This lovely tale is one that my wife shared with me, it's well worth a wider audience.
The story goes back over forty years or so, my wife worked in the ambulance service as a trained paramedic. There were two tiers in the ambulance service in those days. Those with basic training weren't on the front line emergency ambulances, their task was to ferry the walking wounded to hospital appointments, most of their patients were older people who needed constant care in transport, the risk of ferrying them by taxi was too high. Taxi drivers just didn't have the training required.
On this particular day, the hospital appointments were a crew member down and my wife had agreed to cover on overtime. Her task was to remain in the back of the ambulance in case a patient needed medical aid. The first patient was dropped off at a rehabilitation centre, a place surrounded with high fencing. "Another patient, an older lady, started singing the famous wartime song, by Bing Crosby & The Andrews Sisters: "Don't Fence Me In." The rest of the patients were taken to their appointments and then the ambulance crew took a break before starting out to collect everybody and take them home.
As the ambulance arrived at the last collection point, the one with the high fences, the same old lady started to sing: "Don't Fence Me In." Once the patient from the rehabilitation centre was comfortable in her seat, my wife went to the other lady, the one who had been singing, squatted down, folded her arms across the old ladies lap, looked into her face and started to sing:
Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above,
Don't fence me in.
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love,
Don't fence me in.
Let me be by myself in the evening breeze,
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees,
Send me off forever but I ask you please,
Don't fence me in.
Just turn me loose, let me straddle my old saddle
Underneath the western skies.
On my Cayuse, let me wander over yonder
'Til I see the mountains rise.
I want to ride to the ridge where the west commences
And gaze at the moon 'til I lose my senses
And I can't look at hovels and I can't stand fences
Don't fence me in.
Before long not only had the old lady joined in, but most of the elderly patients too. How they loved it. Come the end of the song, the singing older lady asked: "How come a youngster like you knows a song like that, from the forties?" My wife looked upwards, as though looking at her hair: "Victory rolls," of course, I should have known," the older lady exclaimed. "Songs and styles from that era, is hobby of mine," explained my wife. "And I tell you what, I've agreed to cover again next week so get your Andrews Sisters song book ready. They did too.
"He was a famous trumpet man from out Chicago way
He had a boogie style that no one else could play
He was the top man at his craft
But then his number came up and he was gone with the draft
He's in the army now, a blowing reveille
He's the boogie woogie bugle boy of Company B."
