A JOLT FROM JILL

by Jill Rumbley-Beam

It’s the great travel issue of Celebration Magazine. I thought I would share my favorite travel memories with my mom, Rosemary Rumbley.

We used to travel to New York City for twenty years. It always had to be the last weekend in August because that was the only time she had off from her speaking schedule. We would always cram three Broadway Musicals into two days. The most memorable year was when mother said, “jill, you’re not going to like this but this year we are going to see two musicals and a play!” “What’s the play?”, I asked. She said, “I’ve always loved Angela Landsbury and she’s in a play called Deuce. If you’re not familiar with tennis, deuce means the score is tied. The plot was about two old, beat-up tennis players discussing how scantily clad now all the tennis players are on the court. We saw the play and it was not high on my list of must see. In fact, the next morning, we woke up and read the critics write ups on various plays and musicals and the critics said that we one of the worst plays they had ever seen but mom said, “I don’t care. I got to see Angela!”

One year, we flew to Philadelphia because mother was speaking, that year, on Benjamin Franklin. She wanted to visit Franklin’s grave. We did and there were pennies all over his tombstone because Benjamin Franklin coined the phrase (no pun intended), a penny saved is a penny earned. We also visited a museum where we heard a lady play one of Franklin’s inventions, the Armonica. Not Harmonica, but the Armonica. An Armonica is an instrument that has a long metal pole and there are many glass bowls, hollowed out on the pole. One who plays the instrument, wets their fingers and plays on the edge of the bowl and it makes a loud humming sound. You too can play the Armonica. The next time you drink a glass of wine, lick your finger and rub it over and over on the edge of the glass. I love doing that whenever my husband and I go out to eat.

One year, mom wanted to visit Brooklyn Bridge. We took a subway to where the Brooklyn Bridge started, and we walked the whole bridge and then ended up on Coney Island. The walk proved to be quite dangerous because we had to deal with the traffic on the bridge. As well as cyclists, moms with baby carriages, skateboarders and more. While walking, I had an epiphany. I was the Athletic and Reservations Manager for Dallas Parks my last fourteen years of employment. I scheduled all the runs at White Rock Lake, and I can’t tell you how many complaints from walkers and cyclists always wanting to rule the road. I experienced what those people were complaining about on the Brooklyn Bridge.

I enjoyed so many musicals with mom. Two of my favorites were Gypsy and the Drowsy Chaperone. Bernadette Peters played Mama Rose in Gypsy, and she came out after the show to sign autographs. The Drowsy Chaperone starred my favorite star of all, Sutton Foster. I’ll never forget this musical. Sutton plays the part of Janet Vandergriff, a star and she decides she doesn’t want to be a star anymore and she sings this song, “Show Off”. I sang this song for my talent when I entered the MS Texas Senior America Pageant in 2015.

Another great musical we saw was the Monty Python version of Camelot called Spamalot.

We loved this one because there is a song in this musical, with a great philosophical message that mom and I sing all the time, “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”.

Some things in life are bad,

They can really make you mad,

Other things just make you swear and curse.

When you’re chewing on life’s gristle,

Don’t grumble, give a whistle

And this will help things turn out for the best!

If like seems jolly rotten, there’s something you’ve forgotten,

And that to laugh and dance and smile and sing,

When you’re feeling in the dumps,

Don’t be a silly chump,

Just purse your lips and whistle, that’s the thing!

Always look on the bright side of life and always look on the light side of life!

That’s my philosophy and my advice to you!