NOTE: This essay was intended for Mother’s Day, 2020. But, like so much of life this spring, it was sabotaged.

ALAN writes:

When the motion picture “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” was made in 1961, it was as hip as could be. That must have been why it did not impress me favorably when I first saw it by chance one evening many years afterward.

Recently I decided to watch it again, but still it did not impress me: Not the story, not the glamorized depravity, not the incidental party scenes, not the 1960s-hip sound of bongo drums (a sound I never could tolerate), and not the too-glib, too-fast speech given to Audrey Hepburn’s character.  I thought Buddy Ebsen and the cat were the two best characters in the story.  It is noteworthy also for having been made at a time when American libraries were still using card catalogs (shown in one scene).

But amid such dross, it may be possible to find an element of merit.  For me, that element was the song “Moon River.”

My mother enjoyed watching “The Andy Williams Show” on early-1960s television and I knew that he adopted “Moon River” as a theme song.  But I never paid much attention to that program in those years.  It was not his recording of “Moon River” (splendid though it was) but the romantic, wistful recording by Henry Mancini’s orchestra and chorus that lodged most agreeably in my memory.  I distinctly remember sitting on our living room floor in 1962 and listening to that record.  At age 12, I had no idea what a “moon river” might be and I made no attempt to make sense of the lyrics, but I thought the song was enchanting.

Words that meant little to me in 1962 now overflowed with meaning:

           “Two drifters…off to see the world, There’s such a lot of world to see..…”

Fifty-eight years later, those words by Johnny Mercer, the loping tempo at which they are sung by the chorus, and the slightly-melancholy sound in the melody at that point now conjured up memories of years when a vast, unexplored territory called Life lay entirely in front of me.  I was too young then to realize how my mother must have enjoyed guiding me through “such a lot of world to see” and thereby reliving that adventure through the eyes of her young son.

It began right in our own back yard, where for the first time I saw the moon and the stars when she pointed them out to me.  She took me to city parks and on Saturday afternoon walks through our neighborhood.  She took me on a bus tour of the Missouri Ozarks.

On summer days in 1956, she took me to the Forest Park Highlands Amusement Park, where I rode aboard a miniature train and ate cotton candy.  She took me to the Zoo across the way.  She took me to the giant Floral Clock near the Jewel Box in Forest Park.  She took me for a day cruise on the Mississippi River aboard the S.S. Admiral.

She took me to ice-skating shows at the St. Louis Arena, and I can remember the blue-white spotlight following the skaters on the ice far below our seats.  She took me to the Mid-America Jubilee on the St. Louis riverfront in 1956.  She took me to patriotic parades in downtown St. Louis.  She took me to see the beautifully-decorated floats in the Veiled Prophet Parade on Lindell Boulevard on an autumn evening in 1957.

She took me to baseball games at Sportsman’s Park, home of the St. Louis Browns and St. Louis Cardinals, where I could see men who were baseball heroes to me in the 1950s and where she could see players who had been baseball heroes to her in the 1930s.

She took me to see the wonders that nature had built in Missouri caves and at the Grand Canyon and in Yosemite National Park.

She gave me the childhood adventures of picnics, birthday parties, games of croquet, and Sunday afternoon drives to visit aunts, uncles, cousins and friends in Missouri and Southern Illinois.

In the twilight years of passenger train travel, she took me for train rides to Texas and California.  She took me to Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm, and the hills of San Francisco, and we stayed overnight at magnificent hotels like the Ambassador in Los Angeles and the Ahwahnee at Yosemite.

In the same year the movie was released, she took me on a vacation trip to Florida with two friends.  Johnny Mercer wrote:  “Moon river, wider than a mile, I’m crossing you in style some day…..”  And we did indeed cross the Suwanee River in style—the style of ordinary Americans at leisure while on vacation.  And my mother took a color slide showing the river flanked by a forest of trees.

She took me to water’s edge at Miami Beach, to the Citrus Tower and Bohemian Glass-Blowers, to Weeki Wachee, to the Bok Singing Tower, and to the beautiful Cypress Gardens.

She took me on a vacation trip across the plains of Kansas to Denver, Colorado Springs, the Air Force Academy, Seven Falls, the Flying W Ranch, Skyline Drive, and the Rocky Mountains, where we rode to the top of Mt. Evans and Pikes Peak and looked down on clouds.

She took me to Washington, D.C., the White House, and Arlington National Cemetery, and to New York City, where friends escorted us to the World’s Fair, the Statue of Liberty, and the Empire State Building.

She took me downtown at Christmas time to see the Christmas windows in the big department stores.  She took me to the new St. Louis Planetarium in 1963, where I was able to expand my appreciation of the night sky that had begun in our back yard ten years earlier.

She took me for Sunday afternoon drives with friends to historic towns in Missouri and Illinois.

She took me to see uplifting motion pictures at the Ambassador Theater, the Loew’s State Theater, the Loew’s Mid-City Theater, and the St. Louis Theater, four movie palaces in St. Louis, three of which are long gone.

She introduced me to the splendors of uplifting show music, operetta, and American popular song.

By example, she taught me to see the beauty in landscapes, trees, mountains, rainbows, snowscapes, and sunsets.

I write these words while seated at the same card table where she and I played board games, card games, and word games on quiet evenings from 1958 to 1964.

What I did not realize in those years long ago was that I benefited beyond measure from the sense of life and frame of mind that my mother carried with her throughout her life.  That was my extreme good fortune.

“I.O.U.” is what I should have said to her every day of her life, but didn’t. I owed her so much for guiding me to see what is decent and worthwhile in “such a lot of world to see.” I saw the best that life has to offer–because she was right there alongside me through all those years.  That is what “Moon River” now brings to mind.

— Comments —

Michael writes:

Seeing the word sabotage and the title of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” juxtaposed prompts me to make a few observations of my own. Since this is merely a comment, I will attempt to be brief.

I am younger by a few years than your correspondent. When I was a little boy, Moon River was my favorite song. It would be many years before I would see the movie.

I concur with many of the findings Alan has voiced about the film. I could further expound upon the underlying nihilism of Capote’s story, the miscasting of a Belgian aristocrat as a putative rural southerner, the objectionable stereotyping by Rooney, and so forth – but I will not.

I sometimes watch only the opening moments of the film when I wish to whip myself up into a nostalgic and melancholy state, as the subject song plays. On display is the world of my early childhood when there still existed vestiges of the most prosperous city of a great nation. The streets are orderly and clean, and real automobiles traverse. Adults dress and conduct themselves with respect for self and others at all times.

I reflect warmly on the scene inside of Tiffany’s where John McGiver’s character treats the financially embarrassed protagonists with respect and strives to find a suitable gift within their means. One fears that his modern counterpart would have them ejected, assuming they had slipped somehow past the surveillance and AI successfully in the first place to gain entrance. They were only wearing masks elsewhere in the film, so that simply would not do in today’s world.

I also have sweet memories of my dear mother dragging me to museums and the like and instilling in me a lifelong appreciation of the arts, music and literature. Mom is a retired registered nurse and is very much under the sway of the story of current events as she sees them portrayed on screens. I don’t know how to reach her and puncture the balloon of illusion which the presumptuous and pompous potentates have perpetrated.

Literally over my brief lifetime I have watched the complete destruction of the civilization that our forebears created and bequeathed us. Who and what are the forces and actors that have willingly and blithely brought this about? Or is it simply that all human accomplishment is in vain? Should we burn it all down completely and live in huts as hunter-gatherers again? Is that what our Creator would wish for us?

Several years ago, while traveling on business I took several hours out to drive to Savannah and visit the grave of Johnny Mercer, in a preternaturally beautiful cemetery. I could hear in my mind his distinct voice singing to me. May Mercer and Mancini each rest in peace.

Joseph writes:

I found Alan’s memories about his mother very moving. That would have been a great piece for Mother’s Day. We owe so much to those whom we can never pay. That’s the way grace works, I guess.

Caryl writes:

Johnny Mercer was from Savannah; his house was around the corner from my friend Alvin’s house, where I used to stay when visiting. The piece brings up the wonderful memories of train travel back in the day… When looking at the chaotic mess that is the USA today, you realize how many bad decisions brought us here. Turning passenger trains into “Amtrak” was one of those spectacularly bad decisions.

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