My library just got in a CD of the Smothers Brothers. For those of you too young to remember, Tom and Dick were a folksong/comedy duo in the 1960s and 1970s. Dick was the straight man, and Tom was the one bringing in the wackiness. I was a big fan when I was younger, and it was good to hear their brand of silliness again.
On one track, Dick was singing “I Talk to the Trees” from Paint Your Wagon. The song goes, “I talk to the trees, but they never listen to me. I talk to the stars but they never hear me.” Tom usually breaks in shortly thereafter, remarking what a silly song it is. After all, why would anyone expect a tree to answer? “Hi stage,” he ends up saying. “You used to be a tree, right?”
There were two tracks of this song on the CD. On the second one, Dick got a few bars in, hesitated, and then said to Tom, “You didn’t come in.” Tom protested that he wasn’t supposed to come in. Dick replied, “I know, but you always interrupt me. Five years we’ve been doing this song, and you always interrupt me. I never finish the song.” Tom’s reaction? A laugh and “My brother never learned the whole song!”
I’ve been thinking about being too predictable, too reliable lately. With responsibilities at work, responsibilities at church, and the writing I do, I have to keep a fairly strict schedule. But I’m starting to feel that I am becoming stuck in the rut of my to-do list. I’m becoming just a little too predicable. I’m not sure I want to be known as dependable old Karen – at least not so much so that everybody takes for granted that I will always be there, always say yes, always do what’s expected. I want to stop being Dick, and be Tom instead – unpredictable and silly, free from my rut, at least for a little while.
Since I consider chocolate one of the four major food groups, let me close with a synopsis of another of the Smothers Brothers routines.
Tom sings, “I fell into a vat of chocolate. I just fell into a vat of chocolate.” Dick sings back, “What did you do when you fell into the chocolate?” After a little more banter back and forth, Tom declares, “I yelled fire when I fell into the chocolate.” “Why did you yell fire? There was no fire.” “I yelled fire because no one would save me if I yelled ‘Chocolate!‘”
May your life be filled with just the right amount of silliness.
