Sometimes, a blank piece of paper is the only way to begin, as it is today. I look out the window at blooming trees and a cupful of flowers rising from the ground. The sky is pale grey, and it is just fifty degrees.ย May, mybirthday month, reminds me of Casey, who threw the dice all her life. She gambled on her dreams.
Casey never told me much about herself.ย She lived in the present moment and considered her past a private matter. ย Once I learned of her struggles as a young woman and her chosen life, she became more real than when Iโd known her. ย During the years we were friends, she handed out selected stories, abruptly, with final endings. Being the inquisitive character, the shallowness of her stories bated me. ย I had to pry the truth out from other people who had known her, and from government documents.
Caseyโs first gamble was at sixteen years old. She sent in a photograph of herself for the Redbook Magazine modeling contest. If sheโd won, the Powers Modeling Agency in New York City would grant her an audition as a model.ย Casey lived with her mother and sister in East Orange, New Jersey. Her father had died suddenly, leaving the family without a financier.ย Her mother was lost without her husband and unsuited to join the workplace.ย Casey didnโt tell her mother about the contest until she received the letter of congratulations.
John Robert Powers met Casey in his office on East 56th Street and signed her as a Powers Girl. She was stunning to look at, she was photographed like a movie star, and she was modest.ย John Powers did not look for aggressive, pouty-lipped fearlessness.ย ย The Powers Girls were captioned Long Stemmed American Beauties because they were wholesome, beautiful, tasteful, courteous, and virtuous. They were so far from today’s runway models that it is almost a reversal of style.ย The models of the thirties were ordained to set the highest example of classic good breeding and education. John not only schooled them in fashion, and individual taste, he instructed them in moral integrity, independence, and patriotism for their country. ย So Casey went to school at John Robert Powers and became one of the top ten models in the country.
She was a blue-black-haired Irish beauty with emerald green eyes and perfect teeth. She stood only 5โ 7โ, but that was fairly standard in those days. When I knew her, she was still thin and beautiful, but she did not fuss about herself or spend much time at her vanity.ย As a Powers model, Casey had a long line of gentlemen callers. Powers Girls were invited to all the nightclub and dinner show openings, sporting events, community galas, and fund-raisers.ย Social engagements were part of her job. Casey was not a woman of idle chat, in fact a lot of people thought of her as restrained and unfriendly, maybe even snobbish. I think it was more secrecy. ย People were always prying into her life because it looked glamorous. ย But there was another side to that glamour she didnโt want to put a mirror to.
One evening, Casey had a dancing engagement at the Copacabana nightclub in New York City. She was on stage with other dancers when a gentleman noticed her.ย The next chapter of Caseyโs life began that night. ย At twenty-two years old, she fell in love with a man thirteen years older, of the Jewish faith, and who lived in Hollywood.ย ย Casey never told me that she fell in love with a gangster.ย ย ย I do know once she felt love for this man, it could not be reversed. The consequences of her love forced her to change and adapt to a new kind of life and different people.
She did not bury or give back her love after she learned what he did for a living.ย She asked him to reform his criminal activities, and he agreed if only she would marry him.ย We all know at twenty-two, a woman believes she can change a man, and a man lets her think she can. ย Without that dream, many lovers would not have found their mates.
Casey married her love and spent her life trying to keep her husband on track with honesty.ย I met her husband just after he tried to reform and was beaten down by his past mistakes.ย ย I called him Daddy.
This a refreshing, wonderful story in the fact that I got to see the unfolding of Allen Smiley and Ben Siegelโs story through the eyes of Allen Smileyโs daughter. I got to see the point of view of someone who personally knew Allen Smiley, the other side of him: the family man and her reactions to discovering her fatherโs past, secrets, and how people viewed her father and the Mafia. To my delight, the author also included journals and files relating to the criminal speculations of Ben Siegelโs murder which helped shape the bookโs framework. I felt like a detective myself as I read through the story and found out more and more about her fatherโs other life.
โWhatโs it like knowing your father is a gangster? Did you know when you were a teenager? Did you meet Bugsy Siegel? Did your father kill anyone? You know the Mafia kill people.โย
Childhood 1955-1961
I called him Daddy. His friends called him Al, or Smiley, the Department of Justice tagged him โarmed and dangerousโ and his mother named him Aaron. He was born January 10, 1907, in Kiev Russia, one of three sons born to Ann and Hymen Smehoff
ย ย ย ย ย He had salty sea blue eyes blurred by all the storms heโd seen.ย When I say something funny, his eyes crystallize and flatten like glass. Smoothing out the bad memories.ย Heโs always a different color. Dressed in coordinates matched perfectly as nature.ย My small child’s eyes rest cheerfully on his silk ties, a collage of jewel tones. The silver and blue tie matches the shirt underneath.ย The feel of his fabric is soft like blankets.ย He is very interesting to look at when I am a child and open to all this detail.ย
I cling to his neck in the back seat of his long Cadillac. My mother doesnโt ride with us during the day. She comes along if we are dressed up and going out to dinner. I enjoy the car rides most. He sings songs and his hand flutters about, catching me by surprise behind the ears, and I shriek. Daddyโs laughter echoes inside my ears.
ย ย ย ย We visit friends in Hollywood who own delicatessens, restaurants, and clothing stores. We go to Paramount Studios and I ride around on a pony or get kissed by cowboys in a Western scene.ย We go to Beverly Park almost every day to ride the ponies.ย I am only two years old when Daddy slings me over this big stinky pony, and insists that I go around the ring one more time so he can watch.ย I meet Hoppalong Cassidy and we visit his booth at Pacific Ocean Park.ย When my father was a film producer he worked with Hoppalong on a western film.
Our home in Bel Air was where I lived before I knew how fortunate we were. My room was at the end of a long hallway, and I was afraid to leave the room when it was dark because it seemed such a long distance to my parents. The wallpaper danced around my eyes, a collage of flowers illuminated the black background, and I was wrapped in a blue satin comforter. My room was cluttered with dolls. As a young child, I preferred staying in my room and imagining characters for my dolls.
ย ย ย ย ย My father showed us, and really paraded us around as if we were exceptionally talented.ย ย I never understood why these people fussed over me. I sort of distrusted them, before I understood what that meant. There were exceptions, the ones I knew to be real family people earned my affection.ย I dreaded the routine of being placed in front of a group of men and women who stared at me as I curtsied or mumbled โHello.โย ย George Raft came to all my birthday parties, Nick the Greek showed me card tricks and Swifty Morgan told stories all night.ย Damon Runyon characterized him in his stories as the โLemon Drop Kid.โย I was surrounded by men with FBI files and notorious reputations for being dangerous gangsters. Some of them had been arrested for murder. Others were old-time bootleggers from Cleveland and Detroit.ย I knew them as Uncle Lou,ย Doc, or Uncle Johnny.ย Years later I would discover they were Lou Rhody of the Cleveland Jewish Syndicate in Cleveland, Doc Stacher, the tough New Jersey underboss to Longy Zwillman, (the guy who discovered Jean Harlow in a speakeasyin New Jersey), and Johnny Rosselli, the king of Las Vegas in its heyday.ย I was enchanted by thesemen, they were family friends, and they never followed the rules.
This home was my fatherโs showplace. He bought the house in 1955, and that was a bad year for him. I was two years old.. That was the year that a number of his friends and associates died or were murdered. Like Little Willie Moretti from New Jersey, who was killed by rival gangs, and Tony Canero, who died at the blackjack table of the Stardust Hotel.
Willie had a problem keeping his mouth shut. Frank Costello, the leader of the syndicate group most closely associated withmy father, sent Willie out to California where heโd be safe from harm. Willie was unstable, taking bets on losing horses and talking to people he shouldnโt. Frank asked my father to keep an eye on Willie, to become a confidant. He was told to dress up as a Doctor and pay visits to Willie. My father obliged and Willie took a liking to my father. Willie suggested to Frank that the boys should build this doctor a hospital. Frank told the story to some of the other fellows and they must have had a good laugh. Frank had another idea, giving Allen the job of promoting Willieโs good friend, Frank Sinatra. My father declined the offer. Eventually, Willie returned to New York and was found dead stuffed in the trunk of his car. The second tragedy was the suicide of Louis Rothkopf, โLou Rhodyโ they called him, or โUncle Louie.โ He was one of four bosses of the Jewish Cleveland syndicate, (the Mayfield Road Gang), and one of my fatherโs closest friends. I heard that Louie would cross to the other side of the street if he saw a guy that owed him money. He had a big heart. With his wife Blanche, the Rothkopfโs were respectable business owners in the Chagrin Falls area of Cleveland. When Senator Estes Kefauver launched a federal investigation on organized crime, he exposed and ruthlessly slandered Lou and his partners. Not just as bootleggers, and distillery owners, but murderous syndicate men with ties to the Italian Mafia. By this time, Lou and his partners were operating legitimate business enterprises all over Cleveland. Blanche commit suicide two years before Lou also took his own life. I have been told that my father brought Lou in to save the Desert Inn Hotel in Las Vegas, when the first owner,Wilbur Clark, went busted.
* * * * *
The house in Bel Air brings back the best memories of my childhood, but few visions remain. The front yard was a blanket of pink and white geraniums. They were tended to by our gardener, and though I wished to sit in their path, and smell their fragrance, I was told not to play in the geraniums. The flowers were my first contact with nature. It wasnโt enough to just look at them, I wanted to lay with them and watch their breathing.
Our house was perched at the top center of Thurston Circle, a sort of distant cousin to the discreet upper Bel Air locked behind black iron gates. There was no gate at our entrance, and the neighborhood homes were a mixture of two-story colonial and ranch style. The view of Los Angeles from the living room and my parentโs room was an electric and absorbing scene for a small child who hadnโt known anything beyond her house. At night lights glittered against a black sky, and I could sit by the window and dream of what the lights were all about. Entangled bougainvillea grew wildly behind our house. We picked figs and avocados from trees in the yard. There I learned my first lesson about family values. One day my father showed me a nest of small birds perched on a branch of a spruce tree. He pointed out the mother bird hovering over her babies in the nest, and then he drew my attention to the father bird perched on our television antenna. โYou see, thatโs what the father bird must do, is guard his little family, just like I do.โ I asked a few questions, and he just kept telling me that it was so remarkable how animals take care of their families and I should watch them and learn something.
My parents gave me extravagant toys. I was about four when my father installed a roller coaster in our backyard. He sat me in the cart and I rode up and down the bumpy track, screeching with laughter. My mother was always there, watching from a distance. Daddy was the one that loads me up with surprises and Mommy was the one to feed me, clean me up, and tuck me in at night. I could tell her everything, she listened to me and watched over me. She doesnโt interfere with me when I am playing with my dolls.
When I was eight years old, our home burnt to the ground in the Bel Air, CA fire, and everything we owned fell to ash. Shortly after my mother moved us to an apartment in Brentwood, a mammoth carton arrived and was placed in the center of the living room. My mother cut it open and urged me to look inside. I sat cross-legged on the avocado green carpeting and discovered a heap of brand-new Bermuda shorts, matching tops, and dresses.
I quickly shed my worn trousers and stepped into a new outfit, dancing about as I zipped myself in. My mother watched, and echoed my childish yelps of elation.I learned they were from my Aunt Millicent and that she lived in New York, and Iโd met her when I was a child.
Close to ten years later, my father called and ordered me to his apartment. He said that Millicent was coming over. I knew by now that Millicent was Benjamin Siegelโs daughter, and Ben was my fatherโs best friend. He was sitting on the same chintz covered sofa the night Ben was murdered and witnessed Benโs eyes bleeding down his face.
When my father answered the door, I watched as they embraced. Millicent had tears in her eyes. She walked over to me, and took my hand. I looked into her swimming pool blue eyes and felt as if I was drowning. She sat on the edge of the sofa and lit a brown Sherman cigarette. I studied her frosted white nails, the way she crossed her legs at the ankles, her platinum blonde hair, and the way her bangs draped over one eye. What impressed me most was her voice; like a childโs whisper, her tone was delicate as a rose petal.
I spent the rest of that afternoon memorizing her behavior. She emanated composure and a reserve that distanced her from uninvited intrusion. Over the next few years, Millicent and I were joined through my fatherโs arrangements, but I was never alone with her. When he died in 1982, she was one of three friends at his memorial service, just as my dad was the only friend at Ben Siegelโs funeral.
As the years passed, and my tattered address books were replaced with new ones, I lost Millicentโs phone number. When I began researching my fatherโs life in organized crime in 1996, I gained an understanding of my fatherโs bond with Ben Siegel. I reconnected with several of Dadโs inner-circle, but Millicent was underground, and now I understood why.
Last year I received an email from Cynthia Duncan, Meyer Lanskyโs step-granddaughter. She told me about the Las Vegas Mob Experience, a state-of-the-art museum in the Tropicana Hotel, that will take visitors into the personal histories of Las Vegas gangsters. Despite my apprehensions about the debasing and one-sided publicity that characteristically surrounds gangster history, I called the museum and was told, โMillicent would like to contact you.โ
A month later, I was waiting for Millicent in the Mob Experience offices in Las Vegas. When she walked in, I stood to embrace her, and this time the tears were in my eyes.Millicentโs voice and regal posture was unchanged, โOur fathers were best friends, practically attached at the hip. Your Dad was at the house all the time. Iโll never forget when he met me at the train station to tell us about my fatherโsโฆ death. Smiley was very good to us. My mother adored him, too.โ
Mob Experience
March 27 2011
Photos By Denise Truscello
The Mob Experience Preview Center was like a family room to me, because some of the men featured had been my fatherโs lifelong friends and protectors. I stopped in front of the Ben Siegel display case and saw an object that was very familiar. My father had the identical ivory figurine of an Asian woman. I still have it. So much of their veiled history was exposed. Between these two men was a brotherly bond that transcended their passing, and was even evident in their shared taste in furnishings.
After I returned home, Millicent and I talked on the phone.
โYour father belongs in my Dadโs room. Theyโll just have to make Mickey Cohenโs room smaller.โ
โMy father hated Mickeyโ, I said.
โSo did mine! When are you coming back? Iโll kill you if you donโt become part of thisโ.
I dropped into random reflections; the adventures of Ben and my father, gleaned from books, newspapers, FBI surveillance files, films, documentaries, and conversations with people who knew them both. I dreamily visualized these two men, striding along the streets of Beverly Hills when it was a two-story brick village, without islands of garish lighted palm trees, paparazzi, and limousines. They might stop at Al Perryโs Beverly Hills Athletic Club for a steam and work-out, and then take a drive in Benโs convertible to Santa Anita Race Track. At the track, theyโd sit in the Turf Club, immersed in the perfume and red lipstick glamour that Lana Turner, Betty Grable, and Rita Hayworth epitomized. They, and my mother, became the characters I had to write about.
On balmy summer nights, Ben, and Al drove along Sunset Boulevard, stopped in for a few rounds at Ciroโs or the Mocambo, and then played cards at Dadโs apartment at the Sunset Plaza. George Raft was there, too, along with a funny little Runyonesque character by the name of Champ Segal, and Swifty Morgan, with a pocket size fortune of tricks and dice. The FBI were parked in a sedan across the street, watching. Maybe they had an informant planted in the building, like they did when I lived with my father at the Doheny Towers. I know Dad watched Benโs back, not just because Ben moved so quickly, and in so many directions, but because he was studying him, like an actor studies his character, aspiring to absorb Benโs magnetic mannerism.
Early the next morning, I opened the shutters of our Havana-hip suite at the Tropicana and looked out at the misty peppermint pink sunrise and flashing multimedia billboards. My eyes sank into the stimulation, like being thrown into a food processor of human temptation. If Ben had lived to build his Monaco-chic hotels and casinos, Iโm sure he would have done it differently. Heโd been to the French Riviera, and experienced European รฉlan. More importantly, Ben was different, but not in the way youโve been asked to believe by reporters and law enforcement. Ben was noble, and his violent temper, cost him his reputation. His loyalty to his partners, and his family was intact. What the press wrote about Ben was handed to them by Hoover, two-faced columnists, and informants. He was more than handsome, generous, and fearless; he was an icon, with the finesse for embellishing strangers with importance, facilitating dreams, and taking a fighting stand against Anti-Semitism.
Newspaper reporters from that era like Mark Hellinger and Damon Runyon knew how to write about Ben, and they are the sources I used to draw my own Ben Siegel portrait.Itโs easier to read books than go out and interview the relatives, rabbis, and community where they lived.
My dad came into the life by way of a friendship with Ben. He wasnโt physically violent: he could holler loud and intimidate guys, but his real asset was that bullet-proof friendship.
As our jet roared upward, I crunched against a pocket-size window, and studied the paper-thin rows of glass and marble hotels of Las Vegas, the sprawling monopoly of gated communities, each one sandwiched between a slice of palm trees, sprawling to the base of the muddy mountains. Ben, Meyer, and a few others like Billy Wilkerson, Johnny Roselli, Moe Dalitz, and Allen Smiley, peeked beyond the dusty sand dunes, and in the mirage, they saw an oasis. The pioneers of Vegas were not committing any crimes when they financed the building of the first hotels. They were businessman carving out a legitimate future. More importantly, they were demonstrating to the Jewish community that it could be done. You could rattle respect like a Rockefeller or a Kennedy.
When I arrived home, an unfamiliar upright pride and surety about myself surfaced. It is ironic that what my father shielded from me is where I needed to be: among people who understand my family history, and accept it.
Itโs been seventy-five years since Ben and Al sat by side, figuring out the next bet. Now, their possessions will share the same room. And from those collections, stories will emerge, and new information, and more questions, and this time their daughters will be there, in the open, to speak in reverence of Siegel and Smiley.
Everything in my path leads me to understanding the men that turned to crime so that they could sit in first class and order Dom Perignon. If my father left a ten-year career in film making with Cecil B DeMille to join Ben Siegel, then Benโs story has yet to be written.
Today, I look at my fatherโs collection and see It tells the story of a remarkable lifeโฆ the precious artifacts of a life onthe edge: photos that document an album from his unnamed sweetheart during his twenties; James Metcalf poems clipped from newspapers; wedding photos; Flamingo party photos; his phone book filled with names like H. L.Hunt, Eddie Cantor, and O.J. Simpson; heartfelt letters to Meyer Lansky and others; and FBI memos that describe my father as a pimp, a murderer, an extortionist and a Russian Jew.
Ironically, the journey to discover my fatherโs story ends in Las Vegas; for my dad, who wasย blacklisted from Vegas, that is poetic justice.
THANK YOU FOR READING. IF YOU LIKE THIS PLEASE LET ME KNOW.
Remember when you opened the door to your own car and took hold of the steering wheel without any parental supervision.As a teen, my Chevrolet Impala was a haven away from my father. I rolled all the windows down, turned the volume up on the radio, and smoked. My secret joy was hoping the driver next to me would hear the music and notice me. If he was a suitable face I turned around and bobbed my head. Then, just as he looked over at me, I turned away, and looked in the rearview mirror, or sang my heart out to show off brazen behavior, the kind I couldn’t express at home. There was a sense of freedom from examination and explanation. When I drove my spinning Impala that leaped over road bumps in three waves, I was going somewhere alone.
ย It was the only self-contained space my father wasn’t attached to, and he didn’t like driving with me, because he didn’t like me being in control. That is the sensation that life brings to us in volumes as teens; explosions of discovery. Today I donโt experience that sweat of discovery; my life is deodorized. Remembering the sensations I felt as a teenager, reminds me to intertwine more challenges. If Iโm lucky to break through all the percentages of disease, that the late-night commercials warn me of, the edge of my rhythm is asking me to make a commitment; to put the Bo’ Jangles back in my steps. I heard the voice yesterday, almost a whisper, asking me why I exclude long-term commitments: joining groups, classes, associations, serving on committees, planning ahead, and even magazine subscriptions are not worth the trouble because I am always planning on moving.
The answer always comes in the photographs that bring back that moment in time, and the immediate recollection of the internal places I moved from venturing into the unknown. Many years ago, I was in therapy, and in one discussion, this discourse occurred that I considered an awakening then. โI think you jump into unknown places, and situations, to test yourself, and you do that because that is what your father did most of his life.โ That is what adolescent behavior is meant for, to learn by experiment, to see how far our strength of character will take us.ย We each have a different set of alarms and temptations. Why compare what one has to the other? My path is familiar to me, I am a born mistress of unfamiliarity; the quest for discovery keeps me moving.
FORMER HOME IN SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO 2015
As a teenager, I remember the most remarkable configuration of images, that passed by while I was driving, the faces of shopping mothers walking the streets of Beverly Hills and Westwood, the prostitutes positioned along one section of Sunset Boulevard, and their counterpart degenerate gin-soaked soul mates inched up against abandoned buildings, the Ocean Park joggers, and walkers, and picnickers, waving to each other, as they slapped together hard-boiledegg and tuna sandwiches. Like a playroom without walls for Europeans and senior citizens to elope with each other. I didnโt favor one street life over another, they all made sense to me.
Living in the Northeast calls for pragmatic and sensible strides. I’m still learning how to tame my lust for unpreparedness; like going out without an umbrella, leaving delicate brick a brac on the porch, driving with caution for deer, rabbits, and turtles, maintaining a close eye on the water in the basement, and dressing down so I don’t look like I’m from Los Angeles.ย Every day is experimental in some way.ย I don’t know how long I’ll be here, maybe that is how I like it.
My first interview on Dad, when I listen now it reminds me how liberating it was to talk about my family history.
KNPR.ORG
Luellen Smiley
Luellen Smiley is the daughter of reputed mobster, Allen Smiley. Smiley’s dad was a close friend and confidant of famous Las Vegas mobster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and he was sitting on the couch just feet away from Siegel the night he was murdered. While Luellen Smiley hadn’t been born at the time o…
Iโve adopted a savant to facilitate making decisions. I donโt want to use the word hate, itโs useless, but this time I will, I hate making decisions. Whether to go out for dinner, or go to one of villages’ festivals, parades, or events, they rake up events during the winter to keep us off drugs. This weekend was a ย village-wide Friday sale for shopping, the lighted tractor parade, and appetizers at all the shops in town. Sounded pleasurable and Iโm proud of the village to induct us into a community of we care about you.ย I didnโt go, but I did go out for Thanksgiving dinner in a restaurant Iโd never been to, festive crowded, and the tempting buffet twinkled like the first time Iโd seen decorated food. Itโs been five years since Iโve gone out for Thanksgiving so the jubilee of food was a bit musical.ย I ordered a glass of wine at the bar, the only customer as everyone had reserved tables for grandparents and children and the roar was melodious. My order to go would wait, the celebratory ambiance shattered my loneliness. The bartender, Jovida was like a lightbulb, she kept coming over to me maybe three times asking me polite questions, have you been here before, you must come on the weekends we have live music, while youโre having your wine can I bring you something from the buffet. I wondered if Iโd be charged, she noticed my hesitation and said, No charge. So I choose smoked salmon, capers, onion, and horseradish. On m wish list if Iโm allowed to eat in heaven, along with Gruyere cheese, tacos, salad, and croissants. ย The bliss, was a sandwich of bustlingeager activity, laughter, and the children. ย I remember our family Thanksgiving when my parents were divorced and we went to Nanaโs home in San Fernando Valley, through that old tunnel. My motherโs mother is full-flecked Irish so the dinner was grand, and she was a dedicated cooking slave.ย She made mashed potatoes like Iโve never tasted since, and homemade pies, everything spiced with Nanaโs kinship with making the family love her.
ย ย ย ย ย I left the restaurant after an hour later with a jubilant bag of turkey, fixings, and pumpkin pie. I found my seat on the bedroom sofa, and watched, โ The Trainโ with Burt Lancaster.ย My thoughts were rested, abated for the whole evening, and then the next day, turkey revenge. I could not get out of bed, eat, or think. So I said to myself, itโs okay to do nothing and so I watched a romantic comedy, โ Cardboard Husband,โ with Norma Sherer and Robert Taylor, removed three-year-old lipstick and liners, shopped online without buying, saved for later my way of shopping. Then I threw the dice and I got seven. That is where my decisionsare now made. If I donโt get a seven with seven throws, I donโt go out or make a decision. If I get it once- Iโm on!It was a perfect day for thanks. I think we should have a Thanksgiving Holiday three or four times a year.
THE CLASSMATE THAT wrote is named Andrew. I imagine heโs married; a man with his looks and gregarious personality living in Los Angeles all these years. Maybe he married one of our high school classmates. We exchanged a few emails in two thousand eight, he’d just returned from a trip to Poland and I was managing the gallery. Then the crash came and I think my correspondence dropped. Why was he thinking of me? I don’t have any photographs from high school, I suppose I could look him up in the yearbook. I’ll wait till he writes again.
The sky is crystal blue, and the temperature a mild fifty degrees. From my window, the leaves dropping makes me think the trauma and suffering the last four years has dropped from my life. What the trauma was about is irrelevant and too lengthy to write. We all get sent to the chopping block of heartache and this was mine. This is as liberating as taking off a tight bra after a long day!
Maxfield Parrish
September has traditionally been my month of transition. It’s a sort of pattern that began years ago and so making decisions is as if I’m on a time clock. What is most essential now is finding a new place to call home. I began looking at Santa Barbara. I loved visiting the city by the sea, those beautiful mountains, and quaint craftsman architecture. So what if I don’t know anyone, I’ll be alone regardless of where I move. Easily accomplished in my fifties, not so improvisational at sixty-seven.
Rapturous Autumn day; this year the transformation of nature, outdoor activities, cider doughnuts, smoking fireplaces, and a crispness that reminds me of breaking open a head of lettuce. What really happens to us in the East is fall descends like a new stage and the props from summer are removed. The mums come out on the porches, and the bright yellow and gold plants dot every porch. The conventional lifestyle and customary activities placate our sense of belonging. Christmas, wow, it’s only a short time till winter. In the dressing room unpacking more sweaters, socks, warm-ups, I get an alert, another email. Andrew added another compliment so my response was crush-worthy. Why not? Maybe fantasy is what is needed. Remerging silhouettes, all of us on the front lawn at lunch time, and boys are pairing up with girls and Andrew is laughing, making clownish faces and gestures, yes he was crush-worthy. He walked in long strides, visible energy and every step seemed to have a purpose. The boy I was in love with graduated, and I did not have a boyfriend. My shyness and restrained conversational skills excluded me from invitations to date. Maybe that’s why he didn’t take notice of me observing him, a lot of classmates had crushes on him.
The reality of COVID-19 is now the centerfold story because it is affecting everyone; the excruciating financial loss, death, sickness, and loneliness. It’s more like acceptance that this is our job now to tolerate COVID-19. Restrictions, circumstances of failed businesses we all loved, fear, and more fear call for an imaginary friend who I haven’t seen in fifty years. He replied with a formal note of response that he was on Facebook and could we be friends. I wrote back, yes. I am listening to the soundtrack from the film A Man and A Woman while chopping vegetables for soup. This music has formed a flame of optimism for the day I’m in love and let go of singleness.
On Facebook Andrew’s feature photos reveal the teenager I remember. He is a photographer, a Neuro Technician, and in his twenties an actor and model โฆ hum, sounds like my resume, professional career changer. His photos sent a quiver through my veins, a call to read everything on his page, and view videos of his European travels: beautifully crafted images of architecture, monuments, art, culture, and locals. It deepened my understanding of his life just by his photos and posts. The other side, his appearance; the facial features, keen brown eyes, uncensored or rehearsed self-photos, group photos with our high school mates at the reunions, his long wavy hair, and his defined lips and cheekbones tingled curiosity.
The photos of Andrew at the class reunions next to my best friend and other classmates I remembered brought a snowstorm of memories. How I loved my friends back then. About six of us went everywhere together; bought our first bras, learned to drive, went to Westwood Village to look for cute boys, sat in the booths at Mario’s Pizza, Hamburger Hamlet, and The Apple Pan and all of it on ten or twenty dollars a week allowance. I have not been to a reunion since the tenth. Andrew posted photos from several. He stayed connected. Fifty years have passed, and he’s on my mind. To be continued.
SOME OF YOU may have already seen my announcement on Facebook. For those that have not, my memoir CRADLE OF CRIME- A Daughter’s Tribute, is now available on Amazon in the USA, Canada, and the UK.
I began writing my way home in 1996.
If you choose to read I’d love to hear back from you!
CASEY, A WOMAN OF SECRETS
Here’s the link on Amazon.
LUELLEN SMILEY ADVENTURERS IN LIVINGNESS 