King of the Road

I sang to my kids at bed­time when they were lit­tle. It start­ed with my son. I tried to get home each night in time to read him a sto­ry before tuck­ing him in. After a while, our lit­tle rou­tine began to feel mechanical. 

I thought singing him a song might jazz up our bed­time rit­u­al, but I’m not much of a singer. My moth­er said I couldn’t “car­ry a tune in a buck­et.” That was gen­er­al­ly true, but in high school I dis­cov­ered I could some­times find the buck­et by singing along with a tune on the radio when I was alone in my car and no one was listening.

I nev­er told any­one about my car radio sing-alongs and I nev­er sang in pub­lic for fear I’d wan­der off key and make a fool of myself, but I con­sid­ered tak­ing the chance with my five-year-old son in the pri­va­cy of his bed­room. The prob­lem was find­ing a song I could sing that would be fun for him to lis­ten to.

I reject­ed all the slow and sap­py lul­la­bies. I was look­ing for pizazz. Where the bough breaks and the like didn’t have enough juice. Then I thought about my old radio songs. My high school senior year, Roger Miller released King of the Road. It’s about a hobo rid­ing the rails to Ban­gor, Maine, wear­ing a worn out suit and shoes and smok­ing old sto­gies. He’s a man of means by no means, but he sees him­self as a king of the road. The lyrics are fun, and the tune is catchy.

Back in the day, I could sing that song with Roger Miller’s smooth voice and gui­tar chords cov­er­ing up my mis­takes, but I didn’t know if I could sing it solo with no music. So I prac­ticed. I mem­o­rized the lyrics, locked the door to what I hoped was our sound­proof bath­room, and rehearsed. Again and again. After about twen­ty tries, I was no Roger Miller, but I wasn’t com­plete­ly buck­et­less either. 

I was ner­vous when the time came to face the music. I read the bed­time sto­ry to my son, set the book down, took a deep breath, and start­ed singing. My voice cracked here and there, but I fin­ished strong. At the end, my son was smil­ing ear to ear. He asked me to sing it again that night and the next night. And the next. For weeks.

After a while, I had to expand my reper­toire to keep him inter­est­ed. I picked out a cou­ple of The Lovin Spoonful’s songs from the 1960’s. Jug Band Music is about a guy down in Savan­nah eat­ing cream and banana on a day so hot it made him faint. He start­ed to see things as they ain’t, so his rel­a­tives called the doc­tor. “Just give him jug band music,” the doc­tor said. “It seems to make him feel just fine.”

Bald Head­ed Lena is about a girl with a cue ball head that’s hard as lead. It’s so big she can’t wear no wig, but the singer has a thing for her any­way because, well, his alter­na­tives aren’t that great: Messy Bessy, Tricky Tessy, Sil­ly Dil­ly, Lyin Lil­ly. Lizzy’s so dizzy she went and lost her mind. Ella Mae might have saved the day but she’s deaf, dumb, and blind. 

By the time my daugh­ters came along, I’d mem­o­rized enough songs to per­form a low-grade lounge act in a cheap hotel. I sang The Big Bopper’s Chan­til­ly Lace (Oh, Baby, you know what I like!), Six­teen Tons, Day­dream, and a few oth­er stray cats and dogs. They liked those songs, but the big hits were the first three I learned, and of those, King of the Road was the hands-down champ.

That song became my favorite, too. After bob­bing and weav­ing all day to sur­vive in a big high-pow­ered law firm, the stress and ten­sion would drain off as I sang about rid­ing to Ban­gor in the third box­car on the mid­night train. It seemed to anchor my soul in stormy seas. I don’t recall a sin­gle night when singing that song to my kids failed to lift my mood.

One of the grave injus­tices in life is that your chil­dren grow up. First, they won’t let you hold their hand. Then they want to play with their friends instead of you. Before you know it, you’re tour­ing a col­lege cam­pus, and they ask you to walk far enough behind so the col­lege kids won’t know they’re with you. And some­time way before that, you don’t get to tuck them into bed any more.

I was mourn­ing our emp­ty nest when a Lath­am senior part­ner died. He was a titan among lit­i­ga­tors, the lead tri­al lawyer in the biggest case our firm had ever han­dled. At his funer­al, his adult daugh­ter spoke to a packed sanc­tu­ary. “It will prob­a­bly come as a sur­prise to the lawyers at Lath­am,” she said, “but when we were chil­dren, Dad­dy sang to us when he tucked us into bed.” I talked to her after the ser­vice. “It was a spe­cial gift,” she said, “and we loved him all the more for it.” 

Her words helped me adjust to the adult­hood of my chil­dren. They’ve grown up, I told myself, but maybe those spe­cial times with them when they were kids will live on in their memories.

A few years after that funer­al, my old­er daugh­ter chose King of the Road as the song for the father-daugh­ter dance at her wed­ding.  The cer­e­mo­ny and recep­tion were out­doors on a ranch in a canyon near Mal­ibu. We danced to King of the Road at night under lights strung in Cal­i­for­nia live oaks. As we twirled, I sang a few lines to her about worn out shoes and fat sto­gies. I was out of prac­tice and off key, but as she looked up at me with sparkling eyes, her smile said she didn’t care. For a few pre­cious moments, she was my lit­tle girl again. 

My younger daugh­ter chore­o­graphed our steps for the father-daugh­ter dance at her wed­ding. We marched to the cen­ter of the dance floor, I in my tuxe­do, she in her flow­ing gown. Our faces were seri­ous and stern. I stood straight, shoul­ders square, and bowed to her. She did a low sweep­ing curt­sy to me. That was the band’s cue to launch into a brassy melody and for the lead singer to belt out, “Bald head­ed Lena/Has any­body seen her/Cute as she can be.” As we hooked arms and danced to the rag­time tune, my younger daughter’s imp­ish grin told me she was still my lit­tle girl, too.

I was con­cen­trat­ing on my steps through most of that dance, but about half-way through our rou­tine I caught a glimpse of my son at the head table, sport­ing a big grin. He’s grown up and has his own kids now, I thought, but he’ll always remem­ber those nights I sang to him when he was a lit­tle boy. 

As I’ve grown old­er, oppor­tu­ni­ties for encore per­for­mances have arisen, and I’ve learned the hard way the down­side of screw­ing them up. 

A while back, I put one of our grand­sons to bed for an after­noon nap. When I fin­ished read­ing his sto­ry, he asked me to sing him a song. Twen­ty-five years out of prac­tice, I sang a rusty ver­sion of King of the Road. The smile I expect­ed wasn’t there at the end. “You messed up the words, Papaw,” he said. “Mom­my sings it better.”

“I’m sor­ry, Bud­dy-Beau,” I said, feel­ing ambushed by my unex­pect­ed com­peti­tor. “I’ll do bet­ter next time.”

I prac­ticed and I did bet­ter next time, but I still wasn’t as good as Mom­my. It ain’t over yet, though.