The One Liner

One year, at some point during my teens, on a gift-giving occasion (possibly Christmas, probably birthday) my sister gave me a present that showed she really put some time and thought into it (you know how people tend to give you gifts that make you wonder if they really know you?).  She gave me a paperback book of trivia quizzes about the movies. I was mad for movies and wanted to learn everything about every movie ever made.  This would be a great way to learn, especially since Me Mother knew all that I wanted to know but didn’t - I would be able to get answers and explanations from her.  Sometimes Mama could and would sit down and recount scenes and tell me her reactions to the films when she had, first, seen them, but on one occasion she was wonderfully witty and beautifully brief.

I had never seen it, I had never read about it, I didn’t know what it was and I couldn’t begin to fathom what the answer was, so I went into the kitchen, where Mama was working on dinner, my little paperback in hand, opened to the page that was a little more than half-way through the book.  It was a quiz about movie musicals.

“Hey, Mom, in the movie Meet Me In St. Louis, why did the Smith family ride the trolly car?”

Mama didn’t look up from her potato peeling, indeed, she did not pause to inhale.  She just spoke.

“So Judy Garland could sing The Trolly Song.”

The wit and wisdom of Juana Mosher.