Collections - 7. Chapter 7 -- Owah-Tagu-Siam

Owah-Tagu-Siam

The phrase "Owah-Tagu-Siam" came into my head today and, for reasons known only to my brain, seems to refuse to leave. Forced to think about where I first heard those words, I -- possibly wrongly -- come to seventh grade, lunch, Jay Gladky, Bob Grimm, Mike Raphan, and Bob Grandt.
Seventh grade was kind of an unmoored year for me, especially the first half. I didn't yet have my paper route for financing, I was still struggling unsuccessfully with my first foreign language, Hebrew, and I wasn't yet Ralph Foster's faithful assistant on the JV soccer and track teams. But I did have a mess of unfamiliar metal in my mouth, which is how I met Jay Gladky.

The powers that controlled Speech at South, namely Maggie McNamara, had decided my braces had given me a lisp that needed to be corrected, and none of my seemingly logical reasoning that the lisp would go away when the braces did prevented me from missing study hall and instead being forced to practice phrases like "Essau Wood sawed wood. Essau Wood would saw wood. Essau Wood would saw wood with his wood saw." Now Jay Gladky, despite seemingly perfect teeth, had managed to develop a sibilant S of his own, so we were stuck with Maggie McNamara together. That wasn't completely bad. Maggie was no Janet Porter, but Janet Porter wasn't going to appear for another two years, and Maggie McNamara always seemed more accessible than Janet Porter anyhow. Still, I didn't care much for Essau Wood, or Grandpa and his Banana Oil ! -- which, in retrospect, has no S's to practice on -- or the lyrics to Gilbert and Sullivan's "Tit Willow." And let me tell you, when I got to the part, "And I said to him, 'Dickie Bird, why do you sit...' " Jay Gladky was all over the floor. But meeting Jay at least gave me someone new to have lunch with, as it seemed my grade school friends had been assigned to other lunch periods. And Jay introduced me to his friends, Bob, and Mike, and Bob.

I think they all knew each other from their grade school, whichever one that might have been, so I was the new kid in the group. And for forty-five minutes each day, between Twinkies and Devil Dogs, they got to practice their tricks and jokes on me. They told me I was looking at my nails the wrong way, I was looking behind me the wrong way, I was crossing my legs the wrong way, and probably a half-dozen other things I now forget. But, most of all, they delighted in having me repeat the magical words, "Owah-Tagu-Siam." Also, "Owah-Tanas-Siam," though I always liked the first one better. In the same way, I later preferred the chorus of "Witch Doctor" to the equally catchy refrain of "Yellow Polka Dot Bikini." I don't know why I liked saying "Owah-Tagu-Siam." I clearly knew what it meant. Maybe I did it because it sounded so dumb that it made everyone laugh.

In any case, my friendship with Jay, Bob, Mike, and Bob didn't much go anywhere. Mike and Bob Grimm played soccer, I think, so I may have seen them afternoons for the next couple of years in the locker room. And Bob Grandt and I tried to learn chess, which we kind of massacred because I had no head for strategy. And when my braces went away with the Hebrew, they took my lisp with them. In college, in Ohio, the powers that controlled Speech in the Education Department were more troubled by the depth of my voice and wanted me to do exercises to raise my pitch, but I was having none of it. Still, all these years later, I'm stuck with "Owah-Tagu-Siam" and Essau Wood. Who "one day sought a saw like no other wood saw Wood saw would saw wood."