***The Roots Is The Toots- The Music That Got Them Through The Great Depression And World War II…

 

…she, nineteen, never had luck with men until the night of the USO dance down at the Starlight Ballroom in Olde Saco in October, 1943, now glorious October, 1943. The idea of the dance at least from the brochure her sister Lorraine had received from the director of the Portland USO was to bolster the morale of the soldiers, sailors, and marines in the area returning from action overseas, those who were on leave, or those who were getting ready to ship out to some hellhole where the fighting would be heavy and so they, one and all, would have a pleasant memory to take away with them whatever status they were in. Lorraine, having gone to the previous Friday night’s gathering and “hit pay-dirt” as she called it with some jittery-bugging sailor who swept her off her feet and who would be attending this week’s event, coaxed her sister into attending in hopes of getting her out of her funk. Getting her out of her no luck with boys, men, whatever funk.   

So she, now listing herself  among the employed women  who were needed to work outside of the house to fill jobs vacated by draft number- called men, splurged on a new dress, not a fancy dress since all the serious fabric production was needed for the men at the fronts, but serviceable with some accoutrements. And to die for, nylons, nylons harder to get than gas these days. Lorraine, vain Lorraine as everybody at Olde Saco High called her, including Sis, admitted that she looked good, was bound to snatch some young soldier. As they entered the lobby of the Starlight Ballroom, all a-glitter, the sound of Lester Mann and the Band in the background, she was secretly thrilled that she had, for once, given into her sister’s whim. There were more men in uniform than she had ever seen in her life and she blushed as she sensed that every one of those uniformed pairs of eyes were checking her out (and truthfully every young woman who came through that door but she just blushed for herself).

No sooner had they, she, given her wrap to the coat- room girl than it started. The rush, guys coming right up and asking her to dance, the jitter-buggers first and foremost, before she had even caught her breathe, and if not this one then how about the next, or the next. Quite a whirlwind all the way until the band took an intermission. At that intermission, that maybe fateful intermission, while she was at the punch bowl re-hydrating herself after the non-stop action, Dick Sams, Dick from her class when they were in high school, came up to her in civilian clothes. She asked him what he was doing there since this was strictly a military affair. He answered that Lester Mann had asked him to step in front of the microphone during the second set and warble a few tunes, Tangerine, I’ll Never Smile Again, Perfidia, the current rages. She then remembered that Dick had been a top singer at school and had wished to pursue a musical career. She asked whether he had gone on to music school after high school. Dick answered that yes he had for a while but just the week before his number had come up so the following week he was to be inducted into the Army.

After they had talked for a while Dick, Dick Sams the best voice in the high school, maybe in the town, kind of sheepishly blurted out that he had often wondered why he had never spoken to her much at school since he had a little crush on her then. She blushed, blushed some more when he asked her if she would wait for him after the show, and blushed even more when she said yes. But all that blushing was nothing, nothing at all to what happened when Dick got up on the bandstand. He took dead aim at her, dead aim like she was the only one in the room, and sang I’ll Never Smile Again to put old Frank Sinatra in the shade. Sang it so tenderly that she blushed yet again, blushed and wondered if he really would not smile again unless she was his girl ….