Overlapping Generations

 

I look at my son's face and see the history of my family in his smiling countenance. I never dreamed I'd have a baby a decade into the twenty-first century and I think of all my family members born during the nineteenth century that I knew so well. I wish Charlie could know them, and the ones who came before. On some level, I think he does. 

The last veteran of the Civil War died just before I was born. There were lots of people around during my childhood whose grandparents and even parents had been born slaves. I remember endless lines of old World War I veterans marching in parades down Chicago’s State Street when I was a kid. And since I was born only 14 years after World War II ended, there were obviously plenty of those youngish vets around, as well as survivors of the Nazi Holocaust including a number of my close friends’ parents.

Sometimes when you hear people talking about different generations you’d think that every person born during a previous era dropped dead on the same day, making way for the next group. Of course it doesn’t work that way. Many different generations overlap in one person’s lifetime and the older generations depart so slowly that it sometimes comes as a total shock and surprise when we realize they’re gone.

My great-grandparents, about whom I’ve written often, died when I was 12 years old. As I mentioned in one post about my great-grandfather’s recorded album of Yiddish songs, he was born less than a decade after Thomas Edison invented the phonograph. The year Itshe Meyer Korolnek arrived on this planet, George Eastman invented the first flexible, paper-based film. Republican Chester Arthur was President of the United States, Queen Victoria was in the heyday of her long reign, and Czar Alexander III had recently ascended to the throne to become the Emperor of All the Russias (his virulent anti-Semitic policies would ultimately lead to my family’s departure from eastern Europe). And yet I knew Itshe Meyer and my great-grandmother Alta Toba during most of my childhood. Even though my grandfather was born in 1907 in my family’s Polish shtetl of Staszow, he was only three when they arrived in Toronto and he never had a Yiddish accent or any of the other immigrant trappings. My grandfather died several weeks after Leah was born and most of his seven brothers and sisters died during the 1990s. Of that generation, only my Auntie Anne survives. She lives in Israel and has four great-great-grandchildren. How many people can ever say that?

When Kendall and I were kids, our obsession with old movies was enhanced by the still living stars of yesteryear. Kendall went to an event honoring Claudette Colbert and got to meet the screen legend. Her dad once interviewed (and inadvertently insulted) movie goddess Marlene Dietrich. I ran into Gloria Swanson walking her dog in New York and trailed her several city blocks. On my second date with Kendall in 1989, we went to a charity event attended by a host of MGM stars including Janet Leigh, June Allyson, and Margaret O’Brien. We also went to a Friars Club roast of Ann Miller where we mingled with other stars from our favorite films. One by one, these people started to die off, especially the stars of the 1920s and 30s. Who is left now? Perhaps only the child stars of the 30s—Shirley Temple, Mickey Rooney, and a few elderly holdouts such as Luise Rainier and sisters Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine. I remember saying (in perhaps one of my gayest moments ever) that I couldn’t imagine living in a world without people like Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn. And now both are gone. Now the stars of the 1940s and 50s have become the Old Guard. Of that group I am grateful that we still have people like our friends Betty Garrett, Barbara Rush, and Eva Marie Saint along with other movie luminaries such as Lauren Bacall, Elizabeth Taylor, Kirk Douglas, Jane Russell, Jennifer Jones, Esther Williams, Doris Day, Leslie Caron, and Tony Curtis. By the time Charlie is an adult, who will be the screen elders? Winona Ryder? Claire Danes? Matt Damon and Ben Affleck? Oy.

I don’t know what made me start this stream-of-consciousness rant. I guess it was the recent visit from my dad and the shocking realization that my parents’ generation is now firmly entrenched as our elders. That sort of snuck up on me. I still view my parents as eternally youthful even though my dad is 77 and my mom has been dead for 10 years. Still, comparing them to my great-grandparents' generation, I'd have to say that 80 is the new 50, they DO seem more youthful than their elderly predecessors. I guess some of these issues were bound to come up being the 50-year-old father of a small baby. I see the Facebook pages of many of my old high school friends talking about their adorable grandchildren and I think “Huh? How is that possible?” I start to hyperventilate when I realize that I’ll be 63 at Charlie’s Bar Mitzvah or how unlikely it is that I’ll be around when he turns 50. Then, before I ramp up into a full-blown anxiety attack, I work at bringing myself back to my major lesson of the past six months: LIVING IN THE MOMENT. Today I am perfectly healthy and joyfully able to raise my teenaged daughter and my infant son. Today I have the benefit of my father’s wisdom, love, and neuroses, and I’m able to hear the wonderful stories from people in his generation and a few people from my grandparents’ peer group. And somewhere in the hills of Carmel, California, Doris Day is still singing “Que Sera Sera,” if not to the public at large, then at least to her dogs. Relax, Danny. All is well in the world.

Update: I was reviewing this post last night and clicked on the above link to my great-grandfather's record. As soon as Charlie heard Itshe Meyer's voice, he went nuts—flailing his arms wildly and completely rocking out. You can take the boy out of the shtetl but you can't take the Yiddishkeit out of the boy...

Comments

[Candi]

One of the best assignments I remember from school was to interview a parent and a grandparent. My grandparents were very modest about their lives - they worked hard on the farm, served their country and that's just the way things were. When I think about how much they saw the world change in their lifetimes, it's almost hard to comprehend. It's so cool that you have a recording of your great-grandfater. What a neat thing to be able to share with your kids! By the way, that's a beautiful smile on that boy of yours :)

[Pearl]

I hope that Charlie continues to smile; gotta say it, though, he looks an awful lot like Kendall (IMHO). What do others say?

[Gordon]

Dear Danny,

You left out Dame Elizabeth Taylor...

I check in here often, and I get perturbed when I don't see a new addition to your blog, every day ! LOL. That's how much I enjoy reading it. But, I know that you have more important things on your mind, these days.

It seems as if all the drama and fears, the roller coaster of emotions, and all the concern of the past months has suddenly faded away, and a magical healthy baby boy has appeared. Nice work.

Gordon

[Marilyn Molnar]

Dear Danny,

Your latest missive only makes me wonder what your Charlie, Leah and my 3 grandkids will have in their lives 30 or 40 years from now that they don't already have. I would like to be a fly on the wall to be able to observe them. The only thing we can do is as you say "live in the moment" and enjoy every moment we have with our kids, and yes, hopefully one day you and Kendall will be called "gramma and grampa"

Charlie looks great .... poo, poo, poo!

Love,
Marilyn

[La Framéricaine]

He looks sooooooo cute and happy!!!

Great post, Danny, and great reminder. Now where's my brown paper bag for keeping me from hyperventilating?

[Heather P.]

OY is right!!
Charlie is such a cutie pie. He's still in my nightly prayers.

[Kimberley]

What a beautiful picture. He's a character.

I remember one night feeding my son in his rocking chair when he was just a few days old, and thinking that becoming a parent makes you feel like you're at the frontier of the human race. Instead of grinding against time, pushing onwards, I felt like the future had suddenly opened up to me. Harper lay in my arms looking up at the ceiling benignly, probably trying to figure out the shadows moving across it, and I felt this swell of all the people who had come before me living and breathing and making decisions that led to this moment. They were all in the room with me, watching this happening. I thought about all the forks in the road that were taken, all the flowing down of history (like Alexander's ascension to the throne of Russia leading to your family leaving) that made us who and where we are. I thought about the amazing life this kid in my arms would have, all the things he had the power to achieve. And now I'm thinking those things about Charlie - about how many lives he has touched, about tripping over this blog one day and discovering your story and how it has touched me all the way over here in a country right at the end of the road that runs around the world. Long may it continue.

[Sarah]

Charlie is absolutely gorgeous!!

[Pam G]

What a beautiful photo! I, too, think about those overlapping generations a lot these days as I'm in a period where many of my friends parents are passing away. My ex-father-in-law died in June, for example. He of the WWII generation. I also consider myself fortunate to have worked at Filmland Journal thirty years ago when so many of our film favorites were still alive and I was lucky to have interviewed a few of them. Thanks for the thoughtful post.

[CherryGhost]

Hey! There is nothing wrong with Winona Ryder!

[sandy]

Danny~
There's a resemblance of Charlie and your grandfather in the two photos! What an incredible smile! Continue to Stay in the Moment~
Lo-He-Ha~
sandy

[Judy]

I remember seeing my daughter born and thinking she looked exactly like my father who had died 2 1/2 years before she was born. And I never thought of him as being anyway fem! When my kids were born I felt like I had more in common with all the mothers in the world than I ever imagined I would feel. All is a present in the present...all gratitude for everything is a constant prayer of mine. thanks for your great posts, and another lovely picture of Charlie!

[Elaine Soloway]

So is 70 the new 40? I'll take it! Also, the kid looks luscious. Give that cheek a pinch for me.

xoxo
Fake Grandma

[Kirk Jusko]

As Jack Nicholson, Clint Eastwood, Faye Dunaway, Goldie Hawn, Warren Beatty, Dennis Hopper, Burt Renyolds, Sally Field, James Garner, Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, Robert de Niro, Robert Redford, Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Rachel Welch, Donald Sutherland, Elliot Gould, and Harvey Keitel are all now over 60, some even over 70, I guess they should really be considered screen elders, though, as one who grew up in the 70s, it's disconceting for me to think of them as such.

I really should of appreciated Melvyn Douglas while he was still around.

[Kirk Jusko]

That's "have appreciated"

[Cleo Gascoyne]

Terrific photo!

[Chris]

Charlie is perfectly adorable, as usual! Chris [my husband] and I have wondered what assisted living communities will look like in 60 years. Will there be several Brittany's and Tanner's mulling about with drooping tattoos? [My husband and I both have tattoos so we'll be part of that scene someday.]

Your parting thought is the most important one. We all need to relax and recognize "all is well in the world" right now.

[churlita]

That is one beautiful baby picture.

I'm so sad that my girls never got to meet my mom or my grandmother. What a loss for all of them.

[Julie R.]

Nice post, and even better pictures!

[K Wild]

That is such a gorgeous photo. He looks like he's soaked up all the energy from all his previous generations and is ready to teach us a thing or two about joy.

[OldOldLady Of The Hills]

What GREAT {ictures of Charlie...! I can see the Miller in Charlie, for sure, but I also can see the Hailey in him too! It is uncanny how these things meld in the DNA or wherever it is they meld.....But there they are, together. What a Heritage dear Charlie has....It Is so rich and WONDERFUL in every way.

[Danusia]

When I saw this picture of Charlie I thought of how much he looks like your grandmother - Anita. What do you think?

[Helena Seli]

What a wonderful picture of Charlie! What a bundle of joy! Congats again on being home.

[amba]

Oy! The punim! I'm in love!