I GREW UP IN THE MOUNTAINS

No, I didn’t grow up in the mountains.  But I know some people who grew up in the hills of Pennsylvania--and that's close enough!   They're not real hillbillies, inspite of the stories about the family's 150-year-old slave cabin, the dead-possum-flavored spring water, spotlighting deer on Saturday nights and skinny dipping.    But they can sure sound the part when they get together for a Lichtenwalter reunion. 

Now, I haven’t been to many family reunions.  Growing up a Baasch, we never thought of such a thing.   Daddy was an only child, a missionary kid, and one of only two cousins to settle in America.  We were short on extended family.  Grandma Baasch died when I was five.   My picture of a family reunion was when Grandpa Baasch came up from his basement apartment and sang the bass part of all five verses of "Abide With Me" with us for family worship.  The security of that song has never left me.

My mom’s Munson family made a larger circle and gathered when they could, though  usually without us.  (After four generations of missionaries, I suspect someone realized that if they didn’t connect, they wouldn’t even know each other’s names.)  I remember my mom helping to plan the one Munson family reunion we attended in California's redwood forest some time in the '60s.  The reunion song they chose was George Beverly Shea's, "He can turn the tide and calm the angry sea....He's always ready...to forgive."  The melody has never left me; neither has the smell of the redwood forest every time I hum it.

But if you’re a Lichtenwalter and you grew up in the mountains "where snakes have four legs, where hoot owls speak English and roosters lay square eggs," a family reunion is a common event.  All five generations are coaxed to the same corner of Pennsylvania on a sticky August day.  Or a crisp fall Sunday.  Or an icy March evening.   Of course, like this year, the hardest part is finding the best time for Larry and his disconnected family to show up!  It's gotta happen this time; we're headed on a long journey to a faraway place.  A family reunion is what makes memories...that won't leave us.

After a few dozen phone calls and several different plans, we finally met at Lisa’s one Saturday night in March.  Every square of table space was covered with Nana’s famous  pecan meatballs, oatmeal patties, and apple pies--along with an amazing spread of traditional family dishes and a fridge full of drinks!  Over a long evening, the Lichtenwalter clan sauntered in, hugged each other, poked fun, poked back, and caught up on the last few months.  I didn't get everyone's names, but that's always been hard for me.  The new generations expand the clan quickly; Nana is a great-great-grandmother several times over already.  

Towards the end of the evening, someone suggested a family picture.  Everyone’s iPods and cellphones came out.  And while Nana sat gloriously in the midst of her tribe, someone broke out singing the first line of the most famous of her repertoire.  

Most of the family is gathered here just seconds before someone in the crowd
began singing that familiar drone-like beginning, "I grew up in the mountains...."    

“I grew up in the mountains where snakes have four legs,

Where hoot owls speak English and roosters lay square eggs. 

Oh, I’m a truthful fellow, they call me truthful Bill. 

I never told a falsehood and I bet I never will."

“I shaved my beard and mustache the morning I was born.

That night I beat my old man and drank his rye and corn.

Oh, I’m a truthful fellow, they call me truthful Bill.

I never told a falsehood and I bet I never will."

“I flew my way to Paris and in my aero plane,
Dah-dahee dah dee dah dah, and started back again.

When I got halfway over the darn old engine stopped.
I left the thing set up there and I got out to walk.

Oh, I’m a truthful fellow, they call me truthful Bill.

I never told a falsehood and I bet I never will.”

"The father of our country, he never told a lie.

He was my great, great uncle, I ask you why should I?"

And that was only the first song that rolled off their tongues like fast, loud recordings.   You should hear "I'm My Own Grandpa" and "In the Crust of the Old Apple Pie" and "Mrs. Murphy's Chowder."  They can rattle them off so easily, you know everyone's  heard 'em a thousand times:   From Grandma Campbell as she flipped her plate-sized pancakes.  From Nana as she rolled out noodles for chicken pot pie.  From children to grandchildren.  From grandchildren to great-grandchildren.  

The music of each family I belong to carries a thousand memories, generations of experience, a bond that can't be explained.   The reunion with the past is in the music we've shared.  Sometimes even the melody has gotten lost to my ear, but the memories and meaning never, never leaves me. 

Why else can I still smell baking pies, see the shell collection in the corner cabinet, feel the breeze of a cool California evening, and hear the grin in Grandpa Munson's high tenor voice as he slaps his knee and belts out...  Well, it was a silly, nonsensical melody he liked to sing to us in Malay at tongue-twisting speed.  The song itself is lost to my ear, but the memories that accompany it have never left me.

I've never mastered the doggerel that comes with growing up in the mountains where snakes have four legs, but the purpose is served anyway:   Even I--sitting on the couch where I've just pulled Nana down to join me in order to make her get into the picture--even I have a rich treasure of memories connected to the family who knows their songs so well.

* * * 

By the way, any Lichtenwalter historian reading this is welcome to supply the "Dah-dahee...dah dee" line for me!  Either the song never sunk in or it's already sinking out of my memory and all I'll be able to recall is the feeling of Nana falling on me... Who needs all the words to keep the memory?!