Staten Island And Sandy

When I was a kid, every so often, a TV character mentioned my hometown, Staten Island.  Lucy and Ethel had ridden the Staten Island Ferry to see if they'd get seasick in preparation for Ricky's European Ship Tour.  On an "All In The Family" episode, we all cheered in my house when Archie Bunker mentioned the words "Staten Island."   More recently, there was the MTV show "I'm A Staten Island Girl," and of course Staten Island is the setting for many of the episodes of "Big Ang." Now I fear that Staten Island will forever only be remembered for the devastating events of Monday night's Hurricane Sandy.

On Monday night, many people had to be evacuated from their homes because their homes were by the water, and the tides were expected to overtake and destroy their homes, in some instances even lifting them right off of the foundation.  Our house is not located in that "Zone A" area, so after losing our power Monday afternoon, we sat in our living room that evening with the portable radio on, playing round after round of Crazy 8's cards, sitting on what we felt was the safest corner of the couch, away from the windows, trying to ignore the howling wind and rattling tree branches, my husband and I exchanging worried glances as my daughter blissfully ignored the storm yet wore her helmet.  We knew that there were probably only two dangerous trees in our yard, one is actually our neighbor's tree.  When we went to sleep that night, I slept in my daughter's bedroom on her floor, because I knew her room was safely far away from both of those trees.  My husband braved the master bedroom because he calculated that the tree was more likely to fall into the corner of his music room rather than into our bedroom, so he would most likely be okay.

Tuesday morning, we woke up and were grateful that none of our trees had fallen down.  We spent the next five days and four nights without electricity and heat, each night getting colder than the next.  We moved to the rooms where the temperature didn't go below 60 degrees, and eventually I shared a bed with my daughter just to keep her warm with my body heat.  With no refrigerator, I kept her juice boxes outside to keep them cold along with the bottles of Carnation Instant Breakfast I'd gotten her since she couldn't have her hard boiled eggs in the morning. I always thought that if I ever lost electricity for more than a few days, the hardest part would be not being able to watch TV, and even though I was eating cans of tuna every morning to keep my protein up, that wasn't the hardest part. The hardest part for me, definitely, was feeling cold all the time. We were able to warm up for part of the day at my mom's boyfriend's house.  We also charged our cell phones there and my daughter's portable DVD player so she could watch a half hour of her kid's shows before bed each night. But we didn't want to sleep there because he already had his daughter and his two grandsons staying with him, since their house also didn't have power, so we didn't want to impose unless we absolutely had to, so we stuck it out in our rapidly-dropping 60 degree house.

On Friday morning, we went to Stop and Shop.  We couldn't drive around much because there were two-hour long lines at the only two gas stations that still had power on Staten Island.  At Stop and Shop, every one looked like they hadn't been warm or had power for four days also.  The women came in with ponytails, wearing layers of clothes, stocking their shopping carts with more batteries and with foods that didn't have to be refrigerated.  As I shopped, I overheard one of the Stop and Shop employees telling someone that every day, more and more people who had lost their homes and were currently living in evacuation centers were coming in to shop.  That snapped some sense into me.  Sure, we were cold and eating tuna fish, and the adults drinking unrefrigerated milk (which I never realized was okay to do as long as it didn't smell sour and was not beyond the expiration date!), but these people had lost their homes! Not to mention the stories we heard on the radio of people who had lost their lives!  I thought of my friend's dad, who thankfully survived the storm, but had to be rescued because the water was up to his chest in his house!  I thought of how my daughter's godfather was coming to Staten Island from Pennsylvania with clothes, batteries, gas, food, and supplies for those who needed them, as his own brother and cousin were now without homes also.  My husband took the picture I've used for this blog of the street where we used to hang out with dear friends of ours who have since moved to England.  If they had stayed, they would have been evacuated and come back to find sailboats in their front yard and peeking into the windows of their house.  These are stories of people who have really suffered during the storm.

Our power did come back on Saturday, the day after I went to Stop and Shop.  We were very thankful, and we continue to pray for those less fortunate.  Staten Island will never be the same.  There is more help to give and more of the word to spread.  Yet someday, I hope Staten Island will once again be remembered as the quirky borough which is part of New York City but doesn't seem to be.  The one mentioned by Lucy and Archie Bunker and in True Life episodes of MTV.  Not as the borough which was devastated by Hurricane Sandy.

Grandma, We Hardly Knew You

My grandmother was born in the beginning of October and died at the end of October, a few weeks after her 95th birthday.  That's why I've decided to remember her in an October blog.

The last time I saw her was at my cousin's wedding.  She had just turned 90 and had flown from Florida with my cousin, the bride-to-be, who was now her primary caretaker.  At this wedding, I saw a sassy side of her I'd never seen before. Every time someone would come to greet her, she greeted them back with zingers.  To her grandniece she said, "Wow, your husband put on a lot of weight."  I asked another of my cousins about this, and she laughed about it, saying, "She's always been like this. Every time she sees me, she still asks me why I only had one child." My mom endured zinger after zinger, most of them questions about my mom's ex-husband whom she married after my father (who was my grandmother's youngest son) passed away.  My mom didn't seem rattled by her zingers at all. When I asked her about it, she said, "I'm used to it. When you were a kid, she often told me I should wash your father's hair for him."   I figured that now that I was an adult, there would probably be zingers for me too. I braced myself for zingers directed at me, but they never came.

Growing up, I hardly ever saw my grandmother smile. If she spoke to me at all, it was either "hello," "what was that?" (because she was hard of hearing) or "goodbye," along with a "pray for me."  I also remember her being obsessed by things.  At first it was her false teeth, then years later, the floaters in her eyes. If she did talk about something other than false teeth or floaters, it was likely to be something odd. Like the time when Jack Cafferty (now a CNN news analyst, back then a New York City's Live at 5 News anchor) came onto the TV, and she suddenly exclaimed, "That is a good-looking man!"  Jack Cafferty? You'd think Tom Selleck had just appeared on the screen!

The only thing I can remember us doing together was play cards. She taught me a great card game with a lot of steps called "King's Corners." She and my grandfather used to stay at our house for one week every Christmas vacation.  During one of those visits, my mom had to go to work, and I wanted to make pancakes. I was probably about 12. I called my mom's work, and she wasn't at her desk, so her co-worker asked me if there was something she could help me with.  I told her, "Well, how do I make pancakes?"  She told me a few things, and I hung up the phone.  As soon as I hung up, my grandmother exclaimed, "Why didn't you just ask me?"  I was surprised at her expression and that she seemed upset.  "I know how to make pancakes!"  she said huffily. She had never reprimanded me for anything in my life except for not asking her how to make pancakes! It was funny, but the thought  never crossed my mind that I could just ask my grandmother how to do it. 

The fact that I didn't think she could handle something as easy as making pancakes is strange considering that when she was growing up, her family of five siblings all agreed that she was the most gifted academically. Her biggest disappointment in life was that her family didn't have enough money to send her to college because it was the Depression. Only her oldest sister got to go.  But she made the best of it and became a legal secretary. She was a champion stenographer who also entered typing contests and won medals. She was such a fast typist that she had to type on a special Underwood typewriter. Otherwise the keys would jam up because she typed so fast.

After she married, she became a stay-at-home mom to my uncle and my father.  It was World War II, and she and my grandfather had going away parties at their house for their friends going off to war almost every week. Since my grandfather had the two young boys to take care of,  he was the last to go. My uncle remembers there being singalongs at the player piano and karaoke before there was a name for it. My grandmother was considered very funny and an excellent hostess. But all that changed about nine years later, when she gave birth to her last child, my aunt, and suffered a severe form of postpartum depression. She wasn't able to take care of either her new baby or her two sons, so she endured "treatments" given in the basement of a questionable doctor and was never the same after that. But it did save her from going the way of Sylvia Plath.

For my grandmother's 90th birthday party, I asked my cousin what I should get her, and she said a brain teaser/logic problems book.  You know, the ones that hardly anyone can do much less would want to do unless they were being forced to? She said little during the party except that she didn't know what all the fuss was about. At one point, a guest said, "I try to never argue with anyone during the day because, you know, one night, you may go to sleep and not wake up in the morning."  "Oh," my grandmother said looking him up and down. "I wish that would happen to me!" 

During the last decade of my grandmother's life, my cousins, who sometimes took turns taking care of her, had a lot of stories to tell. The funniest story was when she stayed with my cousin and his wife who lived in New Jersey. Every morning,  my cousin went into the room where she was staying and noticed that the cable channel was always set from the night before on the same number, a certain adult channel. When they asked her about it, she answered, "I don't know.  I watched this show. There was a woman who had a pink apparatus." When my cousin told us this story in front of my grandmother, all she had to say about the channel was, "I was intrigued by it."

When she moved back to Florida for good, there were various medical personnel who came to evaluate her to help her get the care she needed. She never gave them an easy time.  One funny story is the time a man came to the house and had to ask her several questions as he filled out a questionnaire.  At one point he asked her how much she weighed to which she snapped, "Weigh? How much do I weigh? Well, how much do YOU weigh?"

Her mind stayed intact until only a couple of years before she died. I didn't see her during those couple of years, but I was told her personality had made a dramatic change for the second time in her life, but this time it was for the better. Suddenly, she was cheery all the time.  My cousin said she just sat around watching TV and laughing all day.  Her favorite movie was "Napoleon Dynamite," and she watched it constantly!

Come to think of it, there was one period of time that I actually saw my grandmother happy. It was when I was a teenager, after my grandmother's daughter's baby was born, and my grandmother moved in with them for three years to care for my new cousin while my aunt returned to work full-time. Whenever we visited them, she smiled and simply beamed over that baby.  She took really good care of her and truly thrived while doing so.

My uncle probably knew my grandmother better than anyone else in the world.  When I asked him about her recently, he told me: "People thought she was aloof and distant, but that wasn't the mother I knew."  Again, I say -- Grandma, we hardly knew you.


Post Script:  I have to give the photo credit to my cousin Dawn who found this picture in her stash.  Both of us were shocked that there was actually a photograph in existence of our grandmother and grandfather kissing!

The Woman Who SHOULD Have Had Her Own Talk Show

Believe it or not, Oprah's incredibly successful talk show was not the first of its kind.  That credit goes to Phil Donahue whose TV show had its heyday in the 70's.  He was the first TV show host to explore the deeply personal, emotional, sometimes cringeworthy topics that really moved both his guests' and audience's souls.  Donahue really cared about his guests who would bravely come onto the air and pour their hearts out.  He treated them with compassion and with the same respect he'd give to a guest who came into his home.  I'm willing to bet that every guest on his show could rest assured that once the cameras rolled, they would be discussing the topics they had actually been invited on the show to discuss. This is not the case for many guests invited onto the show of another famous Phil -- Dr. Phil.

Many people saw the recent Dina Lohan interview (Dina is Lindsay's mom). Apparently, she is yet another guest in a long list of guests who did the Dr. Phil show under false pretenses.  She thought she was invited onto his show to talk about the plight of abused women and how they can be helped.  Instead, she was greeted by Dr. Phil's surprise guest, none other than Michael Lohan, Dina's ex-husband and former abuser!  She got so nervous when she found out he was on the show that she couldn't continue with her platform and instead began behaving erratically.  She told Dr. Phil that he was yet another member of the media out to destroy her to which he angrily responded:  "I am not the media.  I've been a trained professional for the past thirty-four years.  I know how to interview people!"  But what he does obviously know how to do better than interview people is how to gain incredibly high ratings for his show's producers and advertisers.

I was a faithful viewer of the Dr. Phil show for years. But it all went downhill when I tuned into a show where his guest was a stage parent who had gone on the show under the guise of getting exposure for her talented singer daughter.  Instead, she was reamed out for pushing her child into a career in show business rather than letting her daughter be a kid.  The woman looked completely baffled and hoodwinked as to why he was doing this.  I felt bad for her.  I pictured the producers interviewing her and acting excited about her daughter's talent and telling her how Dr. Phil's show would expose her daughter to millions of potential fans, maybe even get her daughter a record deal right on the spot. Then she goes on Dr. Phil and gets humiliated on TV for being a bad parent!

I finally lost all hope in Dr. Phil's credibility as a therapist on a later program when he interviewed an older woman/younger man couple.  He all but called her a crazy psycho simply for dating a man about twenty-five years younger than she was.  He said she needed psychological help.   I don't know if it was due to the fact that this woman in her fifties was around Dr. Phil's age yet preferred men in their twenties, but his criticism of her was way out of proportion to the situation. I doubted he'd have the same advice for his daughter-in-law's former boss, Playboy magazine mogul, Hugh Hefner, who routinely dates women SIXTY years younger than he is!

So I'm not surprised at all that he has now done this to Dina Lohan.  Dina Lohan makes her own mistakes, it's true.  She's not an innocent, yet I did find it refreshing when she made him squirm in his seat as he denied that she was put onto his show just so he could manipulate her the way the media does, purely for ratings.

Another of Oprah's proteges, Dr. Oz, is one step above Dr. Phil because he mostly does an informative show about health which forces more focus on facts rather than psychological opinions.  However, I did experience an all-time low one afternoon while viewing the Dr. Oz show.  His topic was women and weight loss.  He humiliated his women-only audience by making it mandatory for them to sit in his audience wearing short, skin-tight exercise tops that exposed their large bellies.  His lack of sensitivity by doing this to these women made this show one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen.  This episode easily could have been done without the visuals.  One of the women given the microphone in the audience had a flat belly, but she also was trying to lose weight. She had no trouble speaking to Dr. Oz about her problems with weight loss without breaking down in tears as nearly all of the women with the large bellies had done during their turns at the mike.

The one former protege of Oprah's who should have had a successful TV show is Martha Beck. She wrote the brilliant books entitled "Finding Your North Star" and "Expecting Adam," the latter being about her son with Down's Syndrome.   In her "North Star" book she shows the readers how to create a step-by-step plan to both find and succeed at the work they really want to do.  She believes in being true to your authentic self and in doing the work you would do even if you weren't getting paid. Oprah gave one day a week of the Oprah show to Beck just as she had done with Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz to create interest and to pave the way for their own "Harpo" Network shows.  I was surprised when a "Martha Beck Show" did not appear on the air the same way the Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz shows had. But knowing what I know now, there is NO way a Martha Beck show would have survived if she had been forced to participate in the dirty ratings tactics that both Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz participate in.  I'm not criticizing Oprah, just her offspring.  Martha Beck would never have allowed people to be humiliated on her show. This is a genuine, kind woman with a clean soul.  She is there to help people, not hurt people.  What is wrong with our media and society if they are about the bottom dollar without having concern for ruining people's lives?  Martha Beck would have never agreed to that.  So she remains a woman without a show.  But I'm sure she sleeps better at night knowing she hasn't had to humiliate or dupe anyone during the day.

Why Sci-Fi Should Be Called Psy-Fi

Earlier this month, NASA successfully landed a rover named "Curiosity" onto the surface of Mars, the Red Planet in our solar system. This project was developed to see if there is now or ever was life on Mars. Ray Bradbury would be proud!  He is my favorite short story writer who passed away in June at the ripe old age of 91, only two months before Curiosity landed. In fact, Curiosity might not have been landed at all if it weren't for Ray Bradbury!  Many scientists were inspired to explore Mars solely due to their reading of Ray Bradbury's 1950 novel, "The Martian Chronicles." That man had some mind.  His writing predicted many events.  His 1953 novel entitled "Fahrenheit 451" predicted how television would take over our lives with giant screens taking up space on every single wall in people's living rooms.  In my case, I'm glad that TV has taken over because I feel it helps me escape from the stress of my everyday, realistic, life.  Science Fiction TV, particularly "The Twilight Zone," is a place I can go to when I want to get away for an hour or so.  That's why I think "Sci-Fi" should be called "PSY-fi!"

Watching these episodes where people are constantly faced with problems of gloom and doom help me get my anxiety out.  As I watch, I feel anxious for these characters, yet I know it's a totally different world from my own, and even as I experience their dilemmas as they do, I'm still not in danger of coming to any harm. My favorite "Twilight Zone" episode, "The Midnight Sun," is a perfect example.  Two women are dealing with their apartment building getting hotter and hotter, there is a water shortage, and people are evacuating, heading north where it's a bit cooler because scientists say that the Earth has moved out of its orbit and is moving closer to the sun.  But by the end, it's suddenly really dark, and the mercury on the thermometer has dropped so low that the numbers are nearly unreadable.  It has gotten frightfully cold.  Turns out the woman was dreaming, and she was only hot because she had a fever.  The twist is that the Earth is not moving closer to the sun, it is actually moving farther away!

However, it's not always anxiety I need to release when I feel stressed, sometimes I just want to imagine a more pleasant world than my own.  One of the happier "Twilight Zone" episodes is from the 1980's remake of the series.  An episode called "The World Next Door" is about one of my favorite science fiction topics: parallel worlds.  Actor George Wendt (best known as Norm from "Cheers") stars in this one as a character named Barney who is a failure as an inventor.  He has a basement workshop, and when his wife orders him to clean it up and get rid of his mess of inventions, he destroys a bookshelf and discovers a door that leads straight into another house's wine cellar. A woman's voice from the top of the stairs calls "Barney" to come up and rejoin the party, except that the woman is referring to the "Barney" who lives in the house with the wine cellar.  He is a successful inventor famous for inventing something having to do with the fuel system for cars. Yet since they are identical Barneys each living in a parallel world, it is no problem when instead it is the failed inventor Barney who decides to go upstairs and join the party.

Turns out wealthy "Barney" is not happy either.  He wants to live a simple life, so the two Barneys switch places.  Failed inventor, Barney, brings one of his flopped inventions to this new life where here it is a success, and famous "Barney" has cleaned up the basement and is set to live a normal life with failure Barney's now-contented wife! Don't we all wish sometimes that we could escape to a parallel world where things are almost the same as our real lives but we've made improvements in the areas we see fit?

I think all of us have things we rely on to escape from our chores and the hustle and bustle of our busy lives. Mine is good Sci-Fi TV, because, hey, if on certain days, I find myself struggling to figure out a way to pay the bills, at least I can reassure myself that the world most definitely is not moving farther away from the sun!

Don't Treat Summer Like Another Item On Your To-Do List

I find it curious that several of my friends are walking around saying, "Isn't it a shame that summer is almost over?"  They've been making these comments since the first week of July. For me, summer always begins on July 1 and finishes on September 1, so how can summer be almost over during the first couple of weeks of July?

Lately, I've been finding that time seems to go by faster than it used to.  Sometimes, I'll be on Facebook, and it will seem like I've looked at so many statuses and scrolled through so many profiles (and wasted so much time), but then I'll go back to the Homepage and see something I commented on, and I'll be happy to know it had been only six minutes earlier! I think it's because we are all so busy these days.  We need to cram so many things into one day that now suddenly a week feels like a month. I think it's all the multitasking.  More time seems to pass by than actually has because not only do we still need to do our chores and all the things we used to do, but now we have added the extra tasks of checking our e-mails, our Facebook Page, and, of course, the most necessary responsibility of all: keeping up with our cell phones, I-Pods, and our various gadgets. We've added all this technology and all these gizmos that we supposedly NEED, yet meanwhile, we'd lived perfectly fine before any of them had even been invented.

When feeling overstressed, it wouldn't hurt to get out of ourselves and get immersed in the way life was lived before we had a To-Do List that measured from the ceiling to the floor. For example, in Anais Nin's Diaries, Anais discusses a typical summer night in her life similar to this:  "I went for a walk with Henry.  Then we read some of our writing to each other while we sat on the chaise lounge.  After that, I cooked dinner, and we opened a bottle of wine and talked."  They didn't have TV then.  Her journals give lengthy descriptions of each day, and when she writes down July 12, she knows it's July 12, which is the BEGINNING of summer.  She had no problem keeping track of the days.  Unlike those who think it is August 31 when it is only July 17!

So next time you find yourself lamenting that the summer is almost over, instead of checking off yet another thing on your To-Do List, I advise dropping everything and spending one whole day at the beach.   Feel the sand on your feet and the sun on your shoulders. Maybe you'll find that the day felt just like a day, and then a week can once again feel like a week, a month like a month, and a summer like a summer.

I'd Rather Be Eating Cheetos With Hannah Horvath

Now that Season One of HBO's "Girls" has finished, how will I live without its creator, writer and star, Lena Dunham's quick-witted dialog every Sunday night? How will I live without her overly personal, too-true-to-life scenarios?  Come to think of it, how did I EVER live without "Girls?"

I particularly relate to lead character, Hannah Horvath, because she is a writer. In "Girls" we see her as a struggling essayist, doing things like working on a book called "Midnight Snack" and attending the book release party of her former classmate who Hannah proclaims is a horrible writer.  But the lowest moment of Hannah's writing life is when she bombs at a book reading where nobody relates to her essay or even her feeble attempts at breaking the ice with jokes. She leaves the reading feeling embarrassed and socially misunderstood.

As a writer in my early twenties, I didn't have a Hannah in my life to commiserate with during my lowest writing moments.  I was the youngest member of my short story writing workshop, and I created a character named Iggy who was the same age as I was to keep me company.  He was an antisocial punk, and I brought him everywhere and stayed in character all the time.  During the class, all the students had one twenty-minute break.  Everyone went downstairs to the lunchroom to network and to have coffee.  But I always chose to stay in the empty room alone, eating my small bag of Cheetos and drinking a can of Welch's Grape Soda as I read an extremely good collection of VERY short stories called "American Short-Shorts." 

Because of the personal nature of the stories we brought into class to workshop, there were very few male participants, and the ones who did attend could have been straight out of an episode of "Girls."  There was "Wench Man," who referred to all women characters in his original stories as "wenches"; there was "Abomination Man," who when asked to comment on a story during the one and only class he ever attended had no comment except for: "I think that writing fiction in present tense is an abomination";  there was "Sci-Fi Man," who attended every single class yet never brought in a piece of his own until one of the very last classes where he was condemned by some for bringing in a polished sci-fi piece and for not conforming to the purpose of the class which was to workshop your raw, unfinished stories each week WITH the group; and finally, there was "Reba McIntyre Man," who used to frequent the record store I worked at and had asked me if he could please, PLEASE, have the life size, stand-up, cardboard display of singer, Reba McIntyre, which stood near the Country Music Section.  I remember carrying that silly stand-up (which was taller than I was) all the way from the record store and through the turnstiles of the subway where we had agreed to meet so I could give him the stand-up.  It was Reba McIntyre Man who also gave me some crushing news after which I really could have used a friend like Hannah Horvath to lean on.

For some background, an older woman in the workshop had brought a piece into class that she said was a short-short. When we went around the room, she got all positive reviews until she came to me. I said I liked her story but felt that, in my opinion, her short-short would have fared better as a traditional short story and not as a short-short which is a very difficult format to write in. I knew this because I had been extensively reading the "American Short-Shorts" book that featured stories by writers who excelled at short-shorts. About a week or so later, Reba McIntyre Man ran into me at the record store and told me that this particular woman had just thrown a party and invited everyone from the entire class except for me!  Even Sci-Fi Man had been forgiven and invited, and so, years later, it makes me wonder:  Should I not have been honest about her story?  And if this had been an episode of "Girls," what would Hannah have done?

I thought back to the episodes and recalled the one where Hannah goes home to Michigan and sees her college friend perform at a club as a singer and dancer for one final time before the friend packs up all her things and moves to California to try and make it in show business. Hannah tells her date how horrible this girl's performance just was, especially considering she's planning to uproot her entire life and move to California when she really isn't that good!  And of course there is the book release party episode I mentioned earlier where she continues to harp on about the awful writer who wrote the book. She criticizes her best friend, Marnie, for buying the book because it's written by such a dreadful writer!  I know, in my heart of hearts, that if Hannah had attended my short story workshop, she would have given that woman the same critique I had.  After all, I was just being honest about her piece, and if she had listened, I could have spared her many years of rejections and of wondering why all the magazines had never accepted any of her short-shorts!  But that's okay because, again, I know that Hannah would have done the same thing that I did and have not been invited to the party either. Instead, Hannah and I would have hung out together that night, read magazines, ate her favorite cupcakes, my Cheetos, and had a Party of Two.

Happy Father's Day To Those Whose Fathers Never Grew Old

Freddie Rumsen from "Mad Men"

Father's Day has been a bittersweet day for me ever since my dad passed away when I was fifteen. My mom was concerned about me and my brother not having a father figure to help raise us since we were both teenagers.  My brother found a mentor in college, but I didn't think I needed one. Even though I was so young, I felt my personality had fully formed by then, and I knew that I was the person I was because I had my father to teach me for fifteen years.  My brutal honesty comes from him.  Probably part genetics and partly from observing his behavior.  My mom used to say to him, "Why can't you put on a smile for our friends? Why do they have to know you're in a bad mood?" and my dad would answer, "Because I AM in a bad mood.  Why should I have to be phony and pretend?"  Whenever we went out for dinner, and the waitress was OVERLY bubbly, my dad would raise his left eyebrow inquisitively as if to ask: "Is she for real?"  I immediately knew exactly what he was thinking.

Besides being honest, my dad was also very moral. His best friend, Hans, told me a story once of how my dad got upset when one of their mutual friends had a girl sitting on his lap.  He exclaimed to Hans, "Why is he letting her sit on his lap?  He's engaged to another woman!"  I share his love of music, and he helped me study for the Co-Op Test so I could ace it and get into Hill, the highly-esteemed high school of my choice. After that, I believed I had truly completed my childhood, so I found the idea of a replacement dad insulting.  I would never want to replace my father. I would never need to.  I felt that way for a really long time.

Speaking of Hans, he was very helpful to me when my dad died. When my father went out of remission, Hans brought in some cassettes of my dad's original songs into the hospital. He played a song called "Shadows Falling."  It had lyrics that reminded me of my dad as a young boy growing up: "Wish I could return somehow to walk upon the sand, catch the wind and rainbows and feel a welcome hand."  The lyrics made me cry after we left the hospital room, and all the way down the elevator, continuing into the parking lot.  No one knew how to comfort me.  Hans said, "Joan and I have fixed up the house.  We have the guest room finished.  You should come over and stay with us on weekends."  He, his wife, Joan, and son, Eden, took me in for many weekends, and Hans told me endless stories about my dad.  But I knew he couldn't replace him. 

Hans and I always remained in and out of touch.  A few years ago, we hadn't spoken to each other for a while.  We'd let too many years go by.  I didn't even know if he still had the same phone number, so I did a Google search.  I found a picture of him outside a school where they were testing for asbestos.  He was wearing a Bluetooth. Cellphones and Bluetooths were still new.  I asked my husband, "What is that thing people wear in their ears?  They're like cellphones, right?" and he answered, "They are Bluetooths.  Old men wear them."  Something about that statement just got to me: "Old men wear them."  I kept on recalling the image of Hans wearing his Bluetooth, and I knew then I had to get back in touch with him, and I was lucky to find him on Facebook.  We've been in touch ever since, and I now call him my Second Dad.

Another example of my longing for a father comes from an unlikely place:  My favorite TV show, "Mad Men." I've been faithfully watching since Season One, and I've seen most episodes at least twice.  One of my favorite characters, Peggy Olson, had started Season One as a secretary, but one day after participating in a focus group where the secretaries tested lipsticks, she makes a comment in front of "old-time ad man" Freddy Rumsen. She hands him a wastebasket where women had dabbed their lipstick onto tissues, and she tells him, "Here's your basket of kisses."  He asks her where she had heard that, and she says "I just thought of it."  Then she tells him that she didn't choose any of the shades of lipstick because someone already took her shade, and she says, "I don't think anyone wants to be one of a hundred colors in a box." Freddy sees potential in Peggy and suggests she be promoted from secretary to junior copywriter because she is creative and has a natural way with words. Peggy's career has soared since Season One, and it was really all thanks to Freddy Rumsen.  Even late in the current season, Freddy and Peggy have dinner, and he encourages her to go for a better copywriter job at a competing ad agency.  Their friendship has lasted.  I never knew why I was so drawn to this story until I realized that, in my mind, the Freddy/Peggy friendship/mentorship is like a father/daughter relationship.  Freddy is considered old-fashioned and out of date. My dad never became that.  He was always young. I never thought I'd have a need for an older father, or even a father figure at all since becoming an adult.  But between Hans's Bluetooth and Freddy Rumsen's belief in Peggy, I realize it must be something innate.