Xmas through the iPod

Each night I pray
That no one will steal her heart away
I can't wait until that lucky day
When I marry sweet Lorraine
--"Sweet Lorraine," Mitchell Parish & Cliff Burwell

I'd swear my iPod reads my mind.

This afternoon during a workout at the Tarrytown Y I was thinking about my mother and late father when lo and behold, what comes streaming through the earphones but Satchmo singing about “Sweet Lorraine.”

When I hear that song I think of my father as a young man listening to it on the radio while lying on a cot in Bungay, England, in between B-24 bomber missions with the U.S. 8th Army Air Force during World War II. My mother’s name is Lorraine, and that period was right at the beginning of my parents’ courtship, when her letters would arrive postmarked Ozone Park, Queens.

No one ever did steal away Lorraine's heart, and not long after the war ended so too did my father's wait for "that lucky day." Today, almost 60 years later, the extended family of Louis and Lorraine grows and grows.

Nat King Cole recorded a smooth-as-silk version of “Sweet Lorraine” with his trio in 1941, and that’s what I envision my father as a young lieutenant hearing over the American Forces Network.

But Louie Armstrong’s later-career take in 1957, featuring Oscar Peterson’s piano and Louie’s pitch-perfect rasp, really reminds me of the Dad I knew—back home in New York and feeling lucky to be alive, older, heavier, a father, louder, happier, and still in love with Lorraine.

The time has come to think of old Joe Bones running down a snowy lane in cyberspace, a 21st-century Uncle Billy screaming at the top of his lungs:

“Merry Christmas Mom, Tom, Paul, and Jim!”

“Merry Christmas Tree, Bobby, Melissa, Jayden, Amy, and Brian!”

“Merry Christmas Louie, Brooks, and Joey! Merry Christmas Jessie, Dan, and Brodie, the newest bouncing arrival! Merry Christmas Lizzie, Josh, Aiden, and Owen!”

And last but not least, to the rest of the world and beyond:

“Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Season's Greetings, Humbug, take your pick! The choice is yours in the good old U.S. and A.“

“Remember the troops!”