My father really liked this song, “Cindy Oh Cindy.” Hearing it again opened up my memory banks…
I have just thought of something that I haven’t thought about in many years.
Once upon a summer’s day, my Grammie and her new husband, John, took me to Island Beach State Park for swimming and fishing. I think I was 11 years old. John was a retired Dutch sailor. He told great stories and played the harmonica like nobody’s business.
We had a long drive down to the park, and when we got to the first gate, there was some kind of problem and they were turning people away. We got up to the booth, expecting to be told we couldn’t come in: but then the man in the booth saw John and burst into Dutch.
It turned out he and John were old, old friends who hadn’t seen each other in donkey’s years. The man’s name was Rudi.
“You wait a minute,” he said, “I wrote you a note, then they let you in.” He scribbled something onto a piece of paper–a happy old man with the tip of his tongue slipping out as he concentrated on writing in English–handed it to John, and waved us through the gate.
Grammie read the note aloud. It said, “This are my frends, please let them in.”
And she said, “You could get into heaven with a note like that.”
I’ll bet they did, too, all three of them.