Aging Wannabe

As I get older and older, I realize more and more.  This is one of the conundrums of life and aging.  At one or two-- or ten-- times in my life I wanted a different name, a different face and a different persona.  But let me start with the name.

 In the 1950’s my name was a tiny bit unusual.  There were no other kids in my school with it, except a boy who lived down Angus Street and spelled his name with a CH.  Must have been Irish!  Now my name sounds like a chirpy young waitress taking your order.  But enough of that.  Suffice it say, I wasn’t a “Jason” in the 1980’s.

When I was in junior high and there was a comic strip in the LA Times that I read every morning. I have always read the comics and do so to this day.  (And, as a side note, I would like to say that I find MARY WORTH to be the most annoying, supercilious, nosey and self-possessed person on the planet. I am also very suspicious that her hairstyle is changing and she is aging backwards. )

This new comic was one I loved and remember little of, except the name:  TIFFANY JONES.   Tiffany was British, as were The Fab Four, Twiggy, Carnaby Street and, my all time favorite, Emma Peel.  Tiffany was blonde, perky and pretty—though I only saw her in black and white print—and was everything that I wasn’t.

 It’s a far cry from going from the morning breakfast-table comics to a name change.  Though I respected Brenda Starr, felt for the orphan Dondi, enjoyed Nancy and her antics with Sluggo and was amazed by the square-jawed Dick Tracy with his precursor of the Apple Watch, it’s a bit of a stretch to change one’s name after a comic strip.  Tiffany Smithson was not to be.

I am SO glad I didn’t. I wouldn’t want to share a name with a Trump!

Then there was the time I wanted to look like someone else.  Who doesn’t?   But there was this one actress that I really thought I might be willing to do the Devil’s Deal with to look like and, I must say she isn’t/ wasn’t a glamour girl but more a beauty of the traditional sort. At least a cosmetic company thought so.  Fortunately, the Devil’s Deal wasn’t an option and I watched from afar as she –being the same age as I am—(Hey, I’m not wishing for miracles!)  aged….and aged….and aged.  I will never divulge her name.  (Well, maybe, if money is involved.)  I saw her today online and thought back to my wish to trade faces with her.  Perhaps if she saw me she would be quite relieved.  I wouldn’t blame her. But I’m kinda happy that I don’t want to be her anymore.  Nor Tiffany Jones.

Nancy, me and Politics

As a child, I have a vivid memory of watching Dwight Eisenhower speak at the Republican Convention. He did not have a nice voice like my father…. and husband. Yes. I know this is a bit odd.  But I do remember it. 

I have touched on my other “political ” experiences in a previous blog—losing to Monica as school secretary, Duane Wong brandishing “ Vote Brown” buttons from behind the kindergarten fence.  Mr. C dumping on Kennedy.

But by 1968 I was convinced that I wanted to be a news correspondent.  A la Nancy Dickerson.  When my mother thought I needed “something” to make me more of her ilk, she booked me on a TEEN TOURS trips. By this time I had been sending fan letters to Nancy Dickerson for a year or more.  Nancy was very kind and always wrote back and I practiced my “ Kristie Smithson, NBC News, Washington” line often.

When the Teen Tours trip was scheduled for Washington, D.C. I wrote to Nancy Dickerson—contacitng her from Mt. Vernon-- and she invited me to join her at the D.C studios.  I, rather stupidly, put on my best seersucker culottes suit and decided to climb to the top of the Washington Monument.    Then I hailed a cab—quite a feat for a 15 year old—and was taken to the NBC studio. 

At this time Nancy was doing a five-minute news show at different times during the day.  She was one of the only women—maybe two others—on the national U.S. news.  She looked a bit like Jackie and definitely had Lyndon’s ear. 

So I showed up in the taxi –aged 15--and Nancy greeted me at the NBC studios and complemented me on the yellow and white seer sucker suit and mentioned that she might like that for a step daughters.  Then I was ushered in, watched her do her five-minute show from behind a glass and was in awe.

Fast forward to 1969…. I was now 17 and my mom and I were doing a college tour.   It was a bit rough as my dad had booked it and was not into the complications that standby flights might incur.   In Chicago, my mom went to D.C. and I sat.   Finally, I arrived in D.C.  I think my mom was pretty pleased that I had managed to arrive at the hotel.

Right about this time, the Senate was voting about the legality of the  Viet Nam War.  I insisted that we sit in the gallery.    Three rows in front of us was Nancy Dickerson and she turned around and said:  “Aren’t you the girl from California?”   I do believe that my mother was a bit impressed.

Now when I watch John Dickerson report about politics, I cannot help but think of his mom and how kind she was to me.  She even gave this advice about college:  “Don’t study journalism; study political science.  Otherwise you won’t know what’s going on.”   And I did.  And I never became a news correspondent.  But John always makes me tear up a wee bit when I see him doing well. 

The Teacher WITH NO NECK

I was raised with a great deal of love, some Roy Rodgers and a lot of Walt Disney.  To this day, I have trouble differentiating between Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone because they were both played by Fess Parker.

When I entered a new school, out of the cocoon of Ivanhoe Elementary, I was introduced to many new things.  Amongst them, was the story of THE TEACHER WHO HAD NO NECK.  Apparently, it, THE NECK,  

had been "shot off in the war.”

Now, at the time of this story, it was 1962.  Viet Nam wasn’t on the radar for most people except a few “advisors;” Churchill, FDR and WW2 were distant memories and Korea a decade past.

Mr. M, as he shall be called, wasn’t all that old.  Just had NO NECK.  Today he would probably be called “shoulder heavy. ”

I didn’t put a great deal of thought into how his neck had landed so neatly back onto his torso;  so precisely that a chunk of his anatomy could be forever displaced wthout seeming to cause damage.  I just accepted it.  Like I accepted that Hoss and Little Joe were real brothers.  I was much too busy trying to figure out how to work “sanitary belts” and giant Kotex pads.  And dispose of them without too much humiliation.  

Between remembering locker combinations, the lyrics to obscure German songs and gym routines with burpees, Mr. M’s necklessness was accepted and forgotten.   He had never been a teacher of mine and I never had to deal with his missing neck.

 But that is until the day my grandson wanted a family tale while
 we sailed up the Endicott Fjord toward a glacier. 

As the ship rocked back and forth, I told him the story of THE TEACHER WITH NO NECK and he just looked at me.

“Grandma, how OLD were you?”

“”Ummm. Junior High.”

“WHAT!  You were in Junior High and you believed that??”

But he still  “believes” in the Tooth Fairy and I still believe in the joy it gives me when my grandson and I now have our secret “neckless” shrug that means “let’s laugh.”

Transitional Syllables of a Lifetime

 I went out late at night recently and looked up at the sky, so starry it seemed like a bad but beautiful case of chicken-pocks had taken it over.  It got me thinking of all the places I have lived and place names I’ve had to negotiate.

Growing up in Silver Lake, I was surrounded by the artificially created world of Sir Walter Scott.  Though, as a child, I never realized it.  The founders of the Silver Lake neighborhood opted for the bucolic characters of a long-dead foreign author as inspiration when naming the streets and landmarks of my childhood home.  I attended Ivanhoe Elementary School and walked home along Rowena and Hyperion Boulevards. I had friends who lived on Waverley Drive and I frequently passed Locksley, Kenilworth and Avenel Streets.  I’m not quite sure how Hyperion got thrown into the mix; I do remember thinking that these names seemed a bit odd and cumbersome, but they were just part of where I lived.  Angus Street had a particularly nice ring to it.  It was simple and straightforward.

Then I went away to college in Williamsburg, Virginia and the Scottish names of Silver Lake gave way Native American ones.  There was the Rappahonich River, Chincoteague, Appomattox and Manassas, mixed in the many “burgs” and “villes” of Charlotte, Frederick, Harris, Peter and William.

Later, I lived in Stockholm, Sweden for a year.  Here, my home was on Vallhallavagen, surrounded by Korsvarsvagen and Roselagstull.  The neighboring towns had names like Eskilstuna, Norrkoping and Uppsala.  No longer did Hyperion seem so odd.

Another move took me to Scotland, where I had to master not only the appropriate pronunciations, but navigate yet another set of unfamiliar and multi-syllabic names. Achiltibuie, Drmmnadrochit, Auchtermuchty and Ballachulish gave my slightly dyslexic brain a run for its money.

This probably prepared me for a stint in the Pacific Northwest.  The pronunciations were different, but the syllabic soup continued with Sammamish, Snoqualmie, Snohomish, Stillaguamish and Mukilteo.  Just as they became familiar, I moved again.  This time is was to the mother of long, vowel-ridden names—second only to those in the Welsh countryside. (See picture above!)

Upon landing in Hawaii, I quickly learned that the letter “K” was king; sometimes quite literally.  Kalakaua, Kalanioloeole and Kapiolani were roads named for former monarchs.  Wahiawa, Waimanalo. Waipahu, Kaaawa and Hauula were nearby communities.  The state fish is a  Humuhumunukunukuapua”a and Papahanaumokuakea is the newly created marine reserve.  I lived in a neighborhood with a ten-letter name on an eight-letter street. Names commandeered from Matson ships.  After 25 years on the island, I was able to laugh as I listened to the voice on a rental car GPS trying to pronounce Haleakula and Kahului in an almost unrecognizable way.  

But my most recent transition, and maybe my last, is to a place that suits me just fine and gives my syllabically challenged brain a much-needed rest.  The town has merely one, lone syllable and only four letters:  Bend.  Too bad the name of my street isn’t just plain old Elm.  But it’s not.  Got to have some syllables somewhere.

Flip Floppin' the Facts

Flip Floppin’ the Facts

In 2012 I wrote a post titled BEFORE.  In it I talked about the many changes since the time I grew up in Silver Lake.  Facts have been flip flopped a lot since then and here are a few to make you ponder the advice of “experts.”

Remember when having a tan and being in the sun was considered “healthy?”

Butter was banned at our house in favor of margarine  which was touted as being much better for a heart healthy diet and low cholesteral.  But made out of plastic. It's butter for me now.

Drinking coffee is bad.  Now it helps liver health and fends off Alzheimer’s disease.

Red wine good, red wine bad. Red wine good, red wine bad.

That weird kid was a weird kid.  Now he has an alphabet soup disease that benefits the drug companies.

Nuts are too fattening to eat.  Now they are healthy again. In moderation. And don’t open a packet on a plane.

Swimming is an excellent sport. Swimming causes appetite increase more than other sports….so don’t bother if you want to lose weight.

Women MUST take calcium pills.  Calcium supplements cause kidney stones. And can choke you.

Hey, menopausal women…pop a few estrogen pills and replace your hormones.  Hormone replacement can cause cancer.  But that may have flip flopped back. But I’m not buying it.

Botulism is a deadly thing to be avoided at all costs.  Now it costs to get Botox.

Just get old with grace.

And today….multi-vitamins  are not worth their salt.  Okay.  I’ll wait a few years for the flip flop.

And to the men…"low T" is now a new problem.  I guess when my parents were alive it was called “getting old.”   It meant that you loved your wife and family and didn’t have to show it with an erection.  But my dad did in all ways.

Brushes With Fame

Brushes With Fame

When you grow up in Silver Lake, you are only several degrees away from fame.  Not Kevin Bacon, mind you, but a wide and varied selection of the once and famous. Your high school was a film set for the tv show Mr. Novak, and later, GREASE.  Since then there have been many other productions that featured the brick tower of John Marshall High School.  It’s even more so now as I’ve read that Silver Lake is a hot spot for many young and hip celebs.

None of it rubbed off on me.  I am about as far from being famous as I could be.  My closest experience with being famous is going to the local mall in Honolulu and knowing that, without question, I will bump into a former student or two. Sometimes they were shopping.  Sometimes they were behind a counter.   Once, I had three "hits"  before I got out of the parking lot and into the stores.  That’s ample for me.  The stress of trying to remember the kid’s name or recognizing the parent who approaches is enough. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be stared at while I ate, be tailed as I roamed through a drugstore buying something personal and embarrassing, or have my photo taken on a bad day.  I don’t need Joan Rivers (RIP) commenting on my garb or TMZ  mentioning what was in my shopping cart.  All this be said, I do have a tincture of interest in the famous. 

I went to school with the extras--the little kids--who made up the line of children in the movie THE KING AND I.  And one of them went on to make an Elvis movie about the Seattle World's Fair.  

In elementary school, our class was led to the library where the only television set existed.  There we watched one of our classmates on DIVOCE COURT.

Being raised in Silver Lake meant that you were bound to bump into people who were well-known names.   I had no clue that the kid with the last name of Neutra was related to an amazing architect.  Never did it dawn on me that the judge in the OJ Simpson trial was the kid who wore a tie to school and was the student body president.  Nor that my science teacher who drove a T-Bird with porthole windows and would give me lifts to school was living with the famous writer Anais Nin.  At the time, I didn’t even know what “living in sin” meant.  There were stories about a mob boss named Ice Pick Harry, rumors that Catwoman had attended our high school and later, Leonardo DiCaprio.  All true.  My first boyfriend was an extra on Dragnet and Room 222.  Several of my junior high school English teachers were bit part actors.  My prom date was a star in the Bold and Beautiful--- a long running soap.  Another guy I dated briefly was the producer for The Sopranos and wrote for Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and The Incredible Hulk. A childhood friend’s father was an actor. My Girl Scout troop loved it when he was on Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color. 

There were times when my parents would recognize someone that I didn’t know.  At the Hollywood Bowl, where my mother took us to appreciate the music of Aaron Copeland, Irene Dunn sat a few boxes away.  I had no clue who Irene Dunn was, but my mother was thrilled.  She was equally thrilled when she saw Frederick March sitting outside of I. Magnin on Wilshire Boulevard. My Aunt Cora knew Buster Crabbe.

At church, there were the odd brushes with George Kennedy and Gale Storm.  My mother was once in a wedding party with Ronald Reagan. And she claims that she told him he should get into politics.  (Don’t blame me!)  My grandfather married Ron to Jane Wyman. 

My dad played golf with Aldo Ray. 

While working at The Farmer’s Market camera store as a teen, I sold film to Peter Falk, saw Cary Grant walking to his car and sneaked a look at Agnes Moorehead’s recently developed photos.  I saw Tom Brokaw while on a date to a Burt Bacharach concert at the Greek Theater. It was the same place that I saw Bobby Kennedy shortly before his death.

In 1968 I “covered” for my fictional newspaper the election and witnessed—close-up—Nixon, Eugene McCarthy and Hubert and Muriel Humphrey.  The same “newspaper” got me access to the set of the Dean Martin Show and the Andy Williams Show  where I saw Petula Clark.  I got a press pass for a Sammy Davis Junior concert at The Coconut Grove.  He was one tiny guy.  And interviewed Sonny and Cher before anyone cared.

My girlfriends and I sneaked onto a well-known movie studio lot and watched, un-noticed, while Carol Channing and Julie Andrews filmed Thoroughly Modern Millie.  Bumped into a few stars on the way. 

I have written earlier about the two teen crushes that I had: Warren Beatty and Richard Chamberlain.  Their magazine pictures graced my bedroom wall.  I have seen both in person.  One at the Academy Awards and the other three times in Hawaii. 

And once, I visited the real Lassie (or one of them) at a kennel in a small town outside of Los Angeles.  I took her picture and taped inside my own canine’s doghouse.  She was a Silver Lake dog, after all.

The Prom

Prom is a big deal to most high schoolers.  It was to me.  A bizarre right of passage of sorts.  And I was damned if I wasn’t going to go. I didn’t have a boyfriend and pretty much figured I was not too high on the list of primo invitees. I didn’t have big breasts, genuine blond hair or a long-legged physique.  I wasn’t particularly popular, nor did I travel in the upper echelons of the many cliques. So I decided that I would eat my pride (of which I had little) and ask a boy to be my date.  I tried three.

 The first two, who will remain nameless, were less than ideal romantic partners, but good guys.  I think they were both shorter than I was.  They were neither handsome, nor witty, nor charming.  Their only redeeming factor was that I had known them since junior high. 

They both turned me down.

Then, one day in my science class, I was sitting next to a very attractive guy while we waited for our fetal pig to defrost so we could dissect it.  Maybe it was the formaldehyde fumes, but I bit the bullet and tried for the third time.  This time the answer was YES.  Though he was one grade younger, he was sweet, and, as I have said, quite cute.

Well, that little YES set the ball rolling.  I had to get a dress.  It cost $40 dollars and I think I bought it at I. Magnin in the Sherman Oaks mall. The dress was white, floor length and sleeveless.  I honestly had no intention of looking virginal, but I guess that was the effect. And, if truth be told, it was true.

On the weekends and during vacations, I worked in the camera store at The Farmer’s Market—now better know as part of The Grove.  My bosses were a childless married couple.  He was Mormon and she was Christian Scientist--- which eventually led to her death.  They were old family friends.  The woman really got into my prom experience and lent me a beautiful white shawl.  From somewhere or the other a pair of elbow length gloves appeared. 

On the day of the prom, my friend Monica and I drove to the Sunset Strip to have our hair done at a fancy salon.  The woman doing my hair used the word “groovy” and Monica and I looked at each other.  “Groovy” was now déclassé.   With enough hairspray to hold up the Leaning Tower of Pisa we left to don our gowns.  My dad took many pictures of me in the living room at Angus Street.

When the doorbell finally rang, my date stood in an ordinary suit, not a tux.  Though extremely handsome, I was a little disappointed.  I don’t remember if he brought me a corsage like they did on “Father Knows Best.”   I climbed into his forgettable car and we drove to Burbank and up the hill to The Castaways restaurant. 

Sitting at the dinner table, I do remember.  It was awkward.  Dancing, I have no memory of.   In the car, on the way home, he stated a “fact” that I knew to be wrong.  I pretended to agree with him.  But at that moment I made a vow to myself that I would never play dumb for a guy again.  That was our only date.

He went on the become a very successful pop musician and then soap opera star on The Bold and The Beautiful, where he still works.    He still looks good.  I, on the other hand, have not had the benefit—nor the desire—for “help” from Hollywood…. if you get my drift.   

I’m glad this was before the days of rented limos and post prom hotel rooms.  I’m glad we just drove home and I learned a lesson about being the true me.