Free Bing Crosby by Gary Giddins Page B

locker room. The following summer Kate coddled him into competing in a citywide swimming
     contest. On the big day, a couple of weeks after graduating Webster, Bing courted the resentment of his brothers as he lazed
     about, singing Blanche Ring’s vaudeville hit “I’ve Got Rings on My Fingers,” resting up for the 2:00 P.M. meet. Kate relieved him of chores and prepared his favorite meal, pork chops. To his initial dismay, Kate also insisted on
     accompanying him to the pool. She did no harm. He wonseven medals, including first place in diving and second place in the 100- and 220-yard speed events. When he resumed work
     at the pool that week, he was advanced from towel boy to lifeguard.
    That same summer Bing added to his finances by caddying. He talked members out of old clubs and played the course on Mondays,
     becoming obsessed with golf, which replaced swimming as his preferred exercise. During his years in Hollywood, Crosby became
     an expert golfer, but he had some qualms about keeping a swimming pool and filled in at least one. The presumed reason was
     his fear that the neighborhood children might have accidents, generating lawsuits. Twenty-three summers after his triumph
     at the Mission Park pool, Bing attempted to exercise his swimming skills and almost had an accident of his own, at the 1939
     New York World’s Fair.
    Driving back from a golf match with his friend mining heir Harvey Shaeffer, Bing suggested they catch the show at the Billy
     Rose Aquacade, featuring Eleanor Holm and Bing’s friend from Hollywood Johnny Weissmuller, the Olympic swimming champ who
     became the definitive Tarzan. As Weissmuller introduced the divers, who were climbing up to a fifty-foot board, Bing casually
     mentioned that he could dive from that height. Shaeffer bet him a hundred dollars he could not. They went backstage. Telling
     no one but Weissmuller of his plan, Bing borrowed a farcical full-body swimsuit and matching hat and anonymously waited his
     turn. When it came, he embraced the caper with comic aplomb and was airborne before realizing that his pipe was clamped between
     his teeth. Fearing it might be driven through his neck, he aborted an intended jackknife in favor of a feet-first plunge.
     He lost his pipe, incited a furious Billy Rose (who also feared accidents and lawsuits), and collected sixty-five dollars
     from Shaeffer, who would not accept the plunge as a dive.
    Harry mused, “All of our children were musical, but I must admit I had a soft spot in my heart for Bing, because I liked to
     hear him sing.” He brought him down to the Spokane Elks Club and had Bing perform for the members. “The piano player of the
     Elks Quartet became so interested in Bing’s singing that he gave him lessons.” 40 Those lessons, if they took place (Bing never spoke of them), would probably have been gratis. Kate took as focused an interest
     in his singing as in his swimming. “[She] gave me every break,” Bing said. “In fact, shetook me to a teacher. I had about three lessons and she paid for them and she didn’t have the money to spare at the time.
     I think the lessons cost five dollars a session. He gave me some things to vocalize on, some scales on the piano, and I think
     I went about three times, but I kept up the vocalizing for a few years — I think it loosened me up. That’s the only formal
     musical training I ever had.” 41 In his memoir, Bing claims that the lessons petered out when the professor discouraged pop songs and emphasized tone production
     and breath control. But shortly after Kate’s death, he admitted the trouble was financial: “That fin, you know, every second
     week, was a little strong for my mother to come up with.” 42 Kay’s piano lessons, however, continued.
    The Crosbys were now facing their worst crunch. On January 1, 1916, Washington went dry. The postboom cleanup, previously
     directed at gambling and prostitution, claimed one of the city’s major legitimate