Your Cheatin' Heart

Listen while you read:  From the Way Back Machine

Your cheatin' heart will make you weep
You'll cry and cry and try to sleep
But sleep won't come the whole night through
Your cheatin' heart will tell on you

When tears come down like fallin' rain
You'll toss around and call my name
You'll walk the floor the way I do
Your cheatin' heart will tell on you

Your cheatin' heart will pine someday
And crave the love you threw away
The time will come when you'll be blue
Your cheatin' heart will tell on you

When tears come down . . . 

~ Hank Williams Sr.

This one is for my father. Today would have been his 96th birthday, but he was only 51 when cardiac arrest claimed him. Yes, he shares a birthday with Christopher Columbus. But my dad's given name was Valentine. Go figure. "Your Cheatin' Heart" was one of my dad's favorite songs, and he loved singing it to my mother. Which made no sense, really, because I don't think my mother ever even thought of cheating on him, let alone doing so. I think it was some kind of joke between them. He would also sing Engelbert Humperdinck's "Please release me, let me go . . . " to her. Funny guy.

I remember that we had some old radio thing in our house, on which we could tune in some obscure radio station. This was years before WABC or WMCA. And maybe it had a turntable. Yes, it must have, because I can recall spinning old 78 rpm records by Gene Autry and Pat Boone, not to mention the Christmas records, all of which were by Bing Crosby. I don't remember that we had the Hank Williams Sr. recording on vinyl, but memory can be selective, you know?

So, anyway, memory likes to call up happy times, doesn't it? I like to think of my mother and father dancing to "Your Cheatin' Heart" in the living room after dinner. Is the memory real? Or did I just make it up? My father had a volatile temper, and there is no doubt about the veracity of my memories of him turning over a table or slamming the front storm door so hard that the glass shattered. At the same time, I can remember him coming home with flowerpots full of petunias and marigolds, a gift for my mother. He loved roses, too, and planted  them around our house. They were always pink.

I have spent way too many years trying to understand my father's love (or lack thereof) for me, to no avail. It is on my list of questions to ask when I reach the Great Hereafter. Do I expect an answer that will make any sense? I don't. However my father loved me (or didn't) matters little now. I have fashioned my life regardless.

But today, 96 years since his birth, I pay tribute to the man who gave me a curiosity about monarch butterflies and fox dens, my hazel-to-green eyes, and what little artistic talents I may have. I guess he did the best he could in raising me during a time when child-rearing was considered best left to the mothers. I would have liked more from him, but "wish in one hand and spit in the other . . . see which one gets full first."

Happy Birthday, Daddy.