O What a Beautiful Evening

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You never know when happiness will strike or what form it may take but I believe we who come from a strict religious upbringing are at an advantage over you heathens because even slight pleasure makes us dizzy and actual joy blows our minds. A coal miner appreciates a field of tulips more than a florist does. I get a thrill every time my wife of 28 years casually puts her hand on my shoulder in wordless affection. This is due to the fact that I didn’t kiss a girl until I was 22 years old. I was Brethren. I stared, I fantasized, I sat near some girls, but our lips never met. And when they did, I burst into verse.

I get pleasure from words, which is surely due to coming from taciturn people, so when I happen upon a seed catalogue and look through the beans (Scarlet Runner, Provider, Contender, Gold Rush, Blue Lake, Tenderette Green) and the corn (Bodacious, Ambrosia Hybrid, Sugar Buns, Abundance) and the tomatoes (Early Girl, Better Boy, Beefsteak, Sweetie, Big Boy, Sunset’s Red Horizon, Jubilee, Juliet, Moneymaker, Aunt Ruby’s, Boy Oh Boy, Nebraska Wedding, Calypso, Abe Lincoln) it’s a garden of poetry.

Happiness happened to me a few days ago on a cruise aboard the Queen Mary, which was very relaxing, but relaxation makes me uneasy, and I was looking forward to return to New York, and then we got gussied up for New Year’s Eve, my wife in a sparkly gown, I in a tux and red bow tie, and after dinner, around 10:30, proceeded to the grand ballroom where a big band was playing.

The dance floor is the size of a volleyball court, big enough for terrific dance couples to show their stuff, and we sat and observed. Everyone was decked out in their absolute snazziest outfit, and a couple dozen Freds and Gingers were doing long glides and twirls, shaking to the samba and cha-cha, some hot jazz numbers, waltzes, foxtrots — it was a Forties movie come to life — and the outfits were fascinating, gay male couples in sequined jackets, silvery gowns on slender ladies, some Scots in kilts, glitter and gaudiness galore, party hats with feathers, and the crowd grew and grew, hundreds of people in the room and the dance floor got so crowded that we amateurs could step in, the traffic jam making no fancy dancing possible, we were just a mob swaying, and as the music got hotter, the crowd got crazier, a big mosh pit, and the band played “Dancing in the Street” as young women leaped around, then “Y.M.C.A.” with arms in the air, it was thrilling being in a mass of swaying throbbing humanity.

Hundreds of mature people in a state of delight and I felt that I, the tall somber man brought up to believe that dancing is sinful, was the most delirious person on the floor. My sweetie, who an hour before had said not to ask her to dance, was dancing. We were beside ourselves. All the dire thoughts about 2024, climate change, wars and war crimes, the future of democracy, were momentarily forgotten. I imagined the same thing happened on December 31, 1941, and I’ll bet my mother-in-law Orrell, a passionate dancer, was at a Manhattan ballroom that night, having a big time.

The band kicked “It’s All Right” and we shouted the chorus and then “You Can’t Hurry Love” as the clock ticked down, and “I Saw Her Standing There” with everyone singing the falsetto notes. Elderly CEO-types, distinguished matrons, responsible liberals, all suddenly adolescent with so much joy as the band played the perfect song — You are the dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeen, feel the beat from the tambourine — and we counted to midnight, and I kissed my beloved, and we sang “Auld Lang Syne” and there it was. A thousand dignified Yanks and Brits transfigured briefly into playful children while sailing the Atlantic. A glorious feeling. Nothing is changed really except that we discover that we have the capacity for giddy pleasure in a mob of people who feel exactly the same.

There are troubles ahead and sadness and confusion but what I wish for you in the New Year are moments of wild leaping happiness like that night. If tomatoes can be jubilant and sweet corn bodacious, then so can we be. Let’s do it for each other, Sugar Buns.

Garrison Keillor © 01.05.24