On the road to Cincinnati

'Round Midnight; Nelson Riddle and his Orhestra; Linda Ronstadt, vocal

The word German word “bitte” means “please”. If you wanted to politely ask for a menu during your trip to Dusseldorf, you would say, “Ein Speisekarte, bitte.” It’s a very nice word. The Germans also use the word in the same way that we Americans say, “what?” or “huh?” or “I beg your pardon?” or “What’s that you say?” or “Could you repeat that?” or “I’m sorry?”.

Cincinnati is a German town. Her first mayor, David Ziegler, a veteran from the Revolutionary War, came from Heidelberg. Her Oktoberfest is the largest in the U.S. and she finds a sister city in Munich.

It is common to find native Cincinnatians whose vernacular allows them to use the English translation for the word “bitte” when they ask for people to repeat a statement, saying, “Please?” if the speaker’s words became lost in the wind.

I didn’t know that when I came rolling into town in August of 1988. Dad had bought me a car for three hundred dollars from D. who lived just down the road. “Would you drive it a thousand miles to get to Ohio?”, Dad asked. “Yup,” said D. “I’d change the oil first.” That was good enough for Dad. I had spent some time with family in the Twin Cities and then headed on down the road, bound for the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

I pulled into town right at noon. So, I stopped at the Wendy’s Hamburgers drive-thru. The following exchange took place.

Wendy’s Employee (WE): Welcome to Wendy’s. Can I take your order?

Me: Yes. I’ll take a bacon double cheeseburger with no ketchup, a large fries and a medium coke.

WE: Please?

Me: ….. Okay, I’ll play your silly little game. I’ll take a bacon double cheeseburger with no ketchup, a large fries and medium coke, PLEASE!

The poor little waif that took my money at the window had nothing but scowls for me. And I had no way of knowing why … until about three weeks later when one of my professors happened to mention the regional idiosyncracy during class. Have you ever experienced delayed embarrassment? I have. I did. I think I turned beet red just sitting in class and reliving my encounter with the Wendy woman.

All the way across Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana, I listened to my dual cassette ghetto blaster. No CD’s, yet. Just cassette tapes. The one I listened to the most on my way to Ohio was Linda Ronstadt’s jazz album trilogy “What’s New?”, “Lush Life” and “For Sentimental Reasons”. All of the songs were arranged by Nelson Riddle. He passed away shortly after these albums. His last chart was for the tune “Goodbye”.

Credits: To D., for selling me a car.

This is the thirty-first of my final forty-five CD’s.