Saturday, June 18, 2011

My Dad

Iconic is how I think of this memory of my father:
Yep, that's my Dad although, he, at times was mistaken for Arthur Murray
his dancing ability was not that much different than his singing one, which if the truth be known even he would have had to admit that he was quite tone deaf! But he still loved music and in his place of business as he called, The Eclipse in Hasbrouck Heights New Jersey where he tended his own bar it was plentiful for three decades, 40’s, the fifties and halfway through the 1960’s!
My Dad was born in the winter of 1907, January 27th and grew up in Hudson County New Jersey and he was one of six children sort of in the middle, but evenly split three girls and three boys, but you knew that. His dad was a house painter and his mom was a mom, but of course, in those days most moms were.
Sadly, the eldest brother died at an early age he was just one years old of an illness that was not easily treated in those days, I think it was called consumption, or TB, which is as we know these days as tuberculosis, which caused Dad to become the middle child after all was said and done. All the remaining siblings continued to thrive into adulthood and beyond, in fact his youngest sister and the last remaining of the siblings just passed away a couple of years ago, she was well into her nineties!

As most little girls would tell anyone who would listen is that their daddy was their first love and they could do no wrong and mine was no different in my book!
But mine was more special since he was older and wiser and funnier than most, yes he was forty-three when I came into his life.
That first image of me dancing at a block party at the ripe ole age of seven that made the front page of the Bergen Record circa 1957 was due to him.
He supplied the town of Paramus New Jersey with all the soft drinks and chips for all those block parties as long as I could remember.
And so we were all sort of celebrities in the fact that daddy helped with making good times for our community!
He worked hard and harder still and as I grew I knew the only way I would get to see him was to ask to work at his bowling alley, cocktail lounge/ restaurant that fortunately had a snack bar too that faced the alley portion and when I turned fourteen I got to burn hotdogs and hamburgers and fries and sell them to the kids league he had every Saturday morning.
It wasn’t my first job, but it was my best because I could be with my father!
I had been babysitting from the age of twelve and had a few regular jobs even at that time, but they were at night and this was only on Saturday mornings, and so it all worked out!
He taught me how to measure and the beef for the burgers and we even had a press to make them with, portion were exact for fries and hotdogs were the easy part!
Little did he realize how much it all meant that time with him.
But I was not supposed to go behind the adult bar, which was a bit of a problem since the soda machine was there where you had to squirt it into the glasses to serve to the customers, no cans and we did not sell bottles in those days… in New Jersey ABC was the Alcohol Beverage Commission, in Florida I only know it as a chain of liquor stores, but I think they took the name from that one in NJ.
I was always a bit of devil and I think that you all know that, and so when dad was busy I would go behind the bar to mix a weird concoction of all the different flavors of soda, oh what fun, but only for myself!
Dad would catch me periodically and warn me that he could lose his liquor license if the ABC guys were to come in. I am proud to say it never happened but it did add a bit of intrigue into my sneakiness and my getting my customers some beverages when the other bartenders were too busy to notice.
My Dad is the reason I took figure skating lessons at the Rockefeller Center ice rink at the wee age of four. All he asked was simple question as we looked down from above at the rink of skaters whirling and twirling and dancing all over the frozen floor; simply: “Do you want to keep watching or would you prefer to try it?”
I looked my daddy in his bright twinkling hazel eyes and said “oh daddy I want to do it!”
Or some such thing, gosh that was a long, long time ago and who can remember exact words or much of anything from nearly sixty years ago!

And that began my journey of me and the ice, skating that is, my teacher was, would you believe, now some of you won’t but it is the truth the same man that taught Lucille Ball in her TV show!
He told my father that I was a natural since he had me doing little jumps and skating backwards by the end of the first couple of days!
To my benefit I was already in dancing school, ballet, acrobatics etc. at home in good ole NJ by then and so I think that might have helped, although the Olympian who won Dancing with the Stars said it hindered her, that one I never understood.

Good grief, Dad I am nearly at a thousand words and I am no where done with this essay on my dear old sadly departed dad, circa May 11 1986 at seventy-nine years young, a newlywed to his third wife, for just one year, so you see its never too late!
I am so sure you all have had loving people in your life that would make you laugh when you were not in that frame of mind, well my father was the best at that.
Especially, in my teen years when everything was too serious at times in my mind, he would just start to laugh at me getting angry unnecessarily, and sure enough within moments I would begin to laugh too, and forget why I was so hopped up!

Isn’t this something… the rain has finally come here to our drought ridden area that we have only gotten sprinkles before…shoot its stopping oh no don’t! What a tease!
Yes, it seems to have stopped…
Oh well, my father was one of a kind and I do know yours was too… but mine was the best of all the rest and I always knew he loved me like I loved him no matter what!

I hope your memories are vivid and etched forever as mine seem to be… since we lost so many pictures in our hurricane and for that I am very miserable, but Dad would be happy that even so I do remember what is important to any child in the world that they were loved by who really matters in their life, their first loves their parents!
And so tonight I will leave you too with those memories which I hope are so wonderful for you too…and count those blessings, my dad used to say that and he also thanked G-d each and every night of his life…he had no regrets, what a guy!
And next time please be here or be square, OK?

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