"Howard Waldrop - Ike At The Mike" - читать интересную книгу автора (Waldrop Howard)

He had done all the usual things, swimming naked in the creek, running through
town and . finding things to build up or tear down. He had hunted and fished
and gone to services on Sunday; he had camped out overnight or for days at a
time with his brothers, made fun of his girl cousins, stolen watermelons.

He first heard recorded music on an old . Edison cylinder machine at the age
of eight, long-hair music and opera his aunt collected.

There was a firehouse band that played each Wednesday night in the park across
the street from the station. There were real band concerts := on the
courthouse lawn on Sunday, mostly military music, marches, and the
instrumental . parts of ballads.
Eisenhower heard it all. Music was part of his background, and he didn't think
much of it.

So Ike grew up in Kansas, where the music was as flat as the land.

Louis Daniel Armstrong was reared back, tooting out some wild lines of "Night
and Day." In the old days it didn't matter how well you played; it was the
angle of your back and tilt of your horn. The band was really tight; they were
playing for their lives.

The trombone player came out of his seat, jumped down onto the stage on his
knees, and matched Armstrong for a few bars.

The audience yelled.

Eisenhower tapped his foot and smiled, watching Armstrong and the trombone man
cook.

The drummer was giving a lot of rim shots. The whole ballroom sounded like the
overtaxed heart of a bird ready to fly away to meet Jesus.

Ike took off his coat and loosened his tie down to the first button.

The crowd went wild.

Late August, 1908.

The train was late. Young Dwight David Eisenhower hurried across the endless
street grid of the Kansas City rail yards. He was catching the train to New
York City. There he would board another bound for West Point.

He carried his admission papers, a congratulatory letter from his congressman
(gotten after some complicated negotiations-for a while it

looked like he would be' Midshipman Eisenhower), hid train ticket, and
twenty-one dollars in emergency money in his jacket.

He'd asked the porter for the track number. It was next to the station proper.