Younger than Springtime? You Must be Kidding.

By Fred Bruning

June 8, 2025

Some Enchanted Evening.

Younger than Springtime.

Bali Ha’i.

This Nearly was Mine.

OK, you be Mary Martin, I’m Ezio Pinza. Who cares what the neighbors think? C-major. Here we go….

Some enchanted evening
You may see a stranger
You may see a stranger
Across a crowded room
And somehow you know
You know even then
That somewhere you'll see her
Again and again.

My parents, Winnie and Fred, must have played “South Pacific” – 78s, boxed set – a thousand times when the musical blew away Broadway in 1949.

The only thing I heard more as a kid was, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God,” the national anthem of St. John’s Lutheran Church, Prospect Avenue, Brooklyn.

Martin Luther (our guy), wrote the words and music, a lot of swelling notes on the organ thanks to choir director Henry Bottenberg, and lyrics that warned of “mortal ills,” “cruel hate,” “ancient foes,” “rage,” “doom,” and, in the third verse, even a “prince of darkness” before whom, of course, as stouthearted Lutherans we were obligated to “tremble not.”

Hot stuff in 1529. Good to remember the next time you’re groaning about rap.

But, wow, do the words of all those Rodgers and Hammerstein tunes hurry back, right?

Bali Ha’i may call you,

Any night, any day,

In your heart you’ll hear it call you,

Come away, come away…

All the above because we went to see “South Pacific” at a nearby revival playhouse that brings Broadway actors – and others awaiting their big chance – to the suburbs so that locals can dress up (some do, some don’t) and spend a night out that does not involve the multiplex or Nordstrom or listening to the local pol at the American Legion hall pretend he’s not going to vote for cutting Medicaid, only waste, fraud and abuse, come on folks, heh-heh, have a little faith.

(Along those lines, how about Iowa senator Joni Ernst telling a hometown crowd, oh, please, stop complaining about slashed health benefits, everyone dies anyway, hadn’t you heard, and if you’re looking for eternal life, give Jesus a try? Doesn’t take much to imagine Jesus smacking his head and screaming, “Sit down, lady, please. I’ll handle recruitment.”)

At the theater, we happened to be sitting in back of a fellow I know from the United Parcel store – he owns it – and his wife. I didn’t recognize him until he showed me the UPS logo on his windbreaker and we discussed packages and copy machines and the evening ahead.

The show began and I saw the UPS man’s wife snuggle into his shoulder and thought about the steadfastness of this music – the couple ahead were much younger – sentimental, sure, but touching on the universal, no question, once you have found her, never let her go.

There’s some late 1940s sociology in the play, if you remember.

The female love interest – a Navy nurse from Arkansas – at one point breaks off her engagement to the charming French landowner with whom she has fallen in love because he has mixed race children from a marriage to an island woman who died years before.

The song attending this moment is, “You Have to be Carefully Taught,” and, as the director said in program notes, that troubling idea, like the music of “South Pacific,” survives as well.

You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught from year to year,
It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught!

Before long, the nurse sees the error of her ways – of what she’s been carefully taught – and returns to her handsome Frenchman. Ah, the stage. If life were only that simple, yes?

Well, anyway, we said good night to the UPS couple and my wife, Wink, and I grabbed a couple burritos at the late-night Mexican joint before settling down to solve our latest TV murder on Britbox.

It was after 11 now and most of the customers at the taqueria were kids – 20-somethings.

I wondered if they would come upon “South Pacific” someday, if it would click with them, if what we antiquities consider an American classic would be just a kind of curiosity to people so young.

On this particular occasion, the crowd lining up for nachos and quesadillas was mixed – white, black, Latino, Asian, everyone at ease with one another.

Encouraging, I thought, given all the news that pounds us daily and what must have been on the director’s mind when writing his commentary for the program.

You don’t want to make too much of a couple minutes in the local taqueria – it was just a little glimpse – but, looking at the young folks, I thought, no matter what they think of my music, tonight, at least, I think the world of them.

Previous Invisible Ink posts at: https://fredbruning.substack.com/archive