was our job at the time, to laugh, have fun and play. Moms know that. It’s part of what makes them moms. If it’s our jobs to have fun then it’s their jobs to keep that party going because, as all of us know, childhood ends too way too soon and memories like that give way to the pressures and thoughts of the real world, kind of like Neo being awakened by Morpheus in “The Matrix.” But for a short but magical time we are children and our moms are gods, leading the party of smiles and fun because no matter how much money you have (or how much money we didn’t have) mom have that special something that always make us smile and laugh. At least mine did.

So thank you, anonymous grocery store clerk. The next time I see you I swear I’m going to tell you all about how you brought up that memory of my sweet mama and her singing that song to a little boy in Chicago and making him feel loved beyond reason. And thank you, Mama, for being brave enough to sing to your little boy even if it did embarrass me in public. You always seemed (and still seem) to know when I need (ed) a smile (I know it was your spirit who guided me to hear that clerk sing it that so I could hear it and remember and connect with you). And to all you kids (and adults) out there who think it is or was stupid that your parents sang silly little songs to you to get you to smile, wise up. That is how parents become our Higher Powers, it is how they lead us, connect with us and protect us. Most of all, it is part of how they love us, and believe me when I tell you on this grey and gloomy overcast day in southern New Jersey…when the singing stops and you have to fight to remember the party of smiles you miss them more than words can ever express.

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