The Best Years of Our Lives

Today is my 46th birthday and I’m following my wife Kendall’s practice of looking at the films that were released not in the year of my birth but in the year of my “age”—1946. The winner of the Best Picture Oscar that year was William Wyler’s “The Best Years of Our Lives.” I take that as a good sign, especially since 45’s winner was “The Lost Weekend” (a story of raging alcoholism) and 47’s was “Gentleman’s Agreement (a story of raging anti-Semitism). Will I one day look back at these as the best years of my life? It’s quite possible. Despite the heartaches and neuroses that have led me to this point, and despite the physical signs of the aging process that can’t be staved off any longer, it is still a relatively happy and healthy time in my life, knock on wood and spit three times, poo poo poo. It’s a questioning time, God knows, but one that I do believe I will look back on with fondness and nostalgia when I’m about to face my own Fade to White. Of course it seems completely surreal to me that I’m 46. How did that happen? I thought I was always going to be “the young one.” Thanks to starting school early and skipping third grade, I was always the youngest kid in all of my social groups and in most of my early jobs. No matter what indecision or angst I was suffering through, I would always calm myself with the thought that I had all the time in the world ahead of me to figure out my life. Not so much the case anymore. At best, and I mean BEST, I am halfway through my life. So what do I make of these past 16,790 days? What have I been doing for those 402,960 hours? Have I wasted a lot of those 24,177,600 minutes? Squandered many of those 1,450,656,000 seconds? (Oh my God, I’ve been alive for almost a BILLION AND A HALF seconds??)

I’m always surprised when I hear people talking about their childhoods or high school or college years as the best years of their lives. Most of my childhood seems very inaccessible to me, like I’m trying to tune in an old Philco black-and-white set that has a lot of static and problems with the vertical hold. The memories that I am finally able call up and write about in here tend to be focused on the cultural markers that implanted themselves in my consciousness whether it’s “Zoom,” “The Waltons,” Julie Newmar, or not going to the New York World’s Fair. For someone whose past seems like a vast terrain of repressed or nonexistent memories, it’s funny how often I try to evoke those years. Is that the raison d’etre of my blog? (Now that I’m 46, can I get away with using terms like raison d’etre?)

I am wracking my brain and I can barely remember a handful of my birthdays. What’s up with that? The only vivid memory I have of a birthday celebration with my family is from September 4, 1970. My mother had organized a themed party for our family dinner. The theme? Happy faces. In later years I had nothing but contempt for the inane yellow symbol that had swept the country in the early 70s. But on this night I thought it was the most wonderful thing in the world. My mother had hung mobiles from our kitchen ceiling containing dozens of inflated yellow happy faces. She had a happy face tablecloth and happy face napkins, happy face plates and cups, happy face wrapping paper covering my fantastic new portable record player (that played LPs as well as 45s and 78s), and a happy face birthday cake. I remember sitting there in that sea of idiotic yellow faces with my parents and my brother and sister thinking that I had the most loving family in the world and that no one had ever had a better birthday. How could I possibly know that my parents would be divorced a few scant months later and that my mother would be out of our house never to return? It’s funny—I’ve always remembered this birthday but I never thought of the time line until just now. No wonder I’ve always considered this family gathering as the happiest one in my life—it was probably the last one. God only knows what my parents were already going through at that time. My mother must have purchased those endless smiley faces hoping that their blank stares would mask the ugliness that was spreading like mold throughout our house. For me it worked. “Have a nice day!”

I’ve always known that I was born a month premature, but the details of that are lost now that my mother is dead and my father’s memory is spotty about such things. In one version my mother’s labor was induced by her doctor who either got the date wrong or didn’t want to change an upcoming vacation. I had to be kept in an incubator and I soon developed thrush, a disease in the mouth involving the same fungus that exists in vaginal yeast infections (oy). I couldn’t eat and started losing weight even though I was already very tiny and I had to stay in the hospital for weeks. I’ve known this story all my life but it was only this morning that I suddenly started wondering whether some of my “issues” regarding attachment, abandonment, and intimacy could be related to this traumatic entry into the world. One thing that definitely resulted from my condition—my mother was so freaked out that I was so tiny and thin that she started overfeeding me to the level of a Strasbourg goose being plumped up for foie gras. I soon went from being a skinny preemie to a roly poly Michelin baby.

This morning Kendall took Leah and me to a delicious over-the-top brunch at Merv Griffin’s Beverly Hilton. We wondered why we were passing hundreds of musicians and security guards as we made our way into the hotel until we suddenly found ourselves in a gigantic ballroom surrounded by huge caricatures of Jerry Lewis’s face. We had wandered onto the set of the annual Muscular Dystrophy Telethon, a staple of my birthday weekends (remember the year Dean Martin walked on the set, ending his long-time feud with Jer?). This telethon further induced my parents to overfeed us, lest we start looking like Jerry’s Kids. When we got to the restaurant we realized that almost everyone in there was either from the telethon’s crew or about to appear on the show. Visiting the Beverly Hilton is already like being in a 1972 time warp, but when you’re surrounded by dozens of people you last saw on an episode of “Love American Style” or “Marcus Welby M.D.,” the vision is complete.

Important cultural figures born on September 4th include Daniel Burnham (1846), the Chicago architect who built the world’s first skyscraper, the Reliance Building at State and Washington, which my grandfather owned for 62 years and renamed the Karoll’s Building until he lost it to bankruptcy in the early 90s (it is now the beautifully restored Hotel Burnham); Howard Morris (1919) who was the voice of some of my favorite childhood cartoon characters including Atom Ant, Beetle Bailey, Jughead Jones, and Winnie the Pooh’s Gopher; Dick York (1928) who was the original kinder/gentler Darrin on “Bewitched”; Leonard Frey (1938) who played Mottel “Even a tailor deserves some happiness!” Chomzoil in “Fiddler on the Roof”; and, born in Nairobi, Kenya, on September 4, 2179, Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, communications officer for the Starship Enterprise (I told you I was a geek!).

“The Best Years of Our Lives” is not exactly the happy-go-lucky film its title implies. It’s about three American servicemen who return home after the war to find their lives irrevocably changed by their experiences. They each have a difficult time coping with the changes that have taken place in themselves and in the world around them but in the end they come to terms with their disabilities and traumas. They learn to accept that the past they know will never return and to embrace the realities of their present-day lives. Maybe this film is the perfect model for my 46th year!

Comments

[Tamar]

I hope it was a Happy, Happy Day, Danny!

[Neil]

Hapy b-day, Danny. The Best Years of Our Lives is one of my favorite movies, and you coudn't have gotten a better choice this year. Whatever the hardships those military men had in coming back to the states, they all found friends and family who cared enough about them to bring them back to normal, as hard as it was for them to overcome their past. It sounds like you have a lot of friends and family that keep you sane.

[wtuckercoach]

Happy Birthday!

I can't stop myself from responding to your comment about attachment issues. Absolutely...your entry into the world would have contributed to such issues. In spite of the pretentiousness of the writing, I recommend A General Theory of Love. They cover the topic pretty thoroughly.

Best wishes and hopes that the best is yet to come.

[Pearl]

H.B. to you. Hope it will be a great year for you.

[Uncle Paul]

Danny:
Happy B-Day. Check my private epistles on your e-mail (sent before I opened your blog.)
Thanks for another great picture now in "My Pictures" and my screensaver slide show. You're preserved pretty good even if bubbe and zaid didn't put a plastic cover on you!

[Rosie]

Happiest of birthdays to you, Danny. I do, indeed, hope this is the best year of your life.

(ps...you share a birthday with some pretty awesome people! What a great day to be born!)

[Heather]

A belated happy birthday, Danny. I tried to find a good international holiday that was on your birthday, but this bizarre Swiss shooting competition for teenaged boys is all I came up with.

[Sue]

Well Danny, in addition to yourself, you should mention another IMPORTANT cultural figure. Bonnie is in Figi today marrying the love of her life Michael. The way it is these days she tells me is the honeymoon comes first and celebration with friends and family later. She and Michael are in a beautiful place physically and spiritually, totally relaxed. Maybe they are on to something.

Happy birthday dear Danny. I hope to see you soon.
Love

[david]

Holy crap, you were here **on your birthday**, and blew off the person who shared the Michael Reese maternity ward with you?!! For shame!

And don't you go blaming it on a senior moment, although that's becoming more plausible with each passing day...

[Bad Maria]

I join the ranks in wishing you a belated happy birthday!!
Also wanted to say that "The Best Years of Our Lives" is literally one of my top five favorite films of all time. It was ahead of the curve in dealing with the effects of war on returning soldiers and their families and I had a major crush on Dana Andrews for years as a result of seeing the film - he died the year I turned 30. He was 83 and was acting until the end of is life. A short film he acted in came out the year after his death. So there it is, just keep on keepin' on and don't worry about the aging thang, it's all a state of mind.

[Vicki]

Danny,
I check in every once in a while since I'm a huge fan of the band who must not be named. But today I'm writing to wish you a happy birthday since September 4th was my own brother's 45th birthday. How about that?
--Vicki

[Rurality]

Happy belated birthday... must be something about the age that makes people post kid pictures of themselves on their blogs. :)

My 46th is this month too. Forget the 2031 thing! A similar experience convinced me that my death would occur at age 27. Had a scary plane ride on my birthday that year, but I'm still here, at least for now.

[kornelios]

i love "the best years of our lives." I cant believe it took me thirty five years before I found it, being the movie buff that I am. Maybe now I should see what films came out in 1943. maybe some slim pickings, given that the war was on. o, and you will never guess how i found your blog, not that you care

[OldLady Of The Hills]

TO KORNELIOS: Well, there were some terrific films in 1943...Here are a few, ALL were up for Academy Awards in different catagories,and some won; some didn't.
CASABLANCA (Best picture winner-plus other wins, too); SONG OF BERNADETTE (Jennifer Jones and others won); THE MORE THE MERRIER (Wonderful film-Jean Arthur, etc);FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS (Ingrid B. & Gary C.); HEAVEN CAN WAIT (The 'Original' version-Robert Montgomery-picture was up for Best Pic); MADAME CURIE (Inspiring film about the Curies-Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon);WATCH ON THE RHINE (Dated mostly because of the 'war', but worth watching-Bette Davis and Paul Lukas who WON: BEST ACTOR); THE OX-BOW INCIDENT (Great Film! Henry Fonda...If you watch nothing else, watch this one);.....
And the list, well, it goes on and on.
THE HUMAN COMEDY; THE CONSTANT NYMPH (Impossible to come by....e-mail me, JOAN FONTAINE was up for Best Actress); DESTINATION TOKYO; SHADOW OF A DOUBT (Hitchcock-wonderful film);
And in those days certain catagories had 10 nominees, like, Best Picture and SONGS:
Here are some of the songs up that year---incredible standards to this day: HAPPINESS IS JUST A THING CALLED JOE, ("CABIN IN THE SKY" an all Afro-American cast-WOW!); MY SHINING HOUR ("THE SKY'S THE LIMIT"); THAT OLD BLACK MAGIC ("Star Spangled Rhythym"---these three songs ALL written by Harold Arlen....ALL Standards to this day....talk about a GREAT Composer...Can anyone even remember what songs won in this year of 2005???); and more, but the winner was "YOU'LL NEVER KNOW", ('Hello Frisco, Hello'- another great standard song)
So there are some of the 1943 films you can rent and see what we were all watching back in 1943....Have Fun!!!!
And Danny..this is a GREAT BLOG!!!!!
A BELATED HAPPY BIRHDAY!!!!!

OldLadyOfTheHills

[OldLady Of The Hills]

Left the wrong address before, Danny. Sorry
This one is correct.
OldLady Of The Hills

[Sonia]

Very interesting and creative this post! Love it! Congratulations!

[Wendy]

Oh dear, no stolen (borrowed) stills from "Best Years of our Lives"? It is among my favorite movies, especially when Myrna Loy explains to Theresa Wright how she and F. March have to always fall in love with each other again and again throughout the course of their marriage. And how their reunion that took place down the long hall of their apartment was similiar to William Wyler's reunion with his wife in some hotel (the Plaza?) in NYC during the waning years of WWII. And when Dana Andrews attacked that horrible man who dissed him when he was working as a soda jerk after all his war exploits? It deserves at least one still, doesn't it????

[Rebekah]

A very belated happy birthday to you, and if it's any consolation, I am only 27 years old and can barely remember my childhood. My parents are also divorced and have been for ten years...perhaps blocking out my childhood memories was a subconscious reaction to that trauma? Just an idea...