PANDEMONIUM REIGNS AT THE JUNIOR CONSERVATION BANQUET
Once Mollygrubs’ painful ministrations with Mitzi’s corsage had been duly rectified with profuse apologies, the intercession of Mrs. Merkle, and some general calming of adolescent nerves, the excited couple made their way to the waiting transportation. After getting comfortably seated in their decidedly unusual but capacious ride, Mollygrubs, whose self-esteem normally was about that of a head of cabbage, began to feel better about matters in general. Mitzi, notwithstanding the recent jab immediately adjacent to the most striking aspect of her anatomy, seemed to have almost forgotten and forgiven her recent debut as a pin cushion. That encouraged her escort and he decided to show off a bit.
Among the numerous “upgrades” to the hearse turned limousine in which they were riding was a radio with speakers and control knobs in the seating area. Mollygrubs, now somewhat restored in spirit, had already instructed the chauffeur to take a roundabout route to the Junior Conservation Banquet. As they set out he impetuously hit on what seemed to him the perfect ploy to shed his image as a milksop. He turned to lovely Mitzi Merkle and managed to scootch a bit closer to her while reaching for the radio controls. Emboldened when she did not retreat, he said: “We will call the first song that plays OUR song.” She smiled, nodded, and seemed to think that was a fine, romantic idea.
Odds that the first song would be quite suitable were excellent. This was, after all, an era when tunes such as Frank Sinatra’s “That’s Amore,” Johnny Mathis’s “Chances Are,” along with “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” and “Only You” from the Platters, garnered plenty of play time. The same was true on the country music front with soulful offerings such as Whispering Bill Anderson’s “Still” and Jim Reeves” “Put Your Sweet Lips a Little Closer to the Phone.” In other words, with even a modicum of luck, the first tune that came through the speakers would be quite suitable.
But the hapless hobbledehoy who was Mollygrubs Messer definitely was not born under a lucky star. Nor did he find four-leaf clovers, stumble upon horseshoes laden with good fortune, or indeed ever get so much as a hint of a break from Dame Fortune. When the radio was turned on it blasted out the most unfortunate of tunes—Loudon Wainwright III’s unforgettable and decidedly unromantic “Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road.” If the pinprick associated with Mitzi’s corsage was a harbinger of things to come, the song was assuredly an even more ominous omen.
Musical evocations of putrid polecats was definitely off putting to Mollygrubs’ romantic intentions, but over the course of his adolescence the young fellow had been so frequently battered by the slings and arrows of misfortune he had become remarkably resilient. Accordingly, he soon shook off all thoughts of road-kill skunks “stinking to high heaven.” Instead, in an amazing example of the flexibility of the teenage mind, as his hillbilly equivalent of upscale transportation drew near the site of the Junior Conservation Banquet, his thoughts turned from polecats to the lyrics of a traditional, lively old-time mountain tune, “Bonaparte’s Retreat.” The specific words he had in mind seemed to his romance-addled instincts just right:
All the world was bright, as I held her on that night
And I heard her say, “Please, don’t you go away.”
So I held her in my arms, and told her of her many charms.
I kissed her while the fiddle played the Bonaparte’s Retreat.
Unfortunately, for all that those heavenly thoughts of boyhood bliss held him in thrall, within his mind they competed with crudely crafted substitute lines that began “There’s a place in France, where the women wear no pants” and then plunged deeper into the gutter. A similar propensity to play around with words would, before long, be the lad’s social undoing in a fashion that lived in infamy.
In due course the young pair arrived at the lavishly decorated high school gymnasium that served as the gala’s setting. Other boys, normally his tormentors, looked on Mollygrubs and his eye-catching companion with unabashed envy. To their lustful eyes she was indisputably the belle of the ball. Her escort basked in the attention directed towards Miss Mitzi Merkle, but there was one rather bothersome aspect of the ogling she attracted. That focused on the fact that the time when he would have to introduce her to the entire assemblage loomed in the offing.
Local tradition demanded that prior to the evening’s meal and dancing thereafter each young man introduce his date to the assembled gathering and offer a short biographical sketch of her. Mollygrubs looked toward that moment at the microphone with about as much anticipation as a bad case of jock itch. In truth, he was filled mortal fear. However, he had conceived what he thought would be a clever play on Miss Merkel’s name, and that slightly reduced his trepidation.
Perhaps that fear-filled mindset explained, at least in part, why he succumbed to the inducements of some of his purported “buddies” and indulged in not one but two cups of Hawaiian Punch liberally dosed with makings from a local moonshiner. He managed this imbibing while Mitzi and her giggling gaggle of companions made mass migrations to the “powder room” for mysterious purposes known only to femininity. The spiked punch worked wonders as liquid courage, and by the time it was Mollygrubs’ turn to take the podium he actually felt quite good about the moment and mankind in general.
His carefully planned ploy, the product of a lot of hours of mesmerized day dreaming, was to use the last name of the pride of Stony Lonesome adolescent beauty whom he escorted in a fashion everyone present would understand. “Merkel,” in the local vernacular, meant miracle or magical. Most often the word was specifically used in describe one of the tastiest items from nature’s abundant larder, morel mushrooms. Mollygrubs intended to present Mitzi Merkle as a living, breathing of delectability transcending even the wonder of morels.
The concept was sound, but once he had the microphone in hand magic turned to sheer misery. Befuddled by the moment and with his tongue somewhat tangled from the illicit liquid of which he had partaken, Mollygrubs immediately managed to mangle things into a verbal mess. He had intended to introduce “Miss Mitzi Miracle,” but instead, with his eyes focused squarely on the most prominent portion of his date’s anatomy, he said: “I am greatly privileged to present the lovely Miss Miracle Teatsy.”
The local weekly newspaper, which always covered the Junior Conservation Banquet with an above-the-fold, half-page spread in its social section, pretty well captured the immediate aftermath of that remark. It produced a crescendo of laughter that witnessed some young males convulsed to the point of losing control while Mitzi burst into tears. Several of her entourage, normally garrulous as geese, were rendered speechless. Where ordinarily the newspaper report ended coverage of the event with “and a good time was had by all,” on this occasion, without going into anatomical or other detail, the Stony Lonesome Gazette stated: “Pandemonium reigned as the result of some unintended but most unfortunate remarks by one of the young male participants. It was necessary to bring the Junior Conservation Banquet to a premature conclusion.”
The newspaper mentioned no names, but in a town the size of Stony Lonesome word had spread long before the newspaper went to press. Another fateful chapter in the seemingly unending chronicle of Mollygrubs’ misadventures had been written. For decades afterward mere mention of his name evoked memories the gaffe that basically put the quietus on one year’s Junior Conservation Banquet before the festivities were fully under way.
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