Category Archives: The Cultured Life

The Performing and Fine Arts

Of Journalism and Cherry Blossoms

24 Saturday Mar 2012

Posted by in Indulgences, The Cultured Life, The Writing Life

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A flowering cherry tree, with the Washington Monument in the background.

Our move to Virginia in 2010 situated us less than two hours from Washington, DC. John and I could visit the city one day each month for the rest of our lives (we plan to live until we’re 100 or so) and still never experience all there is to see in this fascinating metropolis. I have been to Washington exactly four times, including yesterday, and—for the first time in my life—I saw the cherry blossoms in bloom.

We spent the day in the Newseum—an extraordinary pilgrimage that I highly recommend, especially if you find the history of print, broadcast, and digital journalism as fascinating as John and I do. As we walked through the exhibits, I thought that although mine is a small life, and my contributions to the published word have been modest, I’m proud of being a writer.

When I began night school back in the 1970s, right after Watergate, I declared journalism as my initial major—All the President’s Men, the book and the film, were influential factors in my decision. I felt a kinship with so much of what I saw yesterday: actual sections of the Berlin Wall; a recreation of Tim Russert’s NBC bureau office;  the 9/11 Gallery, with front pages from around the world chronicling the day’s tragic events; a sobering memorial to journalists who lost their lives in the line of duty. Journalists play such a crucial role in our society—it’s said that they write the first page of history—and sadly, quite often, they place their own lives in peril to do so.

After we left the Newseum, we took the Metro back to Union Station, where we’d parked our car. Before heading home on the highway, we detoured toward the Tidal Basin, which is where you can see the magnificent cherry trees—gifts from Japan to the United States in the early 20th century. An American journalist had a hand in that, too—Eliza Scidmore, who was the first female board member of the National Geographic Society.

The National Cherry Blossom Festival is going on now through April 27. If you find yourself in our nation’s capital, I hope you’ll have a chance to appreciate at least one beautiful bloom. And a chance to visit the Newseum, too.

The Great Downton Compromise, or Why I’ll Be Watching the Super Bowl

02 Thursday Feb 2012

Posted by in Relationships and Family Life, Special Events, The Cultured Life

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MorgueFile Images

           —VS—

As married couples go, John and I are pretty well matched, but there are a few instances where we orbit different planets. I’m a Mac, for example; he’s a PC. He prefers Diet Coke; I like Diet Pepsi. I drink coffee; he drinks tea. But I love him and he loves me and we both love Downton Abbey. (And that’s quite enough rhyming for one blog post.)

For those not familiar with the Downton phenomenon, it is an hour-long British period drama broadcast on PBS’ estimable Masterpiece Classics series. Why do we love it so? Let me count a few of the ways: There are the carefully drawn, complex characters—many of whom we love to love and a few we love to hate. There’s the scalpel sharp writing—where wit, humor, and humanity emerge effortlessly from the situations at hand. (Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess gets many of the best lines, but Mrs. Patmore—the dowager of the downstairs kitchen—won my heart when she tossed a crêpes suzette, longed for by an uppity new housemaid, to the estate’s dog). There are the high production values, the elegant Edwardian couture, and the page-turning plot developments. Downton Abbey, which has won a host of awards, is the 21st-century’s answer to another beloved PBS Masterpiece production—Upstairs, Downstairs, which I can remember watching in the 1970s. If you want to know more, you can read a synopsis on PBS’ Masterpiece website.

And so it is that on Sundays at 9, our television set is tuned to PBS. Sandy, our Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, watches the program with us, although she would like to state, formally and for the record, that there are far too few scenes featuring Lord Grantham’s dog Isis.

Sandy is often in charge of the remote

However …
In a plot development as disruptive as the evil Vera Bates, the network executives at PBS have somehow managed to schedule this wildly popular cult hit at the same time that ABC is broadcasting the Super Bowl.

Don’t talk to me about DVRs. Don’t suggest that John watch his beloved New York Giants battle the New England Patriots on a live Internet stream. That’s like asking me to wait to watch Downton the next day online (which, admittedly, I’ll probably do). But blimey—it’s just not the same. Remember, John and I came of age at a time where there were only three networks—five if you count one’s local PBS station and a network affiliate’s weak sister station on UHF. (And you could get those only if you had a round antenna attached to the back of your set.)

No, we’re old school enough, and watch television infrequently enough (we’ve only one set), that we like to catch programs when they actually air. We like the immediacy of it. And so this is why we have agreed to strike a compromise with respect to Downton Abbey.

You might recall that the subject of compromise was addressed quite well during my interview with author Wendy Swallow. “The Great Downton Compromise” is our way of putting our love to the test. John has already made his sacrifice; now it’s my turn.

On January 22, John’s team played the San Francisco 49ers for the NFC championship while Downton Abbey aired on PBS. John insisted on watching Downton with me; I had thought of experiencing the program vicariously through the weekly live Twitter party at #DowntonPBS, but no. John wanted us to watch the program together. (It’s true that he had already watched the Patriots beat the Ravens in the preceding televised game, so he wasn’t exactly football-deprived. But the Giants are his team. He grew up ten minutes outside of New Yawk City. I appreciated the gesture.)

As luck would have it, the game was still going on when Downton concluded, so he was able to watch his team take the NFC championship. In an outcome that would have made O. Henry proud, we both won that evening. But this Sunday, it’s my turn to make the grand gesture. Friends have invited us to watch the big game, and I’ll be trying my hand at making Buffalo Chicken Wings. That night’s episode of Downton Abbey will take place with one less viewer.

Why? Because I love my husband and I want to put his happiness ahead of mine—the way that he put his happiness ahead of mine the other day. It’s what married people do. Are you listening, Vera Bates?

Note to Downton fans: Please keep your tweets at #DowntonPBS as specific as possible—I’ll check in on the feed during halftime. (@PattonOswalt, just keep being funny.)

Related Articles:
“Why Liberals Love Downton Abbey“ (Salon)
Downton Abbey review (The New Yorker)
“Pass the Tea and the Remote and Put on Your Tiaras” (The New York Times)

January Spring Fever

07 Saturday Jan 2012

Posted by in Indulgences, Nostalgia, The Cultured Life

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I took this picture of our porch a few days before Christmas. The pansies, a flower beloved in Virginia, are a riot of color.

As I write this, it is 70-degrees outside. It is also January 7, and this Ohio gal, who abandoned the Lake Effect for Virginia, is grappling with the glorious consequences of global warming. My environmentally-sensitive conscience tells me I should feel guilty, but my heart tells my conscience to go pound salt while skipping every other beat with joy—a symptom of that wondrous malady known as spring fever.

I have always loved this song; it reminds me of my mother. Every time it came on the radio, she’d begin singing along to it. Now, every time the weather turns balmy—especially when it shouldn’t—the lyrics wind around my heart like a soft ribbon. I feel a tug, think of my mother, and begin to sing about jumpy puppets on strings. An added bonus of this clip is that Shirley Jones sang this on The Danny Thomas Show. Yesterday would have been Danny Thomas‘ 100th birthday. (It was also Joan of Arc’s 600th birthday, but that’s another story.)

What’s the weather like where you are?

Related Articles from TMSW:

“Marlo & Me—Prologue”
“A Tale of Two Deaths: Losing My Mother to Alzheimer’s—Part I”

Marlo & Me—Act I

18 Friday Nov 2011

Posted by in Relationships and Family Life, The Cultured Life, The Writing Life, Well-Dressed

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“COMPLICATED HAIR”

Had fashions in the late 1960s been otherwise, I would not have the strength of character that I possess today. I was born with complicated hair—thick, unmanageable, impossibly curly hair. And not the good kind of curly, either—the Andie McDowell/Julianna Margulies-kind of curly—just coarse and wiry and frizzy hair. This frizzled look would be en vogue today, when stylists spend considerable time crafting the look for runway models—a look that used to send me reeling in horror from the bathroom mirror. No, mine was the era of Carnaby Street, Twiggy, and the Summer of Love, and I had complicated hair. The fashion at the time was either cropped short, like the iconic pixie cut Vidal Sassoon created for Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby, or long, sleek, and straight, like Jean Shrimpton or Julie Christie—all blondes, I might add. Relief came for a little dark-haired girl in the form of a beautiful brunette named Marlo Thomas, who, in the landmark television series That Girl, wore her straight glossy hair in a flip with bangs. The fact that Marlo was Italian and Lebanese, just like me, and had a father with whom I’d been photographed earlier in the decade, clinched the deal. She—that girl!—would be my role model. God knows, I needed one. I had complicated hair.

Credit: Marlo Thomas' Facebook page

“You have to suffer to be beautiful.”

That’s my godmother, “Aunt Fannie,” speaking. It’s 1968, and I’m in the seventh grade at St. Mary’s School in Elyria, Ohio. We’re having our class pictures taken in a few days, and my parents have driven me to her house to have my hair done.

Perhaps I should explain.

Aunt Fannie was a licensed beautician. (That’s what they called hair stylists in those days.) My godfather, Uncle Bill, was a gifted carpenter, and although he was not a professional contractor, he built their lovely ranch home in a rural part of Elyria from the ground up, and turned one of their basement rooms into a hair salon for my godmother. My father drove my mother there to have her hair done each week, and I was always in tow. With school-picture day looming, I begged and pleaded with my parents to let Aunt Fannie cut my hair so that I would have bangs and a flip, just like That Girl.

I finally wore them down. It wasn’t long before I was seated in the chair that swiveled around like a carnival ride. Aunt Fannie’s fingers wielded the silver scissors like some magician’s wand—snip! snip! snip! I had been turned away from the mirror the entire time, and couldn’t wait to see my idol’s impeccable hairdo in place of my tangled Medusa mane. When she spun me around, I was shocked.

I looked awful.

None of us had really taken my thick frizz into account when calibrating the outcome of my longed-for flip hairdo with bangs. The flip flopped, and I looked like a Labradoodle.

An Australian male Labradoodle at 9 month of age.I hesitate to say this, because you’ll think that I spent my entire childhood in tears, but I have to tell you that I cried. Not a full-throated cry—just a whimper, with a steady stream running down my cheeks.

“Isn’t–isn’t there anything you can do?” I asked my godmother, sniffling. Flat irons had not yet been invented. She thought a moment, then brightened.

“We can straighten it!”

My father, who had been watching television in the other room, walked by just in time to hear this. “Not if I have anything to say about it!” he thundered. “She has beautiful hair. You never should have cut it in the first place.”

“But George, look at her,” my mother said. “She can’t go around looking like this!”

“I can’t go around looking like this, Daddy.” I thought he should know where I stood on the matter.

The tension in the air was palpable. My parents exchanged words. Aunt Fannie busied herself by rearranging her hair clip drawer. I escaped upstairs to soothe my nerves with a tall glass of 7-Up. When I came back down, the charged atmosphere had eased. I’ll never know who convinced him—my mother or Aunt Fannie—but my father had backed down. Aunt Fannie was mixing the chemicals that would solve the crisis and turn me into “That Girl” for my school pictures.

“This stuff stinks!” I cried when she began stirring the mixture near me. And when she started combing the goop through my hair, my eyes began to water—and not from tears. “It burns!”

“You have to suffer to be beautiful,” she replied sagely.

I don’t remember how long I sat in that chair. It seemed like months. But I finally was directed to the shampoo bowl, and felt the cool relief of water soothe away the stinging, rotten-egg smell of the straightener. Aunt Fannie washed and conditioned my hair and combed it through. I was entranced! When I touched it, it felt smooth and sleek; I had never experienced such a sensation in relation to my own hair before. My head looked smaller, too. It wasn’t my hair anymore; it wasn’t me. It was better. New and improved, as the commercials used to say.

Aunt Fannie set my hair in rollers and sat me under the dryer, where I perused the latest movie magazines. When I was dry—cheeks red and hot from the heated air, rolled hair crisp to the touch—Aunt Fannie set me back in the swivel chair, where she began unpinning the rollers, vigorously brushing out my new hair.

It gleamed. It shined. I had never seen anything like it. She sprayed hairspray all over me—the air was thick with it. I sneezed and coughed. But I looked beautiful.

You have to suffer to be beautiful.

And you are! Look at that girl!

To be continued …

Marlo & Me—Prologue

16 Wednesday Nov 2011

Posted by in Relationships and Family Life, The Cultured Life, The Writing Life, What's the Buzz?

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It’s only taken 50 years, but last night I was photographed with another member of the famed Thomas family: Danny’s daughter Marlo. Photo credit: John Rich

The Scene:
Backstage at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on Broadway.

The Time:
Present day. An evening performance of the Ethan Coen/Elaine May/Woody Allen play Relatively Speaking, and immediately afterward.

The Players:
Marlo Thomas (Award-winning actress, author, producer, and activist); Marci Rich (The Midlife Second Wife); John Rich (The Midlife Second Husband)

Synopsis:
A writer and blogger from Richmond, Virginia, learns that an essay she submitted to a  contest sponsored on Facebook by Marlo Thomas was selected as a winner. Her prize? Two free tickets to see the actress perform on Broadway in a one-act comedy, George is Dead, written by Elaine May—part of a three-act play called Relatively Speaking. The writer and her husband embark on a whirlwind, 24-hour trip by train to New York City to see the play and, hopefully, meet the actress. Waiting backstage after the performance, the writer reflects on significant moments in her life in which either the actress or the actress’ late father, famed entertainer Danny Thomas, played an off-stage role.

Prologue: The Writer Remembers

It must have been 1960 or 1961. I was five or so. I remember because the dress I’m wearing in the photograph was my favorite dress when I was in kindergarten. The famous entertainer Danny Thomas had come to Cleveland, and I had my picture taken with him for a Cleveland-area newspaper. My father is also in the picture; he’s the one holding me, hoping that I’ll stop crying long enough for the man with the camera to get his picture.

I remember the evening well. My father, George Abookire, had been a regional volunteer for ALSAC, the fundraising organization that Danny Thomas had established to help him realize his dream: a hospital dedicated to children who were suffering from cancer. ALSAC had benefited from the work of volunteers such as my father, who helped raise money for what would become St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. A keynote ALSAC event was taking place at a ballroom in a Cleveland hotel, and the guest of honor was Danny Thomas himself.

I knew who Danny Thomas was; he was revered in our house for several reasons. To begin with, he was a first-generation American born to Lebanese parents, just like my father. Danny Thomas was born in Toledo, Ohio; my father was born just 90 miles east, in Elyria, Ohio. Danny Thomas had married a woman of Sicilian descent; so had my father. There is family lore, possibly apocryphal, that it was a first cousin of Danny’s, Ralph Jacobs (also from Toledo), who had married my father’s first cousin, Renée Mady of Windsor, Canada.

Even more important than these connections was the fact that Danny Thomas’ great success in the entertainment industry—in films, nightclubs, and as the star and producer of his own television shows—brought tremendous pride to the Lebanese community. At a time when minority ethnic and racial groups were not represented on television, Danny Thomas, a man of Lebanese heritage, brought a slice of our culture to millions of homes across America. The importance of this cannot be overstated. This meant everything to a little girl growing up in Elyria, Ohio, who looked different from everyone else because of her thick, dark curly hair; a nose that was decidedly not Anglo-Saxon; and an unpronounceable last name. Danny Thomas’ presence on television validated my ancestral identity. My parents and I adored Make Room for Daddy and watched it religiously; the episodes featuring Danny Williams’ Uncle Tonoose, played by Hans Conried, were especially beloved. Uncle Tonoose reminded me of my grandfather.

There was one small problem.

Like most children, I was highly impressionable, especially when it came to visual images. My first infant memory is of a male relative carrying me in my grandmother’s house; I glimpsed my reflection in the mirror hanging on the wall. So much of what I would later see on television as a child remains as vivid to me now as that first mirror image; they are imprints, effortlessly recalled. A nightmare that I had when I was still a baby forms my second memory. The eye logo employed by CBS turned menacing in my dream. I awoke crying in my crib, frightened and inconsolable.

And so I well remember the little girl who played Linda, Danny Thomas’ daughter in his television show. Like me, she had dark hair. Like me, she had a slightly mischievous spirit. And, like me, she could sometimes exasperate her father to distraction, eliciting a reaction from him that, like the CBS eye, suggested menace: a raised voice, a sprint across a room to chase the little imp.

I had been told that I would be meeting Danny Thomas that evening in Cleveland. And as the evening wore on, I remember growing tired and cranky. It was a school night, and the back of my legs itched from the rough velvet seats on which we’d been sitting for what seemed like hours, waiting for the star to make his entrance. These feelings, then, combined with the growing awareness that this man could very well begin yelling at me as he occasionally yelled at his television daughter, filled me with apprehension.

The room darkened, and a great spotlight appeared. Danny Thomas was entering the ballroom. My father grabbed my hand and ran with me over to the photo op.

“You’re going to have your picture taken with Danny Thomas,” he said, smiling. My reaction surprised him. I started to cry.

My poor father. Poor Danny Thomas. My father tried to comfort me, and Danny Thomas—no doubt disappointed by my tears—nevertheless rose to the occasion and posed, smiling, behind us.

Years later, reading the newspaper clipping, I learned something new. After the picture was taken, I apparently stopped crying, clambered into Danny Thomas’ arms, and gave him a kiss.

Strange phenomena, memories. I don’t remember doing that at all. But it was in the paper, so it must have happened.

To be continued …

Broadway Bound

15 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by in The Cultured Life, The Writing Life, What's the Buzz?

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Paraphrasing Oscar Wilde: I never travel without my blog. One should always have something sensational to write in the train.

Four a.m. is not the hour I’d pick to start my day. Let’s just say that I’m less a morning person than, oh, a mid-to-late-morning-after-coffee-and-breakfast-and-newspaper person. But how could I possibly complain? Three hours ago, John and I boarded the 7 a.m. train to New York City, solely because something that has only ever occurred in my dreams is really and truly happening. I wrote an essay and submitted it to a Facebook contest sponsored by the actress Marlo Thomas. And I won. Tonight we will pick up my prize: two free tickets at the box office of the Brooks Atkinson Theatre to see Ms. Thomas perform in Elaine May’s play, George is Dead, one-third of Relatively Speaking, a triad of one-act comedies directed by John Turturro.

I planned for our departure with such scrupulous attention to detail as to make a Broadway producer proud. Pet care? Check. Our good friends and neighbors, Jerry and Amy, would watch our dog, Sandy. (Zorro, their Shih-Tzu, is Sandy’s love interest.)

Sandy, on the right, with her love interest Zorro. Sandy is nearly five; Zorro is one. Sandy is a cougar.

Amy will also feed our cat, Nellie. Clean clothes? Check. I picked up John’s shirts from the laundry and did one last load of laundry. Vehicle transport? Check. I put gas in the car so we could make it to the train station without incident, and printed out our AmTrak confirmation vouchers. Lodging? Check. I printed out the confirmed reservation for our hotel. Nourishment? Check and check. I picked up pastries at Can Can (a cranberry scone for John, a cherry and mascarpone cheese croissant for me) for our train breakfast. At Jean-Jacques Bakery I ordered two roast beef and Havarti cheese sandwiches (sides of fruit and green bean salad) to secure our train-picnic lunch. Coffee? Ah…This required a trip to Target to purchase a thermos. I set up the coffee maker last night. Apparel and necessities? Check. Telecommunications devices and photographic equipment? Check, check, and check. Laptop and iPhone fully-charged (but power cords packed) and ready to go; ditto camera and batteries.

Did I say scrupulous attention to detail? I forgot to pack an extra pair of socks.

We are now stopped for about an hour or so at Union Station in Washington, D.C., and I want to post this while I still have battery power (the electricity apparently gets shut down during layovers).

So here’s to John, who tucked a sweet card into the pile of clothes to be packed and arranged for time off work to accompany me; here’s to Marlo Thomas for her generosity, and her support for writers; here’s to Amy and Jerry (and Sandy and Zorro! and Nellie!); and here’s to old Broadway!

—My thanks to AmTrak for having free wi-fi, and to Can Can for their incredible pastries.

Wherein I Win an Essay Contest and Populate One Blog Post With Several Diverse Celebrities

08 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by in Humor Me, The Cultured Life, What's the Buzz?

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Screenshot of Gina Lollobrigida as Sheba from ...

Image via Wikipedia

First things first. The woman in this picture is not me. I’m talking especially to those of you who know me. Now, for those among you who do not know me and have never seen a picture of me, I will permit you, just this once, to visualize the Midlife Second Wife as resembling, somewhat, this paragon of pulchritude. Except imagine her wearing glasses.

And to those among you who do not know the identity of the woman in the picture, patience. All will be revealed in due time.

Last month I entered an essay contest sponsored by the actress Marlo Thomas on her Facebook page. (Perhaps you’ve heard of her?) Incidentally, the woman in the above picture is not Marlo Thomas. This is Marlo Thomas:

Ms. Thomas is starring in the Broadway hit Relatively Speaking, which is a collection of three one-act comedies, all directed by actor John Turturro (Barton Fink, Quiz Show, The Cradle Will Rock). The plays are Talking Cure, written by filmmaker Ethan Coen (Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men); George is Dead, written by actress, screenwriter, and director Elaine May (The Heartbreak Kid, Heaven Can Wait, The Birdcage), and Honeymoon Hotel, written by Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris, Annie Hall, Manhattan). Ms. Thomas stars in George is Dead as Doreen, a woman whose husband has just died. Yes, I said this is a comedy.

Ms. Thomas invited friends of her Facebook page to submit their very best essays about a family member. The essays, she advised, could be funny or poignant, but they had to represent one’s best work. Five winners would be selected, and they each would receive a pair of tickets to see Relatively Speaking.

Yesterday I received an e-mail from Ms. Thomas’ assistant telling me that I was one of the winners.

Have you ever been in a situation where you’ve received incredibly amazing news and, due to the circumstances, were unable to adequately express your true feelings? I think I pulled a muscle trying to curb my enthusiasm. I was in a meeting with our financial planner at the time, happened to glance at my iPhone while she was looking something up, and saw the e-mail.

I need a new word for thrilled. Also for gobsmacked, jazzed, stoked, excited, happy, and on-cloud-nine.

Here’s the announcement from Ms. Thomas’ Facebook Page. If you click on the link you’ll probably have to scroll down a bit, so to save you the trouble I’ve inserted it here:

I’m so excited to announce the winners of my Relatively Speaking essay contest! Thanks to all who entered. The winners are…. Siobahn Weiss, Anthony Martin, Nina Meditz, Kathleen Marshall, and Marci Rich. We will email you the play vouchers shortly!

John and I are now scrambling to make plans to get to New York. The tickets are valid from today through December 1. Yes. That’s right. Just one more thing to add to my to-do list during National Blog Posting Month.

Marlo (may I call you Marlo?), thank you for choosing my essay. John and I can’t wait to see the play. I hope I’ll have the chance to thank you in person after the performance.

And now, about that woman at the top of the page. She’s a central figure in my essay, so if you can just hold on a moment longer, you will soon know all.

“That Not Lollobrigida!”

Sunday nights meant only one thing when I was a child: a drive to Lorain, Ohio, with my mother and father, to visit my Sicilian grandmother.

Grandma Monia, my mother’s mother, was a widow who lived in the family home with the youngest of her four children, my unmarried Aunt Helen. Grandma spoke very little English; she had arrived at Ellis Island, as did so many immigrants, early in the 20th-century.

An only child, I was the youngest of my cousins. By the time I came along, my grandmother was so hobbled by arthritis and osteoporosis that she was confined to the house, and walked, doubled over, with the help of a cane on wheels. Because of this, her world was small. It contained a window, though: the flickering light of the black and white console television that my aunt had bought with her secretarial salary.

Grandma’s two favorite television programs were broadcast on Sunday evening—the Lawrence Welk and Ed Sullivan shows. She rarely commented during these broadcasts (and, truth be told, she could not understand much of the dialog), but we knew which guests and segments held her interest. She would smile in approval at the harmonizing Lennon Sisters, for example. She would clap with delight at Topo Gigio’s antics; she certainly knew that he was an Italian mouse, and if she couldn’t quite make out what he was saying to Ed Sullivan, she was nevertheless charmed by his sweetness, especially when Mr. Sullivan “keesed” him goodnight.

Acts that were, in her view, less wholesome (dancers gyrating to the Twist, say, or a tad too much cleavage in a female performer’s costume) would elicit a frown or a shake of her head. She might be at a loss for English, but she was still a critic.

One such evening in her living room, with my parents engaged in conversation with my aunt and me preoccupied with my Barbie doll, we were startled by a most unexpected reaction from her. Ed Sullivan was announcing his guests for the evening, and one name filled her with excitement.

“Lollobrigida! Lollobrigida gonna be on!” she exclaimed.

Now you have to understand something about my grandmother. Italy, and all things Italian, reigned supreme in her estimation, and were surpassed only by the Pope, who was, in those days, Italian, too. All of the food that she prepared was Italian, including the bread that she baked twice each week, despite her arthritis; she regularly mailed dollar bills to an Italian orphanage; she loved Perry Como. She was so biased in favor of her language that she stubbornly refused to learn English, even when her children would beg her: “Ma, please. In English! Say it in English!”

The thought, then, of my grandmother welcoming into her living room the great Gina Lollobrigida, an actress who had brought pride and acclaim to Italy (despite her frequent décolletage, which, for some reason, my grandmother conveniently overlooked), was beyond thrilling. If there had been time, she would have asked Aunt Helen to place an overseas call to the relatives in Palermo, so that she could inform them of the great thing about to happen in America.

So focused were we on Grandma and her reaction that we hardly paid attention to what the estimable host was saying about his guest. We were now, with her, poised for the advent of the glamorous Lollobrigida.

The moment my grandmother had been waiting for had arrived. Ed Sullivan stepped to the microphone and announced:

“Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome my next guest with a warm round of applause—the exciting star of Sea Hunt, Lloyd Bridges.”

And out walked a man in a scuba suit, legs splayed, flippers flapping across the stage.

My grandmother, crestfallen and confused, could only exclaim:

“That not Lollobrigida!”

—THE END—