RIVER CITY JOURNAL: WHEN IT'S DARK AND SCARY, TRY SINGING THIS LITTLE SONG

Maybe this has happened to you:

You're away from home -- maybe traveling somewhere -- and you're thirsty, but you can't find anything to drink. So you keep going and going, getting thirstier and thirstier. Finally, you take an exit even though you don't know if there's going to be a service station or convenience store or fast-food restaurant to get something to drink.

Oh. Did I say it was dark?

And you've never been on this road before in your life?

And it's raining? Freezing too?

So you drive in the freezing rain along this unfamiliar road while your old windshield wipers, which should have been replaced a long time ago, streak up your windshield.

By the way, your defroster is on the blink. Did I mention that?

The farther you drive, the more you realize what a pickle you're in. Pretty soon you do what anyone would do under the circumstances.

You panic.

This is when you start to say a little prayer.

It's funny how almost anyone gets religion if conditions are just right.

So you tell God that if he will get you back on the main highway and show you the way to a store where you can get something to drink, you'll start going to church. Promise.

Or if you already go to church, you'll start tithing. Really.

Or if you already tithe, you'll stop lying about your golf score. Honest.

Or if your golf score isn't worth lying about, you'll do whatever it takes to make God happy.

Have you ever noticed how an awful lot of people mistake God for Monty Hall?

You remember Monty. He was the host of "Let's Make a Deal."

Anyway, this is about the time you see bright lights up ahead. By some miracle you have looped back around to the main highway. And as soon as you're back on the main highway, you see big signs up ahead.

At this point, the story can go two ways.

For example, those big signs up ahead might be billboards telling you you're only a mile from umpteen fast-foot restaurants and convenience stores and service stations.

But maybe you are anti-billboards. So in your story the big signs are highway department signs with logos of some of your favorite fast-food restaurants and service stations.

Either way, you wind up getting something to drink.

With your thirst satisfied, you go on your merry way. You probably don't give that little pact you made with the Almighty a second thought. You got what you wanted, right?

I had a situation this week that was similar to all of this.

I wasn't traveling. I was sitting in my office. I was trying to think of something to write about for this week's column. I wasn't having any luck.

Even checking through the pile of stuff I keep on my desk for this kind of emergency didn't help although I did find a recipe for squash pizza. I can't imagine why I kept that.

Suddenly, I was in the dark, freezing world of writer's block. I did what anyone would do.

I panicked.

When I was just about ready to make a bunch of promises to God, in walked Paul Walker. Paul works in the office that's just beyond the wall on my right. He had read my column last week that mentioned my penchant for fruitcakes. He had in his hand the lyrics of a song that mentions fruitcakes. It was just the kind of thing that makes a column.

The song is called "The Song of the Temperance Union." I don't know when it was written, but my guess is it was before the 1930s. And I don't know who wrote it. It's a clever song -- poking fun at the temperance movement, actually with 15 verses listing the pitfalls of tobacco, cookies, water, peaches, plum pudding, coffee, milkshakes, jump ropes, back rubs, Brylcream, hiking, cornflakes, dancing -- and fruitcakes.

Here are the fruitcake verses and the chorus:

We never eat fruitcake because it has rum,

And one little slice puts a man on the bum.

Oh, can you imagine the pitiful plight

Of a man eating fruitcake until he gets tight?

A man who eats fruitcake lives a terrible life.

He's mean to his children and beats on his wife.

A man who eats fruitcake dies a terrible death

With the odor of raisins and rum on his breath!

Chorus:

Away, away, with rum, by gum,

Rum by gum, rum by gum.

Away, away, with rum, by gum,

The song of the Temperance Union.

And there's my column. Thank God for Paul.

Really. I mean it.

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