I Only Write Awkwardly

The title could refer to my left-handedness, my gawky syntax, or my obtuse subject matter. Could, but doesn't. The heading is an impromptu acronym for a state in which I lived for four years, Iowa. Last night a game of channel-surfing roulette landed on TMC's airing of The Music Man.

Written by Meredith Wilson and set in imaginary River City, The Music Man was  based on Wilson's hometown of Mason City, Iowa. So he said. Not so according to the denizens of Davenport, Iowa where I lived.

In a public house early in my Midwestern sojourn,  I mentioned my
delectation of the musical and a desire to see Mason City. The comment raised quite a ruckus; flustered voices intensified. "Pshaw, Davenport is the real River City!" Such vehement language unsettled me.

Those Grant Wood American Gothics pointed to the fact that in the movie, River City is just across the border from Illinois which Davenport is. Mason City located in north central Iowa is not adjacent to any border. While

Davenport, IA

Wilson's hometown is on the Winnebago River, Davenport is on THE RIVER, the Mississippi.

Their vehemence prompted prudence. I bowed to their knowledge of the state shifting the subject to something less volatile. I proceeded to regal said Hawkeyes with my best Music Man trivia.

Aside from that musical, Meredith Wilson wrote The Unsinkable Molly Brown and the Christmas classic, It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas. He played piccolo in John Phillip Sousa's band and in the Arturo Toscanini-conducted New York Philharmonic.

Shirley Jones was pregnant during filming. She told the director, but did not want the cast to know. The costume designer worked diligently to hide her growing abdomen. The ruse worked until filming the scene on the footbridge singing Till There Was You.  Preston holding Jones jumped back yelling, "What was that?" The baby had kicked and Preston felt it.

In her later years, Wilson's widow made more money from his estate because of The Beatles' version of Till There Was You than from the movie's residuals.

And my favorite, Preston had starred in the musical on Broadway. Wilson wanted him in the movie, but the studio wanted a more bankable box-office attraction. They asked Cary Grant. Grant told them, "I won't do it, and if you don't get Robert Preston, I won't go to see it!"

This musing was going to concern itself more with the state of Iowa, but my penchant for lavish musicals, and trivia, got the better of me. I guess my brain manifested another acronym for the state - Idiot Out Wandering Around. As ever - BB

"Libertine men and Scarlet women!
And Rag-time, shameless music
That'll grab your son and your daughter
With the arms of a jungle animal instink!" From the song Ya Got Trouble in The Music Man