Tale 8

Where the Ten Thousand Comes From

“Solo tenor leading,

double-file they marched along the ninth green

in blazers two-tone blue, old men and young,

bearing five-irons, straight for the Inn,

all on the wall in the mirror –

'in mj's mind' – 'in his crazy vision' –

depending on who described it, and how.”

Fred Waring's Shawnee Inn and Golf Course in 2018

(now called ‘The Shawnee Inn and Golf Resort')
barely seen through trees

from the old road connecting Shawnee to Minisink Hills and Delaware Water Gap

the Delaware River

once the principal route of transportation, travel and commerce

for founding colonizer William Penn and his Quaker settlers from England and Germany

flows by the foot of yonder (‘Kittatinny’) mountain

right on the far side of the golf course

then heads down past Trenton and Florence, Collingswood and Camden
on the New Jersey side

and Philadelphia Pa. and Wilmington Del. on the western side

to the Atlantic

The seventeen men of the glee club in the mirror now declaimed in booming, shouting, nerve-rattling unison, like a deific Greek chorus, two maxims of Ben Franklin’s that mj’s mother, Jo Lorenzo, had taught her little Jackie at five. A shocking takeoff on Waring’s usual concert format was this. But Franklin beat even Waring as an all-around Pennsylvania success, so the glee club was on target. Benjamin Franklin wrote a bestseller (his own autobiography), invented bifocals, lightning rods and many other things more critical to quality life than Fred Waring’s cocktail drink blender, beat Fred in business acumen, and represented the USA admirably at the highest levels of government, remaining in Paris and London for extended periods to do so. He published an annual colonial guidebook full of wise advice called “Poor Richard’s Almanac,” raised funds for the Revolutionary Army, thereby changing the course of human history, founded the University where mj went to Medical School, and the hospital where the young med student mj lorenzo did psychiatric research (and won a prize for it), the same hospital where Dr. Lorenzo’s son Freddie was born later, and did good for the public in a thousand smart and philanthropic ways, much like Fred Waring. And he succeeded in several areas where Fred, fortunately, never attempted: for instance, as a moralist; or as an ambassador to France; and even as one of the most important founding fathers of what Jo Lorenzo called the greatest country in history, the U.S.A. Yet it still surprised mj when he heard the glee club declaiming quotes that made it seem that Franklin had seen through Fred a hundred and fifty years before the guy was born:

The sound of your hammer

at five in the morning

or nine at night,

heard by a creditor,

makes him easy six months longer...[1]

they shouted.

A past Pennsylvanian icon shouted at a present one, making him look like a jackass by comparison, because Franklin was talking about a carpenter’s hammer and tools, not a wooden mallet for changing golf holes you were too proud to lose on but couldn’t afford to change.

The most trifling actions that affect a man's credit are to be regarded...

If he sees you at a billiard table,

or hears your voice at a tavern when you should be at work,

he sends for his money the next day;

demands it, before he can receive it, in a lump.[2]

The interviewer’s mother had been a ‘Pennsylvanian’ too, originally, in the sense of being born there. But her parents carted her off around the year 1912 to South Jersey, where later she played piano at Sunday night church, Frances Childs Methodist, thereby meeting Rev and causing mj the sad misfortune of having to grow up in a South Jersey flatland backwash of sand, pines and tomatoes, instead of rolling green Pennsylvania culture and class. But Jo and her siblings remembered their Philadelphia-German roots and drummed Philly’s finer traditions into little mj. He respected his Pennsylvania mother for many reasons, just one of which was that she had taught him music basics on the piano at four, long before he ran into his next powerful music teacher at six, Fred Waring on Sunday night TV.

Fred’s tenors and basses carried on now in Greek-chorus unison, unnervingly loud and piercing, frighteningly voice-blended:

You will be ashamed to see your creditor;

you will be in fear when you speak to him;

you will make poor pitiful sneaking excuses

and, by degrees, come to lose your veracity

and sink into base, downright lying...[3]

"Mj, the man –!" Bill flustered, surprisingly. Then he collected himself. "He was going to lose the Inn to the Bank; because he had fired Walter Lindborg as the manager of the Inn, when Walter tried to stop Fred changing holes!"

...mmmmmmBut a false-hearted

gaaaahl-fermmmmmmmm-...                     (But a false-hearted golfer....)

The humming voices complained still, and the tenor:

     ...Will ru-in your

paaaaaaaa-aaahrmmmmmmmmmmm...   (Will ruin your par....)

"Was this last year?" mj asked, bewildered. But how could it have been any year? Granted, Fred had always raised heaps of money for Republican causes – in several different decades of the century. Granted, Fred was a hero to his parents’ war-supporting ‘hawk’ generation, the people that had backed the Vietnam War when he and Joey were carrying banners in the street to stop it; but all of this did not have to mean that Fred was automatically a charlatan, did it?

"Two years ago," said Bill: "The Bank had given up with this idiot! And I saw this with my own eyes, mj. I never was at the Inn that often, 'cause I don't dig golf. There was this big table filled with four very dignified men that didn't look anything like golfers, it was lunch time and they had suits and they had briefcases. And Fred would forget that you needed working capital over the summer, and they'd loan him a hundred thousand dollars to open the Inn. Well he'd go spend thirty of it changing holes on the golf course. And Fred would say, 'We need a new rug’, and find out that the new rug cost eight, nine thousand dollars, and there was no need for the rug."

"Yeh'n’ Bill," said Betty Ann, "it was more than that because they had to design a room to weave the rug in."

Bill nodded. He closed his eyes and sipped, and the pause gave the men of the glee club license. Fred’s ‘Pennsylvanians’ stood on the golf course, and fanned into two harmonic directions, loudly:

     ...He'll wine you and

daaAAaaahine you....              (He’ll wine you and dine you.....)

Solo tenor leading, double-file they marched along the ninth green in blazers two-tone blue, old men and young, bearing five-irons, straight for the Inn, all on the wall in the mirror – 'in mj's mind' – 'in his crazy vision' – depending on who described it afterward, and how.

"Anyway," said Bill, "I'm sitting at the Inn and I was with somebody and they said, 'Holy cripes! Wait till you see this’! And I said, ‘Why’? At that time I was coming up from the city to see him about recording. And it was somebody very influential in this organization." Bill spoke through his teeth: “They said, ‘Those are the bastards that are trying to close the Inn. They're here to see Fred and they can't ever get to see the man’. The guys he owed like a million dollars to or some ridiculous sum, right? And he had an appointment with them a half hour before.

"Fre-hed Waring walks in. Talk about –!" Bill sat up. "There's a word in the business: ‘balls’. I mean, that's what it takes. He walks in and he says, 'Hi there’, to this lady sitting there." Bill acted prissy and flirtatious: “‘How are you? You playing golf today’? And he walks table to table. And as he walked by he sees me sitting there. The bankers said, ‘Ah, Mr. Waring –’.

"He said," Bill acted a snippety Fred, "'I'll be with you in due time'!"

     ...And tell you more

laaahies,...                                    (And tell you more lies.....)

Outside the Inn's three main dining-room windows the glee club drew to a halt and belted it:

     ...Than the cross-ties on a

raaail-roooad...                           (....Than the crossties on a railroad....)

"And he walks back and sits down at my table and proceeds to talk to me about re-cord-ing. And I sat there with my mouth hangin' open!"

Bill sighed and lowered his voice again. "So the maitre-di' or somebody came back and said, 'Mister Waring, the gentlemen asked me to inform you that they have other appointments and that they must go'."

Bill's Fred Waring became perturbed and flitty. "He says, 'Fine! I don't have the time right now! Tell them, if they can come back tomorrow, I'll invite them for lunch'!"

...Mmmmmm Or the stars in the

skaaaaaaaahy....                                         (....Or the stars in the sky.....)

"Well one of the men got up and was very angry. And Fred went up there and proceeded to tell this man off. The man was standin' there shakin' his head as if to say, 'I understand, I understand’. And they walked out of there. And they were there tryin' to foreclose on that Inn."

"Hmmm," was all mj could say. It certainly wasn't the story he had wanted.

Bill had more. "I mean, this man has the unbelievable audacity –; and I think nine-tenths of the reason he gets away with all these debts is, he just refuses to talk to 'em."

"Mm huh." Fred might have had faults, but mj still wanted the funny fairy tale he’d been hearing about for months, the courtship, and then the wedding in Fred’s living room. They didn't have to dwell on Fred’s faults. They could forgive and forget them, hopefully.

The violinist’s riff that was suspended mid-air like a big balloon finally sprang a leak. It fizzled downward with a zig-zag and a whine to match, and smacked into the Inn roof.

Bill said with a little laugh, "He just refuses to face it. And they don't know what to do about it. So, finally, they got to him and said, 'Well, we've discussed this problem, we have, Mr. Waring. And we will have to close the Inn period, unless you get Walter Lindborg back, and then we could see our way clear to give you enough money to open it'."

The Greek satyr chorus raised their five-irons and shouted through the Inn’s open dining room windows as one man,

Never keep borrowed money

    an hour beyond                              

        the time you promised,

lest a disappointment

    shut up your friend's purse

        forever! [4]

The tenor hammered the last phrase of ‘Old Smoky’ through the glass:

     He'll feed you and

leeeeeeeead yoo-ooou,...                  (He’ll feed you and lead you.....)

Bill sighed, "And when Walter came back he immediately told everybody, 'Nobody is to redesign the golf course!' And Fred went out there and he would tell these guys to change the holes."

     ...Then change all the

hohhhhhhhhles,...                           (Then change all the holes....)

"And they wouldn't change them, and he'd come out scr-reaming at them. They said, 'Well Mr. Lindborg said –’.” Bill did a pompous dictator: "'I own this place’!"

...for, 'the second vice is lying,

the first is running in debt,'

as Poor Richard says;

and again, to the same purpose,

'lying rides upon debt's back';

whereas a freeborn Englishman

ought not to be ashamed nor afraid.[5]

"And they said, 'Well Mr. Waring, we have to take our orders from our boss’!"

...And he'll say that Old

Shaaaaaaw- nee-eeee...  Has a bad case of

mohhhhhhhhles!...                             (And he’ll say that Old Shawnee

                                                                       has a bad case of moles....)

The mountain changed into a holey molehill, and a sizable catch dragged mj up, down and around it, still on the line, but still refusing to jump into the boat.

It wasn’t the story he wanted to catch, but he figured he had the main tale on the line, virtually. It was biting with its invisible golden teeth onto the tail of this catch; so he went along with the up, down and around a little longer and said, "I guess that meant Fred Waring won fewer games of golf, whatever that did to his ego."

And Bill bit harder this time. "It's very true that Fred built that course to suit himself," he said. "You'll notice that all the holes are short par, y'know. Short distance, and that's 'cause he's not a big driver. And as he got older, the holes got closer."

It was stated so mildly, mj felt no tug on the line for a second. Then he howled.

"No, this is no joke."

The interviewer gasped. The cartoon fishing rod shot away and swirled down Rube Goldberg's toilet with the famous mj lorenzo glued to the handle and reel. Then the great catch shot up through the surface of the Inn’s swimming pool, tore down the Delaware and up Minisink Creek with mj flopping behind. It leapt cataracts and hurled him into a puddle of muddy overrun in Bill's back yard, SPLAT!!

He figured he had lost normal brain functioning.

Bill sounded far away, as if heard through watery ears. "You talk to anybody that plays Shawnee that knows him, and they'll tell you the same thing: the holes got shorter and shorter!"

"Geez!!" sighed poor mj, dazed, and dashed to the muddy ground.

The satyrs with their hairy goat hind parts, still looking like men waist up, and even in blazers, faced the first tee and redid the last line,

       ….And's in-fes-ted with

trohhhhhhhhhhlls....                               (...and is infested with trolls.)

Life in the Poconos slowed to spawn.

Bill said, "Y'know, really, that is the epitome! For an ego… maniac, to have his own golf resort!"

"And shorten his holes!!" mj added, the last word echoing in a hole in his head.

The incredibly high solo tenor rode a sweet hum unbelievably way up high, way above all his fellow satyrs.

...Mmmmmmmmm-mmmmmmmmmmmmm...,

Riding it, the ever-so-high tenor hummed away gorgeously solo, floating high above the rippling, sparkling Delaware, passing above the friendly lake where Bill and mj fished, hanging some perfect high notes over the white clapboard shack village of Minisink Hills where the Blackburns lived, then came down gracefully to rejoin the chorus. Fred's hands dropped. They all walked up the risers in the mirror and re-formed their perfect V. Fred turned around with a standard road show smile and nod of acceptance.

The incredible high tenor beamed and bowed down low, solo, Sylvester Satyr in a tux, then returned to his spot on the risers too.[6]