IT WAS IN 1942 that Johnny Mercer recorded what would become my favorite song of all time: "Strip Polka." I was 9 years old, and we were in the midst of a horrific world war. In those days, children were expected to entertain themselves, because parents were too busy surviving or rolling bandages for the Red Cross and entertaining soldiers in their homes.
Our house had a huge backyard, and my mother had an extravagant supply of clothes she no longer liked. My cousin Jessica and I loved to put together crazy costumes and create glitzy shows for our neighbors after we did our homework and finished our chores. Every Saturday afternoon, we would sing, dance and serve free Kool-Aid. Without fail, our finale was "Strip Polka." I never really understood why the lady in the song was taking things off, and I wasn't sure exactly what she was removing, but I loved the jazzy beat.
When I was 16, my date took me to a burlesque show in Toledo, Ohio, in an attempt to encourage me to give him what he wasn't getting. The theater was on Superior Street, tucked in between a pawnshop and a greasy spoon. It was dark and narrow, and looked as if no one had touched it with a dust rag or broom in 20 years. It smelled like a combination of sweat, popcorn and the unmentionable. "I want to go home," I told my optimistic date. "It stinks in here."
As I got older and life took me on various journeys, I always remembered how much I loved "Strip Polka." Every chance I had, which was often at a community sing, I would perform the song—I knew all the words, and it had an infectious tune. I never thought of myself as an entertainer; my master's degree was in education. Besides, it took a couple of brandy Alexanders or a gin and tonic to get me to make a fool of myself.
Time passed, and my life continued to change. In 1964, I earned another master's degree: this one in communication from Stanford. Teaching morphed into writing feature articles and then books, which needed promoting. I began to do public readings. One performance led to another, and everyone knows that once you give a Jewish ham a microphone, it's going to go downhill very fast.
And indeed it did.
By 2004, I found myself onstage telling jokes instead of stories, and wondering what I could do at the age of 71 to make people laugh. After one of my comedy shows, a guitarist asked me, "Have you ever thought of adding music to your act?" and I thought back to my favorite tune. "You know," I said, "I do have a song.…"
And so it began. That song expanded into a series of parodies that then blossomed into a prizewinning cabaret show. At every show, I opened with the one number I knew could never fail. At one point, a fellow performer asked, "Have you ever thought of burlesque?"
I closed my eyes, remembering that disgusting theater in Toledo, and shook my head. "I try not to," I said.
And he said, "You know, the scene is very different these days. It is funny and entertaining and sexy in a very different way."
"I'll bet it is," I said.
"I know some people who would love your act," he said.
And as it turns out, they really do.
Lynn Ruth Miller, MA '64, lives in Brighton, England, and won the 2013 Time Out & Soho Theatre Cabaret Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
