I am a huge fan of Rodgers & Hammerstein, as anyone who
reads this blog knows. But despite the Jewish backgrounds of both Richard
Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, you’d be hard-pressed to find a single Jewish
character in their musicals. At least on the surface. I’ve droned on in
several posts about the hidden Jewish elements in some of their plays. But what
would you say if I told you that the songs from their biggest hits were
originally written and recorded in Yiddish? Behold the wonders of Gordon
MacRae’s Curly Goldberg and Shirley Jones’ Laurey Weissmann:
Okay, fine, I put that video together myself. After my last post, I
better be careful about my claims or no one will ever believe anything I say!
The Rodgers & Hammerstein songs in that clip were sung by a man named
Seymour Rechtzeit (pronounced—and later spelled—Rexite) who for many years had
a radio show in which he and his wife, Miriam Kressyn, translated and sang
popular American songs in Yiddish.
I became obsessed with Seymour after hearing him sing on the
Yiddish Radio Project, a superb NPR multi-part series that won the Peabody
Award in 2002. You can hear some more excerpts of Seymour’s work here. I can’t
tell you how often I listen to the CDs of this series and Rechtzeit is my
favorite. When I first heard him I wanted to jump on a plane and visit him in
his creaky old New York apartment filled with old photos and recordings. He literally
invited anyone who was listening to do so, and I’m sure he would’ve talked my
ear off for hours with wonderful stories from his days as “The Yiddish Crooner”
and his career in Yiddish theatre including a long stint as President of the
Hebrew Actors Union.
When I looked Seymour up in the newspaper archives, I was bowled
over by the account of how, at nine years old, he so charmed Congress with his
singing talents that he got them to reverse the quota of Jews from Poland that
were allowed into the U.S. that year in order to get the rest of his family
into this country. He was then invited to the White House to sing for President Calvin Coolidge. I was also surprised to find out that he appeared with
Yiddish Theatre icon Dina Halperin, a family friend of ours, in her U.S.
premiere in 1938. Oh, how I would’ve loved to have talked to him and heard
every one of his countless recordings. Alas, Seymour died at the age of 91
shortly after the NPR series aired. Damn it. I pray his photos, scrapbooks, and
recordings were donated to an archive that will preserve them forever.
When I was a kid and actually surrounded by Yiddish-speaking
people, I couldn’t have been less interested. My great-grandparents, about whom
I’ve written often, spoke mostly Yiddish until they died in the 1970s, but I
couldn’t be bothered by their Old World ways. Why did I not appreciate all of
the living links to such amazing history until it was too late? Is that always
the way? Is it too much to expect young people to understand the richness and the gifts of
the older generations?
This weekend Leah appeared in a short avant-garde play that
culminated a two-week summer camp called the Art Thieves Conservatory. It was
like guerilla theatre and I loved every second of it. A traditional version of
“Hansel and Gretel” begins when all of a sudden Leah and her fellow campers
stormed the stage in jump suits and threw the actors off the stage along with
their costumes, scenery, and lights. Armed with only flashlights and props they
made while on the stage out of newspaper, foil, and tape, they put on their own
revolutionary version of the Hansel and Gretel story. At one point, the actors
blurted out the names of the previous generations in their family until they
couldn’t go back any further. Hearing her pronounce the names of her
great-great grandparents, Itshe Meyer and Alta Toba Korolnek, from that stage
sent shivers up my spine. Leah can’t help but be aware of her ancestors for all
I blather on about them (and the fact that many of them stare at us from our
dining room walls during every meal).
I hope that both she and Charlie take an interest in their
family background, whatever form that takes. I never gave the older generations
in my family much thought when I was young, and now I realize what treasures
they were during that never-to-be-repeated period (at least among American
Jews) when the immigrants from the Old Country lived side-by-side with their
totally assimilated descendents who were growing up in such a remarkably
different way than they had in the shtetls of Poland and Russia.
Here’s another short piece about Seymour Rechtzeit. Oh, how
I wish he and the other popular Yiddish personalities of the day were still on
the radio, I’d be a devoted listener!
Leah and I attended a sold-out event at the Hollywood Bowl this weekend, a sing-along version of the 1982 film “Sophie’s Choice.” Similar to the Bowl’s annual “Sound of Music” event, there were 18,000 die-hard fans repeating the film’s most memorable lines along with the actors on screen and singing along with Kevin Kline’s Nathan Landau during his musical moments. I saw hundreds of women and Drag Queens dressed as Meryl Streep’s Sophie Zawistoska at many different stages in her life, from her pre-war scenes in Poland, her internment in Auschwitz, and her life in 1947 Brooklyn. There were also a fair amount of Stingos, the young Southern character (based on author William Styron) who came to New York to become a writer and ended up falling in love with the mysterious Sophie. Many of the Stingos were dressed in his seersucker suit (which immigrant Sophie famously called his “cocksucker suit”).
Actor Peter MacNicol, who played Stingo, hosted the pre-show. He read emails he received from Streep and Kline welcoming everyone to the event, and he introduced other actors from the film to help him judge the costume contest. Greta Turken who played the bawdy Leslie Lapidus was there. Leslie was the object of Stingo’s unbridled lust until he realized that she was “only in the verbalization stage of her analysis.” In other words, as the narrator of the film pointed out, “Leslie Lapidus could say ‘fuck,’ but she could not do it.” MacNicol also brought Josh Mostel to the stage, Zero’s son, who played another resident of the Brooklyn “Pink Palace” where Sophie and Stingo rented rooms. Melanie Pianka, who played little Emmi Hoess in the flashback scenes was also present. Now a grown woman, Melanie talked about how she knew no English at the time but was convinced that Meryl Streep was German, that’s how good her language skills were (the actress knew no German or Polish before she was cast in this film). Pianka loved working with Streep, but admitted that she was slightly fearful of the actor who played her father Rudolph Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz, and the only real-life historical figure depicted in the film.
Here are a few of the people who entered the costume contest. The crowd was not crazy about the woman on the left who wore Nazi-inspired haute couture, and some older patrons around me gasped at the man on the bottom right who came to the Bowl in an actual concentration camp uniform that belonged to his great-grandfather. The couple on the top right won the contest with their dead-on impersonations of tragic lovers, Nathan and Sophie.
During the screening, people pulled out props they brought from home such as bottles of red wine during the scene when Sophie takes her first sip and says to Nathan:
Mmm. You know, when you...when you live a good life...like a saint...and then you die, that must be what they make you to drink in paradise.
That line was repeated word for word by the entire crowd in Streep’s perfect Polish accent. We received goodie bags as we entered the Bowl and held up various items during certain scenes—the label from a can of Spam which we all flung in the air when Stingo knocked down a stack of them in the Brooklyn boarding house, Nazi armbands and Jewish stars which we waved during Sophie’s flashback scenes, and a Brooklyn Bridge button that we held high whenever the camera panned that famous landmark, including when Nathan first read Stingo’s manuscript and climbed up on the bridge to toast him with the following words:
On this bridge on which so many great Americans writers stood and reached out for words to give America its voice...looking toward the land that gave them Whitman…on this span of which Thomas Wolfe and Hart Crane wrote, we welcome Stingo into that pantheon of the Gods...whose words are all we know of immortality. TO STINGO!
Okay…should I stop before I really start offending readers who may believe that this event actually happened? Truth be told, Leah and I DID attend a sing-along at the Hollywood Bowl this weekend with 18,000 other rabid movie fans, but it was for the musical “Grease.” With more and more old films getting new life as community sing-alongs, I found myself saying as we trickled out of the Bowl, “Oy, what’s next…Sophie’s Choice?” and I couldn’t stop myself from ruminating about this fantasy event. My initial thoughts were far more macabre than I dared put in print (especially with some of the bona fide neo-Nazis who regularly troll my site) but thank you for indulging me anyway!
Incidentally, the last film I’d ever want to make fun of is “Sophie’s Choice.” In my opinion, the Alan J. Pakula film deserved all the accolades it received at the time. I saw it on opening day at the Carnegie Theatre in Chicago and I was floored. I think that Meryl Streep’s luminous and heart-wrenching portrayal of Sophie is one of the best performances ever put on film. I remember watching the Oscars in 1983 and preparing to storm the Academy if Streep didn’t win the award for Best Actress. But she did. Years later, when Streep was on “Oprah,” they screened the horrific “choice” scene which takes place at the gates of Auschwitz in the middle of the night. Streep still couldn’t watch it. The scene was so upsetting to her that she uncharacteristically told Pakula that she’d only do one take. He agreed, and that's what we see. I also heard the little girl who played her daughter speak later about how she didn’t really understand what was happening in that scene but how she was utterly terrified when the man playing the Nazi guard ripped her out of Streep’s arms and carried her away. Those were real screams on the part of both the little girl and Meryl Streep.
“Grease” was very fun. The pre-show was hosted by Didi Conn who played Frenchy in the film and she brought out many of her co-stars to help judge the costume contest which was populated by the usual mix of Drag Queens and toddlers dressed as the characters from the film. It’s hard to believe that Conn is almost 60 since she still looks and sounds as cute and youthful as she did in the film. Not that any of the actors were of high school age when they made the musical. Stockard Channing, who played Rizzo, was well into her 30s. Olivia Newton-John was in her late 20s and even John Travolta, who looks impossibly young, was 23 when the film was shot.
Of course the film is very different from the original play, which premiered at the Kingston Mines Theatre in Chicago in 1971 and was a much tougher look at the working-class kids of the 1950s. The original story was based on Jim Jacobs’ own experience at Taft High School in Chicago. The recent revivals of the play have included songs from the film and are very frothy confections, but next year, the original Kingston Mines production is going to be revived in Chicago for the 40th anniversary. Now that I'd like to see.
Conn and the other cast members walked us through our goodie bags and instructed us what to do during various scenes. I refused to “boo” goody-two-shoes Patty Symcox or trampy Cha Cha DiGrigorio as we were were told to do because I didn’t feel either character deserved the mob attack (I’m usually the only one at the “Sound of Music” sing-alongs who refuses to “boo” Baronness von Schrader). I love the gimmick the film used of casting a bunch of stars from the 1950s in the adult roles. What a treat to see people like Eve Arden, Sid Caesar, Joan Blondell, Edd Byrnes, Alice Ghostley, and Frankie Avalon again. Fannie Flagg played Rydell High's nurse, and Leah and I had to laugh because as we were watching her on the screen, Kendall and her mom were having dinner with her in Santa Barbara.
I’m tempted to end this post with an offensive Grease/Sophie’s Choice mash-up but instead I’ll tempt you with the trailer from the better film:
As Nathan said to Sophie just before the traumatic ending to the film:
I got chills...they're multiplyin'. And I'm losing control. 'Cause the power you're supplyin'...it's ELECTRIFYING!
Actress Rue McClanahan died almost three weeks ago but we
were in Chicago at the time and I failed to comment on her passing. Plenty has
been said about the saucy “Golden Girls” star so I just wanted to mention her
Obie-winning role in my father-in-law’s wonderful play, “Who’s Happy Now?”
Here’s how Rue described it in her book “My First Five Husbands…and the Ones
Who Got Away”:
I was called to audition for “Who’s Happy Now?,” a new play
by Oliver Hailey. They wanted me for the role of the wife, Mary, but when I
read the play, I knew I was made to play the marvelous mistress, Faye Precious.
Through my agent, I wrangled an audition for both roles. As Mary, I wore a
proper little dress and modest hairdo. Then I dashed to the ladies’ room, got into
an off-the-shoulder peasant blouse, dangly earrings, and blond floozy wig, and
came out to read for Faye. Perplexed, Oliver Hailey and the director, Stanley
Prager, now wanted me for both roles.After a few anxious days…the phone call.
“They got Teresa Wright for Mary,” said my agent. “They want
you for Faye Precious.”
Bells and whistles! Blow them horns! Bang them drums!
The play is set in the godforsaken town of Sunray, Texas
where a boisterous, irascible butcher, Horse, is carrying on an affair with
Faye, a dumb but good-hearted waitress. Mary puts up with this because, besides
being in love with him, she is raising their son. It’s poignant and hilarious,
with raucous action and cornball country songs. The son was beautifully played
by Ken Kercheval (who later gained fame on “Dallas”). Our Horse was Robert
Darnell, and the local bartender, Pop, was Stewart Germain. All three were
wonderful. Stanley Prager gave insightful, meticulous notes after every
rehearsal and performance. For my money, that Stanley Prager knew his onions.
What a director!
I became fast friends with both Oliver Hailey and screen
star Teresa Wright.
In addition to being an acclaimed Broadway director, Stanley
Prager produced and directed many episodes of “The Patty Duke Show.” In the
1970s, Duke and McClanahan appeared in an episode of the serious “issues” show
called “Insight,” in which Patty played the co-dependent wife of an alcoholic
(a subject she was familiar with). Here’s a short clip just to show Rue's non-sitcom acting chops:
Rue McClanahan reprised her career-boosting role as Faye
Precious in a 1974 PBS version of my father-in-law’s play, this one co-starring the
wonderful Betty Garrett along with Albert Salmi, Alice Ghostley, and John Ritter. We have
a 3/4-inch video of this production and I wish I could get it on DVD and show
you some clips of Rue at her best. The TV play was directed by Gordon Davidson,
and was also the first play directed by Davidson during the first season (1967)
of the Mark Taper Forum.
Of course I loved McClanahan in both “Maude” and “Golden
Girls.” Wasn’t she single-handedly responsible for convincing those idiotic
youth-oriented TV executives that older women were still sexual beings?
My daughter has had a special relationship with Disney’s
“The Lion King” since the day she was born...literally. Leah’s mom and I went to see “The Lion King” at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood on December 28, 1994. We were
transfixed by the beautiful film but Sophie was not feeling well. The baby she’d been carrying for
nine months was moving around quite a bit during the screening. Although we
didn’t realize it at the time, my ex-wife was in the early stages of labor.
Leah was almost born in aisle of the El Capitan as “The Circle of Life” blared
on the loudspeakers. Instead, we made it to Cedars-Sinai in the nick of time.
Leah was born an hour and a half after we arrived at the hospital.
The stage version of “The Lion King” was the first live
musical that Leah ever saw. She was five years old. We watched the deluxe
laserdisc of the film many times and later the DVD. So it was with great
meaning and poignance that I watched Leah open in a local production of “The Lion King” last
night. She played Rafiki, the wise old monkey who presents baby Simba to the
world and dispenses a calm wisdom to many of the animal characters.
This was Charlie’s third time seeing Leah in performance.
He’s seen more plays in his first year than I did in my first 15. Now that he’s
so alert and active, and less likely to sleep through events, I worried that
we’d have to take him out of the theatre if he got restless. He never did.
Charlie LOVED the play and was riveted to every scene. I was holding him during
“Hakuna Matata” and he was dancing so vigorously to the music he practically
jumped out of my arms. A theatre lover is born!
Encountering Leah at intermission, I’m not sure Charlie
recognized his big sister. I almost didn’t recognize her either. The costumes
and make-up for this concert version of the show were exquisite. And now, move
over Mama Rose, I can’t resist sharing a few moments from last night’s show.
As my friends in the Pride Lands would say, “Salamu za
upendo!”
Far be it from me to give advice to parents, but if you are
doing anything like the following, please stop: When you introduce your kid to
someone new and your kid looks down or starts acting nervous or awkward, don’t
say, “Oh, he’s just shy!” Nothing freaks out a shy kid more than being publicly
called out during an episode of shyness. You can talk to him later about how he
felt and suggest that he try to make eye contact with new people when he’s
being introduced, etc., but the “he’s shy” bit, which is almost always
accompanied by a condescending giggle and statements like “isn’t that cute!” is
quite counter-productive. There really isn’t anything cute about being shy,
it’s just social anxiety that can often become debilitating. Everyone is shy to
some extent, but the range of shyness from person to person is obviously
enormous.
My daughter Leah just completed her first year of high
school. Above is a picture of both of us in ninth grade. Hers was taken a few
weeks ago at an end-of-the-year arts festival at her school. She was the only
student to sing by herself in front of the crowd and she received cheers for
her excellent performance despite the fact that the person operating the CD
player messed up her music at the beginning and it took her a while to recover.
If that had happened to me at a high school talent show, I might have run off
the stage in tears. But then again, I never would have agreed to perform in a
talent show.
I’m continually amazed at Leah’s courage in putting herself
out there for all the world to see. Next week she’s appearing as Rafiki in a
concert verion of “The Lion King.” It must be something like her 35th musical. Leah and I have discussed whether she and I would have been friends if
we knew each other in high school. We have many interests in common so it’s
quite possible, but I was very different from her as a teenager and not nearly
as self-confident. Not that Leah doesn’t have moments of anxiety and shyness,
but she has always been a lot more comfortable than I was socially. I rarely
spoke to adults other than my family members when I was a kid while Leah
considers many adults she knows good friends and she has no problem approaching
strangers if necessary.
Here’s a photo I snapped this morning of Charlie at our daily
outing to Farmers Market. It’s too soon to tell but I’d be very surprised if
Charlie ended up shy in social situations. His favorite thing in the world is
to interact with people, the more the merrier, and he tends to get agitated if
an object of his attention isn’t immediately captivated by his smiles or waves!
I obviously don’t remember being his age but my instincts tell me that I spent
a lot of energy from my earliest days trying to avoid the attention of others.
Not that I was a wallflower. In some situations, with my
friends and family, I was quite gregarious. Some people would even call me an
extrovert. But if I have any regrets about my childhood, it’s that I was so
often debilitated by my fear of social situations and my terror of judgment and
ridicule. Worse, I usually camouflaged my fears with an air of bored “I can’t
be bothered” faux-insouciance. Do you know the young actress Kristen Stewart,
star of the “Twilight” films? I know very little about her and the only film of
hers that I’ve seen is “Panic Room” which she made when she was 12. But now
that she’s 20 and her career is sizzling hot, I’ve seen her on various awards
shows (including as a presenter at the Oscars this year) and I’ve had a
viscerally negative reaction to her demeanor. I could never understand why
Stewart bothered me so much but I suddenly get it.It’s because I see a part of my young, terrified self in her
sighing, yawning, gum-chewing, oh-please-get-me-out-of-here sourpuss public
persona. I can recognize that “I’m too cool to be enthusiastic about anything”
act anywhere! I’m sure I also came off as obnoxiously above-it-all when I was in
high school.
Here’s some rare footage I recently found of myself from
high school. Note my severe social anxiety disorder and my attempts to deal
with it:
I guess I’d have to say that I’m still basically a shy
person but these days I’m much more likely to press “manual override” and interact
with people in ways that I used to avoid. Of course, blogging is the ideal tool
for the shy person who secretly wants to be outgoing. I can present myself to
the online world as much as I’d like with little risk of blatant rejection. If
people want to read my words, they will. If they aren’t interested, so be it. I
used to be deathly afraid of speaking in public and I’m still very nervous when
I do it, but I’ve discovered that part of me also enjoys it. I watch Leah sing
her guts out in public and think how fantastic it must feel to express yourself
in that way. Both she and Charlie remain my anti-shyness mentors.
Spending five months in the NICU was also an effective
shyness-modifier. There’s just no room for timidity when you’re facing
life-changing crises. In truth, at the age of 50, I just don’t have the time or
energy to live my life in fear. I’m working hard to overcome my shyness
whenever it rears its ugly head.
I can think of several cringe-producing episodes from my
past that belong in my Shyness Hall of Shame. The first one that comes to mind
took place when I was going to school in France for a year. I loved living in
France and I loved the language but I was insecure about my French skills in
social situations. One night I was invited to a party with a few other
Americans at the apartment of some French people our age. Naturally my friends
spoke French with our hosts. For some reason, I started off the evening in a
snit of self-consciousness and was somehow pissed that my American friends were
only speaking French. I went through the entire evening not saying a single
word—NOT ONE WORD, as if I were mute. And I’m sure I had a disgusted Kristen
Stewart expression on my face the whole time to cover up my rising panic. Oh,
yawn, yawn, I can’t be bothered to speak this stupid language, why are my
friends showing off with their French? The Frenchies must have thought I was
the rudest person they’d ever met. These days I look for any opportunity to
speak that beautiful language, even if I end up butchering it. It’s the only
way to learn.
I’ve moved on, of course, but I do regret all of the missed
opportunities and missed friendships that my shyness caused. I know I’ll be
working on counteracting my fears and social terrors for years to come but I’m
grateful that I now realize the bounty that is available on the other side.
We’re just back from our first trip to Chicago with Charlie
and I’m basking in the glow of our encounters with family and friends (and our
favorite Chicago restaurants!). It’s been well over a decade since I flew with
an infant and I wasn’t sure what to expect but Charlie charmed everyone on the
plane with his smiles and good cheer before gamely conking out during most of
the flight.
Our trip started out in the best way possible when Connie
Burke, our guardian angel from General Motors, met us at the airport with the
keys to a luxurious Buick Enclave. I was so miserable after I gave up my Buick
LaCrosse last April after the Buick-sponsored TCM Film Festival that the folks at GM took pity on me and lent me another one of their fabulous
vehicles for my Windy City stay. I love my family, but let me say that the
added soupçon of independence the Enclave provided made all the difference in
the world.
Charlie, whose first scowl on record came when I transferred
his car seat from the gorgeous LaCrosse back to my 1994 Honda Civic, was
thrilled to resume his relationship with his favorite car company. In addition
to testing out the driver’s seat, he crawled over to all positions in this
crossover SUV (don’t worry, DCFS, I wasn’t driving at the time!), including the
roomy trunk. How did I ever visit Chicago without this car?
The Enclave, which comfortably seats seven (eight if
needed), was just as smooth a ride as the LaCrosse and once again, I felt like
we were gliding on a cloud, this one pizza-scented. I still can’t understand
why there aren’t more Buicks on the road. I’ve been doing an informal study of
the different automobile makes I see in Los Angeles. Toyota wins hands-down,
but in several months of careful (if unscientific) study, I’ve only seen two
Buicks. There were more in Chicago but not nearly enough when you consider all the
features that make the Enclave a more desirable, affordable, and equally
luxurious choice over similar crossover SUVs from Lexus, BMW, and Mercedes. Even my
father, who is quite hard-to-please in terms of cars thanks to his distant past
as a used-car salesman and his more recent devotion (before blindless curtailed
his driving) to boat-sized Cadillacs, was very impressed by the Enclave’s
smooth ride. And since my regular car provides a ride louder than the crash-landing of Oceanic Flight 815, the Enclave seemed as quiet as a monastery. It’s actually been tested
against the Lexus RX 350 and the Enclave is quieter. The Enclave also won best-in-class
fuel economy ratings.
I still know next to nothing about cars (shhhh! don’t tell
GM!) but I’m quickly learning what I like in a luxury car and it’s making
climbing back into my ancient vehicle more difficult, especially since I have
the feeling that my butt is about an inch from the street when I’m in my
low-to-the-ground Honda. It’s scary how quickly I can get used to having perks
such as XM radio, OnStar, Bluetooth for my cell phone, voice-guided touchscreen
GPS, seats that heat up and cool down at the touch of a button, air
conditioning that can vary in different parts of the car, a powerful 10-speaker Bose audio system with a USB port so I can
blast my iPod, and DVD screens in the rear. I also love the “heritage
forward” design with wood trim and other features that make the Enclave
stand out on the road. A few days ago I was parked in front of a Starbucks when
a guy went out of his way to stop and yell over to me: “That is one beautiful car!”
When will Buick’s undeserved rep for being “dowdy” fade away
once and for all? I guess it’s residue from some 1970s models but it sure doesn’t apply to today’s cars or the Buicks of yesteryear. I already
talked about my dad wooing my mother on their first date in his jaw-dropping
Buick Roadmaster but here is an old photo of my mom’s siblings, my Uncle Paul
and Aunt Bobby, in Bobby’s stunning Buick convertible in the mid-1950s. We saw
Paul and his gang on Monday night and he waxed nostalgic about that car. Oh,
WHY didn’t they bury it in the backyard so we could dig it up today?
My Enclave was only too happy to drive to many of our our
usual food emporiums in Chicago such as Superdawg, Toast, L. Woods, Ann Sather’s,
Smoke, Hungarian Kosher, and, of course, Lou Malnati’s, where Charlie enjoyed
his very first deep-dish pizza. Mmmmmmm.
We attended my nephew Spencer’s 8th grade graduation which was so
moving that my sister sobbed uncontrollably throughout. I was so glad we were able to
attend this milestone and look forward to heading back to Chicago in two months. There were times when I never thought Charlie would see my beloved home
town so it felt so triumphant to have him there with us and to show him many of my
old haunts. Needless to say, my family and friends, having lived through the ordeal of last year, went nuts for our little guy:
It's always sad leaving my home town. I can’t wait for our return trip later this summer. And, as luck would have it, I'll be trying out another great car from the General Motors fleet. I hope my relationship with Buick is long enough that they consider changing their standard hood ornament to the following:
When I graduated from Peterson School in Chicago on June 6,
1972, one of the rites of passage was singing the song “Graduation Day” as
a class, as so many eighth graders had done before us. At the
time and for decades afterwards I believed that it was an original tune
composed by a former student or perhaps some traditional folk melody from way,
way back. It was only recently that I learned that this was a popular Beach
Boys song, a cover of a song first recorded by the Four Freshman in 1956. Even
today, when I hear “Graduation Day,” it brings me right back to that auditorium on
that humid day in June, 38 years ago (gulp!):
It’s a time a for joy A time for tears A time we’ll treasure through the years We’ll remember always Graduation day
At the senior prom We danced ’til three And then you gave your heart to me We’ll remember always Graduation day
Though we leave in sorrow All the joys we’ve known We can face tomorrow Knowing we’ll never walk alone
When the ivy walls Are far behind No matter where our paths may wind We’ll remember always Graduation day.
Okay, forget the fact that eighth graders don't know from senior proms or ivy walls—graduating eighth grade is a huge deal in Chicago.
Leah, by contrast, didn’t even have a graduation. There was a small ceremony
when she finished fifth grade and went into middle school but nothing at all at
the end of eighth. I think many Chicago schools are still on the K-8 system
which is not the case in California. We’re heading to Chicago tomorrow
morning to attend my nephew Spencer’s graduation later
this week. The trip is especially poignant for us because we missed his Bar
Mitzvah last year when our twins were born so early. It's been almost two years since we visited—the longest period that I haven't been in Chicago since I moved away in 1986. This will be Charlie’s
very first plane ride and we don’t know what to expect. I’m hoping he’ll
charm the flight attendants with his new
clapping and “high five” routines. Unfortunately Leah will not be joining us
because she’s in the middle of finals but we’re all heading back in August for
a much longer trip.
My sister can’t talk about the upcoming graduation
without bursting into hysterical sobs. She should need hospitalization by the
end of Friday’s ceremony. After spending so many years with the same kids at
the same school, it can be quite an emotional day. Here’s a photo of me taken
just after my Peterson graduation, standing in between my mother and sister.
Dig the hair and the polyester tie. And how about my ultra-groovy velour shirt
in my 8th grade class photo above (can you spot me)? As you can see, I was a real shrimp
back then (unlike now?). I had been with this group of Jews, Swedes, Greeks,
and others since just after JFK’s assassination and now we were finally moving
on to Von Steuben High School. Most of us would still be together but we’d be
joined by many kids we didn’t know from three or four other feeder schools.
We’d been at Peterson for so long that we were eager to move on but also
terrified of the big unknown world ahead of us. Funny, I can name every single
person in this photo even though I have not spoken to most in well over 30
years.
In retrospect, I think I was way more engaged in school as a young kid than I ever was in high school. I loved school when I was at Peterson
and always fantasized about becoming a teacher but at Von Steuben I withdrew significantly and adopted the ‘tude of a couldn’t-be-bothered Disgruntled Teen™ even though I
still managed to get good grades. I hope my nephew stays as involved at the
great high school he’s going to as he’s been at his fantastic elementary
school. I’m sure he will. He’s got so much going on his life and is do damn
talented, whether it’s his music, writing, or photography. If you haven’t read
Spencer’s blog yet, take a look. To say he's cooler than I was in eighth grade and more aware of the world around him is a pretty huge understatement.
Thanks to the fab folks at General Motors, we will be
driving a gorgeous new Buick Enclave while we’re in my home town. I’m still
mourning my beloved LaCrosse so this will be a real treat. My nephew Sammy told
his mom the other day that he planned one complete day for us: breakfast at Lou
Mitchell’s, lunch at Superdawg, dinner at Lou Malnati’s, and a snack at
Garrett’s Popcorn. I’m in!