Thirty Days

September 30, 2017

“Thirty Days Hath September…” This simple rhyme does more than help me remember the number of days in a given month; it takes me back nearly fifty years. Frontier heroes like Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, and Francis Marion, “the Swamp Fox,” were staples of our television diet long before political correctness assigned them to the cultural trash heap. There was probably little historical accuracy in these shows, but they served to inculcate a spirit of integrity, loyalty, and patriotism that is in short supply today. We demand that the icons of the past display impeccable credentials that not even moderns can attain, and failing to do so, they are cast aside as unworthy. What many fail to realize is that the myths that surround them were designed to shape character more than record history. Any culture that rejects its stories cannot last for long.

But I digress. In the television series, Daniel Boone had an Indian (read: “Native American) sidekick named Mingo. Mingo was played by a Ukranian Jew named Edmond Urick, better known as Ed Ames. He was an imposing figure, standing at 6’ 3” back when 5’10” was average. He was a supporting or bit actor in numerous television shows, but it isn’t his acting that I remember; it is his singing. He had a rich baritone that could fill a concert hall, and made a number of recordings, two of which I had, but sadly, only one of which I can still locate. On the missing album was a song that began with that nursery rhyme but told of his unending love for the object of his devotion. 

Ed Ames sang that song back when Linda and I were dating. “Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November; through the year please remember that my heart belongs to you.” She did remember, not only through the year, but through more than 47 of them. We spent the entire day together visiting our granddaughter in college. With the morning comes the 47th October we have spent together. The nursery rhyme took me back to that song with Ed Ames’ deep baritone, which brought me back to today, and the 47 Septembers we have been together, and for which I am thankful tonight.