Hootchy-kootchy music of 1925 tame in contrast

In its August 1925 issue, Time magazine reported that the police in Washington, D.C., were dealing with a slippery crime, specifically indecent music. According to the report, the D.C. town fathers had passed a vague law forbidding music of the indecent kind.

“Mina Van Winkle, Chief of Policewomen, defined the crime as, ‘that tom-tommy sort of music that makes men forget home and babies,’ ” the article said. The city’s attorney described the offending music as, “that hootchy-kootchy sort of intonation.” Street cops had to develop their own specifications, like Sgt. Rhoda Milliken who declared: “Any music played on a saxophone is immoral.”

Where are those old-time D.C. crime-fighters today when the musical dangers are so much greater than a modulating saxophone or a tom-tommy beat? Any parent with some hearing left in one ear knows that I am talking about the foul stuff kids listen to today.

House pets all across America are twitching and losing weight because of this music. It’s a sad thing to see the old family cat bouncing off the walls like a pinball seeking escape from the acoustic barrage of these devil songs. If hootchy-kootchy was outlawed back in 1925, can’t we outlaw this damnable music of today?

Years ago, we parents should have traded the First Amendment for putting Alice in real chains. Now, savvy kids are wised-up to legalities after watching all those “Law & Order” episodes. They would insist on warrants, Miranda recitations, “probable cause” and presence of counsel before the cops searched their bedrooms for the evil recordings.

Their music seems here to stay, but I realize that someday I’ll be leaving. That prospect recently prompted an awful thought: The trend at modern funerals is to replace traditional church music with pop tunes. Would my children, who have heaped insults upon me through the years, play their infernal music at my funeral in order to annoy me one last time?

I raised the topic with the little darlings, who are now young adults: “What kind of music will you play at my funeral?”

“Somethin’ cool.”

“Like the Stones?” I suggested, hoping for something that I could recognize.

“Huh?”

“The Rolling Stones.”

“Never heard of ‘em, Dad,” said my youngest.

“How about ‘The Old Rugged Cross’?” I asked.

“Never heard of them either.”

“It’s The Lemonheads for your funeral, Pops,” her brother chimed in.

“No way,” my other daughter said, “We’ll play some Counting Crows at Dad’s funeral or I’m not going.”

“What ever happened to the last wishes of the deceased?” I interjected.

“You won’t even be there,” countered my son.

“Oh?”

“Well, not really.”

“We’ll play some Fiddy before the eulogy and then Diddy after,” offered my oldest daughter. That sentence was gibberish to me, but all my children got it and broke into spirited applause. Compromise between siblings is heartwarming.

“Could I make a request?” I meekly inquired.

“No. Funerals are for the living, not the dead,” declared my know-it-all son with a college degree. The sisters cheered his clever pronouncement, which pretty much established my irrelevance and left me wishing I had died back in 1925.

A little hootchy-kootchy on the saxophone would have been nice at my funeral.