My mother was always a better singer than she was a cook.
She may have burnt a lot of things but never missed a note, especially when Harry Belafonte came on the transistor kitchen radio- a voice so pure it made her cry with joy.
“There’s a hole in the bucket dear Liza, dear Liza,” he sang echoing her past, the divorce, her humbling present life.
The duet had the reply she wanted to say to everything and sing it like Odetta-- “Well fix it, dear Henry dear Henry, fix it.”
It was her kitchen cooking song and we would sing it together when Harry wasn’t on the air.
We sang it so often, switching voices. that I believed she could fix anything and I could too.
When we got to the fortieth line the meatloaf was burnt on top.
I ate it all with a lot of ketchup. She just cut off the burnt part and fed it to the dog.
My sister, two brothers and stepdad ate it quietly, building up a lot of bad meatloaf memories.
All the other kids had their own songs that she sang to them but she sang only Belafonte to me.
“Daylight come and me wan' go home,” she sang to me in a whisper before kissing me goodnight.
Calypso more than Salsa echoed her Boricua pride, the youngest of thirteen, yet never born to the island.
“Midnight come and she wan’ go home,” I sang to her open casket 22 years later, kissing her on the head, taking the hole in the bucket, along with Belafonte to the future.
It must be sixty years since I last heard that song, and I can see my mother standing in the kitchen singing both of those songs. Thanks for the trip down memory lane
Those are great songs! And great memories, effectively told. Who cares about meatloaf tops when you have delightful music? I would have added ketchup, too, and sung on.
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