Songs, Immigrants, and Friends
October 15th, 2003
I was watching one of my all time favorite movies, The Greate Escape, last weekend. It takes place in a POW camp during World War II. There is a scene involving two Scottish characters where one is trying to console the other who is close to being wire happy. The consoling character breaks into some old Scotish song that immediately cheers up the other character. That is when it hit me, “We don’t have that as Americans. Do we?”
As a child of immigrants, growing up there were many occasions when an adult would start singing some song and everyone would join in. I remember many times at my cousins house when the men would have a little to much to drink and they would break out into song. There where numerous times when my grandmother would take her guitar out and play old songs from Cuba that all the adults would know. You could see in all of their faces that the song had triggered some long forgotten memory. It was a really great feeling!
I never really thought about it until last week, but I miss the feeling that I used to get when they would sing. I wish I could have those feelings of comradeship with my friends now by just singing a song.
