Dr. Steven Shymansky: My Nephew’s Song

Yesterday at work at my employer’s granite showroom, for the four pre-teen daughters of a visiting couple, I shared,  on the new violin finish Ibanez guitar I bought for Christmas this year, a song I created about 48 years ago. The song was improvised on the second guitar I ever owned, in the living room at 2016 S. Whittier Ave. in Springfield, Illinois. It was my childhood home. My sister Dorothy Shymansky, her husband Robert, first son Robert and second son Steven, my mom, dad and brother Bill were gathered after a storybook supper, and I was the star of the show. I could play six chords on the guitar.  I was 16 years old.
-
We had sung some Christmas carols, and I had played “Puff the Magic Dragon” at least once — they loved the song — and then Bobby asked me to make up a song.  (I had done this kind of thing before. It was predictable fun.)
“Okay, smart guy,” I said, laughing and pointing my guitar at him from my seat on the edge of a blue velvet high-back chair. “I’ll make up the song after you make up the title!”
–
Bobby’s eyes — all of the Shymanskys’ eyes including their sister Julie who had not yet joined the world and my sister who had adopted the name — sparkled when they smiled in a way that made a leprechaun’s glittering eyes seem as dull as a dead carp in the sand at the lake. He took a breath and blurted “See-op, Bee-op, Shabalang!”
-
The melody and words came as easily as “White Christmas.”. . . .
See-op, bee-op,  shabalang.
Fra-fra! . . . fra-fra!
See-op, bee-op,  shabalang
Fra-fra! . . . fra-fra!
(repeated and then into the refrain. . .)
See-op, bee-op,  shabalang it’s very strange you see.
See-op, bee-op,  shabalang is what my mother calls me ” –
and the two boys HOWLED with laughter
and I repeated the first verse twice more, and that was the end of the song.
-
They asked me to play it two or three more times in the course of the evening, and they loved it. So did I. Every time I visited the Shymanskys out in Wheeling, West Virginia or they returned to Springfield in later years while the kids were growing up, my guitar was always close, and they asked me to sing See-op Bee-op Shabalang.
–
December 28, 2011  a young family visited my employer where I’ve had my new guitar since the 27th. I had played some carols and children’s songs, and then I introduced the song I had played in my parents’ living room when I was sixteen years old. The kids loved it, and so did the smiling parents who had stopped chatting with owner George when I started that song. See-op is older than their parents. I will never forget yesterday’s magic.
-
And I cannot not forget Steve Shymansky, a bright, generous kid who loved his brother Bobby (who died of Muscular Dystrophy before he turned 20) and Julie and mom and dad in a storybook-perfect way. Every year, he or Laurel his beautiful wife, send me a picture of their kids, usually without proud parents in the picture. I’ve not said a word to a Shymansky in 16 years but I remember the joys of knowing them. My sister Dorothy wants nothing to do with me for reasons she made clear long ago in a hell-fire monologue over the phone line to Wheeling. I don’t know if Julie or my sister are even alive . . . . but I hope they are. . . . and I wish them well. 
–
Some day, perhaps, the four vivacious young ladies who came to a natural stone showroom on Springfield’s northeast side will remember a man with a guitar who played a funny song inspired by a boy named Shymansky, and they will smile.
–
Bitterness is not my way. Give me See-op Bee-op Shabalang any day! 
-
Live long . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and proper.