Modern Screen (Jul-Dec 1945)

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Nathaniel Crosby named after a hardy forebear of those rugged rigging days. Bing's dad, Harry Crosby, was born in Washington and there he met his wife, Kate. They were living in Tacoma by the time Harry, Jr., came along, and being good Catholics, had already started a big family, a circumstance which made Bing Crosby's first appearance in this world a definite flop. That historic event occurred the rainy morning of May 2, 1902, in a small, white, wooden cottage on North Jay Street in Tacoma. Bing was a flop because he was a disappointment. The Crosbys wanted a girl. That was understandable, because all three other children were boys, Larry, Everett and Ted, although later, the next two children were Bing's sisters, Catherine and Mary Rose. The most disappointed member of the family, perhaps, was Papa Harry Crosby. He had had his heart set on a little Crosby colleen. It was hard to disguise his disappointment as he walked out of the bedroom into the parlor, his wife's voice calling after him.' "We'll call him 'Harry,' dear," she said. That would take out some of the disappointment, to have a son carry on his own name. So the Crosby babe became Harry Crosby middle name Lillis, after a family name in Kate Harrigan's line. pretty boy toughie . . . Bing was a good looking — almost pretty kid — from the start. Maybe his father's wish for a girl had something to do with the peaches and cream complexion, the gold-brown hair with a little wave in it, the even, pearly teeth and the enormous china-blue eyes that grew up to roll soulfully around the Cocoanut Grove and make the flappers of the early Thirties swoon. From the start, too, Bing was a chunky, almost roly poly youngster, soft looking, far from tough. All this added up very soon to the most deceptive kid in Spokane. Because while Bing looked like a mama's pretty boy (except maybe for his always generous ears) that was just one of nature's come-ons. Later on, numberless pugnacious moppets, sensing a soft touch, found themselves wiping their bloody noses and running home in tears with a very different impression. Bing Crosby always calls Spokane, Washington, his home town, rather than Tacoma. He was five when Harry Crosby, who worked as an auditor in the county treasurer's office at Tacoma, landed a better job over in Spokane as bookkeeper for a big brewery. Harry, Sr., could use a good job by then. He had a family of six kids on his hands to feed. Because by then Catherine was three and Mary Rose a baby in Kate Crosby's arms. evolution of a name . . . So one hot, dusty July day the Crosbys left the little white cottage on North Jay Street to ride a day coach clear across the state to Spokane. Harry Crosby had gone ahead and found a two-storied yellow house on Sinto Avenue on the north side of the Spokane River which bisected the town. Only three blocks away was Webster grade school and not much farther the Jesuit college of St. Aloysius of Gonzaga. The convent of the Holy Name wasn't very far, either. Kate Crosby noted this and approved. The Jesuits were famous teachers. Her boys and girls could get a good, thorough Catholic education right at their own doorstep. What impressed Bing were the school baseball diamonds, football fields, the long pond at McGolderick's sawmill nearby and the dangerously thrilling invitation of the swift Spokane River. Also, the flocks of kids his age in the neighborhood — regular kids with good Irish names like his own — Ralph Foley, Bill Kelly, Johnny and Mike Dunne, Phil Sweeney and Frank Corkery. He teamed up with the gang at once. Bing got along swell with other kids. He hadn't been in the neighborhood a month before he got the nickname that he was to carry the rest of his life. The Spokane paper had a Sunday feature called "The Bingville Bugle" which laid young Harry right in the aisles. It became his favorite reading matter and he lugged it along in the hip pocket of his corduroy knickers wherever he went. The kids began to call him "Bingo from Bingville" and one day a freckle-faced moppet showed up at Kate Crosby's back door. "Kin Bingo come out and play?" "Who?" "Bingo — I mean Harry." "No — " snapped Mrs. Crosby. "Harry's busy with his chores. His name's not 'Bingo' — it's Harry. It's a nice name and you call him that." "Yes, ma'am," agreed the kid, edging away. "Well, you tell Bingo that Mike was here." "Bingo" was soon trimmed down to Bing and it stuck. All his family adopted it — except Kate Crosby. To her, Bing is still Harry and ever will be, and Bing doesn't mind. But if anyone else calls him that, they'd better smile. There's another story about how Bing got his name. That in playing cowboy and Indians, he'd go around pointing his wooden six-shooter and shouting "Bing! Bing." Either way, Bing lived up to his nickname. He was full of bounce, absolutely fearless and full of confidence. One hot summer vacation day the gang was lousing idly around the barn saloon when somebody got the idea of cooling off with a swim in the river. That was strictly forbidden by all the kids' parents. The Spokane was treacherous and deep, especially around McGolderick's mill, where Bing and his mob knew the older boys, including Brother Everett, were already diving and splashing luxuriously. The more they talked, the more deliciously tempting the swim loomed. "Nuts, let's go!" said Bing. He led the race down to where the older kids were swimming. Ev told Bing to go home. Bing ignored him, calmly peeled off his shirt and pants and, to his brother's horror, jumped in the icy waters. Ev knew what Bing knew and the rest of the kids didn't. His brother Bing couldn't swim a lick! water and ducks' backs . . . He dove in after him, swearing at what he knew his mother would do to him when he brought little brother Bing, half drowned, home. To his surprise, he couldn't catch his little brother. Bing took to the water like a duckling. Threshing and splashing noisily, he was still actually swimming, out into the deep water, too. Pretty soon he was back on the sandbar lying nonchalantly in the sun. The gang never did know that Bing had never stayed afloat before in his life. Ev was too amazed to say anything. As usual, he could do anything he wanted to and right away he was good. It was the same way with his first scrap, which was the mere matter of knocking the stuffings out of the town bully for jeering "Fatty!" (Continued on page 89)