Beginnings
Sorting through my files I discovered that a year before I actually started my blog, I planned to start a blog. The following is what I wrote at that time, but never published until now:
I was born young.
My parents were Freda and Bernard Young.
(Such pathetic double entendres and puns come with the territory of being a Young.) Wanting my initials to be an acronym that would become my nickname, they named me Janice Andrea Young: ergo, Jay. Mother always wrote my name as initials: “J. A. Y.” and not as a name, “Jay”.
Daddy usually called me Janny, so I don’t know why they bothered to do all that planning.
Oh, those crazy kids.
As is the norm, I was born chronologically young.
As it turns out, I was also born forever young.
I am fond of saying that the reason for my youthful approach to life is that I am “remarkably immature.” Of course I don’t believe that. Quite the opposite. I always felt wise and prescient, although my certainty of that keeps diminishing as I age. At this point, I feel neither wise nor prescient, although I do surprise myself at the number of correct answers I get on Jeopardy – as long as the category isn’t Rivers of the World, Pop Music, or Sports. Or something utterly unknowable like 15th Century French Literature. And I delight in the profusion and clarity of my memories. And thrill at the connections I make between seemingly disparate facts and occurrences. They continually create mental collages of some beauty and comfort to me. Although delightful, I am quite sure these attributes result in neither wisdom nor prescience.
As for the purpose of this blog:
I’m going to write and possibly show pictures. That’s it.
It’s my kind of party.
Let the good times roll.
PS: I am going to avoid employing the bane of contemporary communicators: exclamation marks. If you catch me, feel free to deduct 2 points from that day’s entry.
Entry #1
Monday, January 4, 2015
7:33 a.m.
I was born old.
People say this of people who have an “old soul”, or seem to be reincarnated. I know nothing of those things. I only know that I’ve always been the way I am and I’ve always known it.
There was a comedian in the ‘50’s named Sam Levenson. He was more than Borscht Belt as he appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show 21 times. He was a good natured man, short, warm and brilliant. He wrote many books, taught many subjects, graduated from my father’s alma mater – Brooklyn College – was truly wise and eerily prescient. Example of how I know that last bit will follow, but first, a lot of background:
My Grandparents had wealth enough to travel quite a lot. Each time they sailed or flew to Europe, Asia or a distant island, the family came to see them off. Ocean cruise departures were the biggest deal, of course. There were tours of the staterooms wherein sat baskets of fruit that had been sent by friends; there was live music; fog horns warned us how much time we had left before departure; and of course, there were ribbons, confetti, and ship-to-shore paper streamers that we held on to as the ship was tugged slowly out of the West Side port into New York harbor. We stood on the dock and waved with one hand, and called out and held on to our end of those streamers with the other hand. Our grandparents on deck held on to their ends until finally, the ties that bind were pulled to extremis, and broke. We dropped the remains and waved with both hands until we couldn’t see the ship anymore. Then we cried and went to get something to eat.
When they traveled by plane, it was a much less cinematic scene. We all went to Idyllwild Airport, which was what JFK was called before being renamed for our beloved, martyred President. Visitors were allowed into the terminals and right up to the “gate” which was a doorway, as it is now, but with no surveillance equipment and with pretty, friendly, stewardesses who were nice to children and polite and helpful to adults, and who wore very well fitting uniforms. Attractive. Enviable, in fact.
When I say “we”, I refer to my grandparents’ two children and their children. Daddy, Bernie, was the older. He and Freda had three children: Janice, Nancy and Michael. Daddy’s little sister by 10 years was Myra. Her husband was Jerry, and their two children were Gary and Margie.
Depending on what else was going on, other relatives might also be present. Grandpa’s brother Benny, or Grandma’s sister Sadie or brother Eddie and their families. We could number 20 or more, so there was a lot of Bon Voyaging going on.
My Uncle Jerry was a good looking guy, but rather slick and pushy. From the time I was about eight, he always asked me how my love life was. I had no idea what he was talking about. Although I had a fierce crush on Kenny Sharp from Star Time Kids, and pretended that he slept with me and my red stuffed doggie every night, I did not know if this constituted a love life. So I ended up feeling uncomfortable and shrugging, two things I REALLY disliked. And still do.
On this particular send off afternoon, Uncle Jerry spotted Sam Levenson in the terminal. Jerry was always trying to rub up against celebrities, but he knew he couldn’t accost Sam Levenson in the TWA terminal at Idyllwild without a good reason. So he grabbed my hand and pulled me across the terminal to where Sam stood with his family. He said “Sam! My niece would like your autograph.” Someone had some paper and a pen or something, so Sam took them. I was nine, and he was not much taller than I was. He turned away from Jerry and looked directly at me for a long moment. He asked, “What’s your name?” “Janice”. He asked, “How old are you?” “Nine.” He then wrote something on the paper, handed it to me, patted me on the head, nodded to Jerry, and turned away.
Jerry took the paper from me and read it out loud: “To Janice. Get married. Sam Levenson.”
Uncle Jerry showed off his prize to the rest of the family, we waved goodbye as my grandparents’ plane took off. Then we cried and went to get something to eat.
As I said back in paragraph two, Sam Levenson was prescient.
Future blog entries will verify that prescience, which he penned in his autographed note to me.
PS: My favorite author is Thomas Wolfe. Because he wrote long, unlike Hemingway’s economy of words, I feel empowered to write long. The truth is, Hemingway wouldn’t be my favorite author even if I wrote short. He is not an extravagant minimalist. He’s just terse. I find that Tom (I refer to Thomas Wolfe as Tom, as we have so much in common, including 3-letter nicknames) and I produce much juicier work. Along the way I was advised by some teachers to terse-up my writing. But, they weren’t Thomas Wolfe, and he’s my favorite.