Grandmother always had a big Sunday lunch to which many of the family living in Waco came. Rufus and his family, Mother, Bob and I and often Ruth would be there.
(Annie Mae would fix lunch and leave right after it was on the table because she sang in the choir and her church started at 2 PM.) After lunch we each had duties in which we helped. I and others would take the dishes back to the kitchen, put up leftovers, was, etc.
Rufus always vacuumed the dining room rug and then he would go to the piano in the living room with many of us following. He would start with this one tune and sing it loudly “Please don’t talk about me when I’m gone, oh honey” . . .and then he would segue into other songs like “Ill be down to get you in a taxi, honey” – the first words of “The Dark Town Strutter’s Ball.” After those he would use almost the same chords to play church tunes or Christmas Carols, etc.
Rufus had many talents but two that he always used to “get our attention” were a very loud “tock” sound that he made with his tongue. He would surprise a young niece or nephew by touching their back or shoulder and accompany the touch with a very loud “tock” or click and then let out a high musical laugh and maybe a “gotcha.” The other very Rufus sound was an extremely loud whistle with his two fingers in his mouth. For years, it seems, he tried to teach us how to make that whistle, but I don’t think any of us ever mastered it.
That whistle, however, saved the life of a young sailor during World War II when Rufus was assigned as an officer to the USS Enterprise, the newest and biggest aircraft carrier in the U.S. fleet. He was on the flight deck observing the planes landing when he noticed a young sailor reading a magazine and walking straight toward the propeller of an incoming plane. Rufus let out that loud whistle which could be heard over the roar of the plane and that made the sailor look up and stop. Rufus then gave that frightened sailor a dressing down that I am sure he never forgot.
–Louise Mosley Smith
E R Nash Sr. and Family 