Jersusalem

(1958 April 29)

Confidentially I must tell you how very disgracefully your father acted in church Sunday. The service dragged out and that always makes him feel uneasy as he feels everything must be done on time, as you know. Then, too, it was Daylight Savings Set-your-clock-ahead-an-hour Day and he was disgusted with the Brain Boys for interfering with his Routine. So here we were in church with very few there and Jean playing all the verses of every hymn and Daddy feeling mean. So on the last hymn he quit singing. "Sing!" says I, bossy-like. It was a long hymn, a take-off on "America the Beautiful." Only instead of "AMERica-a-" it went "JeRUsalem, JeRU--." Now as you know, Daddy often uses the word "Jersalem" for an expletive - so when I said "Sing!" off he went. On the first verse he sang all words softly until he came to "JeRUsalem" and then he bellowed forth until I was ashamed of him. Then on other verses (about 8) he let fly only on the words "JeRU---." Now, believe me, in a small building with about 12 present, none strong singers, an output of volume like that cannot go by unnoticed. I became very disgusted - and then it got funny. What a guy ---.