If you've ever read this diary before, then you know that my parents, Jack and Shirl, were not Ozzie and Harriet. They were quirky as hell, and Harriet, I'm pretty sure, was neither bipolar nor OCD. Certainly, I am the quirky product of a quirky pair. They were flawed. But in general, they were good people, well-intentioned, and relatively conscientous parents. We are still talking about the 50s and 60s, after all, before parents became intimately concerned with every feeling their children could possibly have. (Bodily functions are another story. Some of those mothers back then were a little overly concerned with that stuff.)I digress. My parents, of course, were the products of their own quirky parents. My father's father never spent time with his children, other than dinner every night and the mandatory visiting of relatives all the time, but he ultimately showed his true colors. Once my father went to college, his father -- Louie -- wrote his son a letter once a week, in broken English, and when Jack shipped overseas during the war, Louie wrote him a letter every day. Shirl's mother -- Ida -- was probably the sanest member of a family where everyone was certifiable, but Shirl's father -- Sam -- was a saint on earth. He worked six days a week, long hours, any job he could find during the Depression, but on Sunday, he belonged to his children. He took my mother and her brother to ball games, museums, the opera -- you name it. He famously took them to see Santa Claus at Macy's each year during the Christmas season because he felt that all children should experience that magic. Personally, he was an Orthodox Jew, but he took his children to see Santa.
My parents, therefore, became Sam. My mother because she grew up that way and loved it, my father because he never had that as a child and missed it. Is that evolution?
We did not have a family experience every Sunday, but I would say that we did do something once a month, on average. Any sort of nature experience is famously absent from these memories. We never went on a hayride, or apple-picking. (Things my father probably did in his more rural youth, but with friends, not his family.) We would drive for an hour or two and visit family or friends. Or we might go to the Museum of Natural History in New York. The planetarium once, I think. In 1964-65, we went to the New York World's Fair maybe a dozen times. Man, we loved the World's Fair. Sometimes we went out to dinner, fancy even, once a year.
There are two things I remember most. When I was 9, I went to the theatre for the first time. My father had gotten three tickets to see The Sound of Music, which he and Shirl had already seen, but he was going to drive the three of us -- Shirl, the Sibs, and me -- into the city and wait while we saw the show and then take us home. But Shirl was sick in bed -- the first time I remember her having a bipolar downswing, btw -- so he took us. After that, we went to the theatre, all four of us, once or twice a year. Always for my mother's birthday in September, and sometimes for their anniversary, which was Christmas.
But sometimes we went to Radio City instead. I would say that we went to Radio City two or three times a year. We all got dressed up, and I would always get chocolate candy cigarettes at the concession stand. Radio City Music Hall, you may or may not know, is an art deco masterpiece, originally designed in the 1930s as a movie/live stageshow theatre. It has several balconies and is absolutely huge. (I believe it seats 6000 people.) When I was a kid, every performance featured two movies and a variety of short films, as well as the stage show which took place between the two movies. Every show, every single one, included the Rockettes, the Radio City dance troupe. They are most famous for their precision high kicks, which they do standing in a line stretched across the stage, arms on each other's shoulders. (They are all more or less the same height.) Their costumes are very elaborate and fancy.
No more movies at Radio City, not for many years, and the Rockettes only perform during Christmas and Easter season. If you live in what we call the tri-state area -- New Jersey, New York, and southern Connecticut -- the TV commercials for the Radio City Christmas Show are endless, with a tune that embeds itself in your brain. (I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the show is advertised up and down the whole East Coast.) But when I see the commercials, I always think of me, age maybe 8, wearing an uncomfortable starched dress and black Mary Janes, holding Jack's hand, waiting for my candy smokes, and then making the long trek up to one of the top balconies, where they permitted smoking (real smoking) and where we always sat. The Radio City Christmas Show and its Rockettes don't mean Christmas to me, but something else altogether.
