DUMAS -- It's a Roaring '20s song long forgotten almost everywhere else. But Dumas still loves the tune, as proved by this week's public singing of its daffy lyrics to kick off the annual Ding Dong Days.
The ditty, "I'm a Ding Dong Daddy From Dumas," segues into the refrain, "And you oughtta see me do my stuff."
Sung here each year by a costumed local luminary, its verses run along the wacky lines of: "I'm a mama-lovin' man and I just left Mary. She's a big blond baby from Peanut Prairie."
"Ding Dong Daddy" was written around 1929 by Phil Baxter and recorded by performers as varied as Louis Armstrong, Bob Wills and Arthur Godfrey. When this southeast Arkansas community of 4,700 decided to stage a festival in 1980, the song leaped to mind as a lyrical theme.
Sponsored by the Women's Service League of Dumas, this year's six-day fest opened Tuesday. The fun figures to hit its peak Saturday, which gets rolling with a pancake breakfast from 6 to 10 a.m. and winds up with a 9 p.m. concert by country singer Dylan Scott.
Saturday's other activities include a barbecue cook-off, a horseshoe tournament, a petting zoo, a rock-climbing wall and more music. Potentially the tastiest event is a Ding Dong-eating contest for connoisseurs of those creme-filled chocolate goodies.
Wrapping up the festival from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday will be cake and punch along with tours at Desha County Museum. Well worth a visit, the museum displays the photographs of virtually all the honorary Ding Dong Daddies and Ding Dong Mamas since 1980.
Director Peggy Chapman, last year's Ding Dong Mama, enjoys giving museum visitors a tour. She knows the stories behind the wide-ranging exhibits, one of the most striking being a black bear, handsomely preserved by taxidermy and displayed in a glass case.
A woman spotted the bear one day in 1973 beneath her mobile home in Dumas. After she called police, a crowd began gathering and the nervous creature climbed a nearby tree. Authorities loaded a gun with a tranquilizer dart, aiming to subdue the bear and return it to the wild. But the anesthetized animal fell from the tree and broke its neck.
"Everyone in town was sad," Chapman told two visitors last week. "They hoped the bear would be freed back in the wild."
Exhibits of note also include a vintage one-room school with full furnishings, including a wood-burning stove and an old-time barber shop with the posting "all haircuts $1." A separate agricultural building houses paraphernalia from an erstwhile Arkansas City post office. On the grounds stands the two-story Sam Terry Log House, originally built in the 1840s on Oakwood Bayou four miles northeast of Dumas. Dismantled and moved to the museum site in 1980, the spacious structure with its "dog trot" breezeway is furnished with period antiques.
Festival visitors touring the house Sunday can appreciate that Desha County's history extends back a long way before the "Ding Dong Daddy" era, even as they see that 111-year-old Dumas is still "a little town, way down Dixie way."
Desha County Museum, on US 165 North in Dumas, is usually open 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and 2-4 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free, with donations welcome. Call (870) 382-4222 or visit deshacountyhistorical.org.
For details on Ding Dong Days, visit dumasar.net.
Weekend on 10/08/2015