Fourth Lake, Chapter 10

On Friday, August 2, 1974, both Judy and Phil were feeling the affects of “cabin fever.”  They needed to get away from their cottage, Inlet, and Fourth Lake.  They had been there for five straight days and needed a break.  It was beautiful, but they wanted a change of scenery.  It wasn’t necessary to leave the Adirondacks, but they figured it would be a good idea to be somewhere else for at least a few hours.  The Hamlet of Old Forge, a community larger than Inlet, was about ten miles down Route 28, a two lane road thick with trees on both of its sides.  Judy and Phil would have lunch and hang out in Old Forge for the afternoon. 

While driving there, they heard another Watergate report on the car radio.  Jerry Warren at a  White House briefing was quoted as saying that, “You would have to put the President in the role of underdog.  We face an uphill struggle, but in a political struggle you have a chance to win.”  He also announced that the President along with his family was going to Camp David for the weekend.  Ironically, the person for whom the presidential getaway was named was among the family making the short trip from the White House.  Phil and Judy welcomed a respite from Watergate news as a result.

Joe Williams had recommended Billy’s Restaurant as the best place to eat in Old Forge.  When they went to his cottage for some Old Forge information, Phil noticed how Joe looked at Judy.  Maybe he should be jealous.  After all, his wife was a very beautiful woman.  And Joe was a good-looking, young guy.  So! 

Phil and Judy arrived at the restaurant a little after 1:30 PM with their reserved table waiting for them.  She ordered the shrimp scampi, while he chose the veal parmagiana.  A house salad plus bread was included for both.  They shared a bottle of New York State white wine.  While Phil had a slice of apple pie for dessert, Judy finished her lunch with a cup of coffee.

After he finished the pie, Phil went to the men’s room, leaving Judy alone at their table to enjoy the view of First Lake from the large picture window by their table which was in the front of the restaurant.  It was a beautiful afternoon and there were definitely more people moving about the streets of Old Forge than had been the case in Inlet.  It was not nearly such an isolated community.  It seemed to attract more tourists. 

After some minutes of wondering what had become of her husband, Judy turned her head toward where Phil had gone and saw him approaching.  Then for an instant, just over Phil’s left shoulder, she thought she saw someone leaving the men’s room whom she thought she recognized.  But then she lost her concentration about whom it was when Phil arrived at their table and resumed his seat next to her.

After relaxing for some minutes, and then paying the check, Phil and Judy left Billy’s Restaurant and went for a walk near the Lake.  They found a bench to sit on and admire the view.  They held hands and gently kissed.  It was just the kind of a romantic setting Judy wanted and needed.  It wasn’t only about making love on a bed that she was looking for. 

Later, they found an ice cream store and bought some cones to take with them.  Phil had two scoops of chocolate, while Judy had only one of strawberry.  Then they decided to go for a boat ride around the Lake that had attracted numerous others as well.  When the sun started to set, Phil and Judy thought it was time to return to their cottage.  They had expunged their “cabin fever.” And when it got dark on the roads in the Adirondacks, it was really dark.  Without your headlights, you would see nothing, absolutely nothing. 

On the way back to their cottage on Fourth Lake, Judy remembered that she thought she saw someone she knew who was behind Phil when he had come out of the men’s room of the restaurant.  If she saw him, Phil must have seen him as well, she thought.

“Phil, did you recognize anyone in the men’s room at the restaurant this afternoon?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I have this strange feeling that when I saw you walking back to the table, there was someone else coming out of the men’s room that I thought I recognized.  Do you remember seeing anybody there?”

“I wasn’t paying any attention to anybody that might have been there.  I did what I had to do and left.  I don’t even remember if there was anybody else in there at the time.  You said that you thought you recognized someone.  You know, memory can be a funny thing.  What are you sure you saw?  Anything?”

“No, I’m not absolutely sure of anything.  But, I have the strangest feeling that I saw someone I know and its driving me a little crazy.  And it was not someone from around here...I think.”

“You think?  Judy, relax.  We had a great day today.  We’re having a great vacation.  Enjoy it and don’t let your mind play tricks on you.”

“Okay, my darling, I’ll try.”

Judy said she’d try.  But that memory would keep coming back and coming back.  It just wouldn’t go away.  It would perplex her until she could remember whom it was.  She was hoping that would happen before they left Fourth Lake. 

Ted

Yesterday, October 17, would have been my brother Ted’s (Edward Brian Lasky) seventy-third birthday.  Sadly, he died four years ago in June of 2011.  He was the third of four boys.  I was the fourth and the youngest.  He was exactly two years, nine months, and three weeks older than I.  Of the four of us, we were the closest in age.  When I was growing up, we spent a lot time together, until he went away to college in the fall of 1960.

My family lived at 30 East Oneida Street until I was eleven.  When my eldest bother, Joel, went away to college in 1950, the second eldest, Paul, moved into Joel’s old bedroom to have more privacy.  That left Ted and me all alone in our bedroom.  I shared a bedroom with him again when we moved to 327 West Seneca Street in 1956. 

When he wanted to, Ted would coax me into being his playmate.  I was always agreeable.  Sometimes when I was playing with my next door neighbor and friend, Butchie, he would coax both of us to join him in some play time activity.  He wasn’t as athletic as Paul who encouraged me to join him in playing baseball or football in the park.  Ted and I would do other activities like mimicing stories we saw either on TV or at the cinema.  He also encouraged me to “fake box” with him like they did in the movies, until one day when he missed and I wound up with a bloody nose.

Back in those halcyon days of the 1950s, there was a tradition of Saturday mornings at the Oswego Theater.  It would include a main feature with Tarzan or Roy Rogers or the like, plus a million cartoons.  Ted and I would often go, by ourselves, along with loads of other kids.  Our mom would invariably give Ted the price of admission for us both.  I guess I was not to be trusted with money.  And Ted always played the same trick on me, saying that Mom had only given him enough for himself and nothing for me.  He told me to get out of line if I had no money.  I would cry begging him to say he had money for me, but he would keep up the charade until the very last moment.  I was a sucker for this “joke” every time.

One time, Ted asked the Theater Manager to bring us up on the stage during one of his live shows during intermission.  He usually asked some kids to participate in some skit.  And one time it was us.  I was so scared to go, but more afraid not to.  And in the skit, I had to let some girl sit on my knee.  It was so embarrassing.

On our way home one time from the theater, we passed by the Police Station on West First Street and Ted insisted that we go in.  He was curious about the jail cells.  I was about 9 and he was 12.  Ted was brazen enough to ask the policeman inside to let us experience being in a jail cell.  He took us in the back, put us in a cell, closed the door, and left.  Ted was thrilled.  I cried.

Speaking of the local police, one time Ted and I were returning home from the dentist in a taxi cab.  A drunken driver hit another car on East Bridge Street and sped away from the scene, right in front of us.  A cop on the sidewalk, jumped in the cab, sat right next to me, and commandeered the cabbie to “follow that car.”  I was scared, but the chase didn’t last long.  Again, Ted was thrilled.

I remember the night we moved to our new house on West Seneca Street in 1956 when Ted and I listened to some programs on the radio, like Gunsmoke and The Lone Ranger.  At 9:30 on Saturday night, September 21, 1957, we watched the second episode of the new series, Have Gun, Will Travel, which starred Richard Boone as Paladin and with a guest star named Charles Bronson.  Since then, I have seen this episode numerous times via Youtube, always thinking of Ted.  We shared a love of Westerns.  His favorite movie was High Noon, which is high on my list, as well.

Lying in bed many a night, Ted provided me with a great deal of unsolicited sex education.  I never asked my parents anything and only my father offered limited advice.  However, Ted was an unstoppable audio source of information.  Regarding women, he was especially infatuated with Asian women.  He had a crush on the Vietnamese-French actress, France Nuyen, who is best known for her work in the film version of the musical, South Pacific.  I remember him referring to that wonderful song from that film, You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II.  Ted collected pictures of her and other Asian actresses and models.  He also had a crush on two non-Asian Sallies from Oswego High, Allen and Kessler.

After graduating, Ted went to Michigan State University in East Lansing.  I remember visiting him there once, staying with him in his dorm room.  It was there at MSU where he met his first wife, Joy, whose best friend, Helaine, had a sister named Bonnie, my first wife.  After I graduated from college, I moved to suburban Detroit, Michigan because Ted was there.  When I married in 1968, Ted was my Best Man.

My first wife and I were living in Queens, New York, when Ted decided to relocate there with his wife and two children in 1972.  He stayed for four years, working at WNBC radio, where he teamed up with among others, the legendary Don Imus.  Ted also introduced me to the famous sportscaster, Marv Albert.  While in New York, he published a trashy novel under the pseudonym, Brian Edwards, using my first name as that of the protaganist.  What an honor! 

After Ted left New York with his family for Florida in 1976 I don’t believe he ever returned.  I was hurt when he did not attend my daughter’s bat mitzvah in 1988, my son’s bar mitzvah in 1998, nor my daughter’s wedding in 2004.  There was always a reason.  And then when I arranged for our mother’s 80th birthday party to be held near his home in Florida in 1987, he chose not to be there as well.

Some time in the 1990s, his girlfriend, Brenda, visited New York City, without Ted.  As a prank, he arranged for Brenda’s twentyish daughter to pretend to be Brenda (whom I had never met nor seen a picture of) when she visited my office.  She was dressed as a young, glamourous doll.  After gullable me accepted this hook, line and sinker, the real Brenda, older and more conservative showed up, a little sheepishly. 

A few years before his death, I visited Ted for the last time at his assisted living facility in Broward County, Florida.  I remember we had lunch in a nearby restaurant and when the waitress arrived, he told her we were brothers, but that he was the “good-looking one.”  This was a line I had heard him use many times.

The day before he died, I told him via his son’s (Jordan’s) cell phone that I loved him.  He said he loved me, too.  Through good times and bad, he was my brother Ted.

Waste of Life

My favorite scene in the 1976 movie, Rocky, is when Mickey (Burgess Meredith), Rocky’s trainer, irritated with Rocky, insults him, using an ethnic slur. 

Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) responds, “You know, I’ve been coming in for six years and for six years you’ve been sticking it to me.  I want to know how come.” 

Mickey retorts, “You don’t want to know.”

“Yeah, I want to know how come.”

“You want to know?”

“I want to know.”

“I’m gonna tell you.  Because you had the talent to become a good fighter and instead of that you became a leg-breaker for a cheap, second-rate loan shark.” 

Trying to justify himself, Rocky responds with, “It’s a living.”

Mickey then sums it up for Rocky.   “It’s a waste of life.” 

Life is the most precious thing we have and maybe the only thing.  As Clint Eastwood’s character (William Muney) said in the 1992 Western movie, Unforgiven, “Hell of a thing killing a man.  You take away all he’s got and all he’s ever going to have.”

Another example of how precious life is was expressed in the ninth episode of the third season (1959) of the popular television series, Have Gun Will Travel, by Richard Boone’s character (Paladin).  “Do you think I hold my life in so little regard that I am not afraid to lose it?”       

To me, life is so precious that it’s a sin to waste it.  Life should be used to the fullest extent  possible.  That’s the reason we are here, to use our time in whatever positive way we can, but use it we must, not just to exist like a plant. 

I recently read about a Brazilian woman who is 88 years of age.  Most who were born in the same year as she was, 1927, are already dead.  Thus, she should take advantage of her extra time in some positive way that is possible for her to do.  On a recent Saturday morning, a friend asked her what she wanted to do on that beautiful, sunny day.  Her response, which is typical of her daily routine, is that she wanted to do nothing.  The next day, the same question, the same answer.  She mostly sits in front of the television watching what ever the same channel offers.  The friend has tried to encourage her to do something to take advantage of her opportunity to do something meaningful in her remaining years, for example to study English.  She refuses.  I believe that she is wasting her life.    

Recently, a cousin of mine sent me a photo from my brother’s (Joel’s) wedding which took place on Sunday, July 3, 1960, more than fifty-five years ago.  It was a photo of my father’s (Harry’s) family.  Besides himself, there was his wife (my mother, Margaret), four sons (including me), one daughter-in-law, three brothers, three sisters, two brothers-in-law, three sisters-in-law, and one nephew (19 people in all).  I remember that it was a happy day for all of us.  All were smiling, especially me at fourteen years of age.  I was wearing a tuxedo for the first time in my life.  I had the special responsibility of escorting my grandmother to her seat near the front of where the wedding ceremony was going to take place.

At that moment frozen in time by the camera, there was so much of my life still in front of me that I was unaware of on that day: high school, girls, dating, my first kiss, college, living on my own, graduation, getting a job as an accountant, making my own money, having my own home, meeting my first wife, marriage, New York, making love, having  two children, helping them grow up to be independent, well-adjusted human beings, divorce, Brazil, speaking Portuguese, meeting my second wife, Chapel Hill, Brazil again, second marriage, teaching English to eager Brazilians, and starting this blog.  When I posed for that picture in 1960, I didn’t know any of what would become my future.  But, I have tried to the best of my naive, innocent ability to mature and make good choices and decisions and learn from my mistakes as time passed.  I have become wiser.  I’ve had a good life so far, and I intend to keep making it better.  I try to use my time advantageously.  As someone once said, the past is over, the future is not guaranteed, so all we have is today.  Carpe diem.  Aproveite o dia.  Seize the day. 

Of the nineteen of us in the above-mentioned photo, fifteen are dead.  Their lives are over, no more chances, no more opportunities to take advantage of what life offers us.  We the living can’t throw away one single day, one single moment.  It’s too precious.  It would be a sin.  It would be a waste of life, as Mickey said.

Parenthood

On May 7, 2013, my wife, Cristina, and I were at the Broadhurst Theater in New York City watching the play Lucky Guy which starred Tom Hanks.  During the intermission, we walked to the bar at the rear of the theater where I bought her a glass of wine.  Suddenly, Cristina told me to turn around quickly.  I did.  And there walking directly toward me was Steve Martin (who is exactly one week younger than I am).  My brain went into overdrive to think of something witty and clever to say.  It came out as “Hi.”  His retort was, “How are you?”  Thereupon he disappeared into the nearby men’s room.

This reminds me of the day in 2004, when I saw Richard Dreyfus walking on a street in the upper west side of the same New York City.  That time my brain came up with, “I loved Moon Over Parador (the 1988 romantic comedy in which he starred opposite the Brazilian actress, Sonia Braga).”  He stopped in his tracks for a second and, without turning to look at me, he responded with, “Good!” 

In 1993, I was on an airplane with my son, Bret, flying from Chicago to New York.  Sitting in the first row, first seat, was Van Johnson (a “matinee idol of Hollywood’s golden age”).  I shook his hand and told him how much I enjoyed his performance in the 1954 film,  The Caine Mutiny.  He asked me if I wanted my money back.  I didn’t mention that I saw it for free on television. 

A couple of years earlier, I was in an elevator of my office building  (800 Avenue, New York City) when I noticed, standing to my left, the actor, film maker, Spike Lee.  I was speechless.  As I was starring at him, he broke the ice with, “How ya doin?”  I gave a “How ya doin?” back at him. 

My speechlessness reminded me of the time in 1967 when I saw the Academy Award winning actor, Ernest Borgnine, in a VIP lounge at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport.  He was sitting on a sofa all by himself watching television.  I was too afraid to approach him.  What a dope I was.

On the evening of this past July 16th, I was on American Airlines flight #929 from Miami to São Paulo.  I was offered an incredible entertainment package of hundreds of movies that I could choose from.  As a movie lover, this was heaven.  My first choice was Citizen Kane (1941), a movie I had seen before, but not one I was in love with.  I watched the first forty minutes and then turned it off.  I remembered why I didn’t like it.  The story sucks.  The protaganist, Charles Foster Kane, is not nice guy, the plot is boring, and Rosebud is only the sled he played with when he was a little boy.

My second choice was Gone With the Wind (1939), one of my all-time favorites (the book is one of the best works of fiction).    After about ten minutes I had to turn it off, too.  After all, the O’Haras and the Wilkes’s were slave-owners.  Basically, they were immoral people.  Should I care about them?  The image of their slaves as docile, happy workers who love their masters is repugnant.  Why did I not realize this before?

My third choice was the 1989 comedy-drama Parenthood starring the above-mentioned Steve Martin plus an ensemble cast which included Mary Steenburgen, Jason Robards, Keanu Reeves, and Dianne Wiest (nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, but lost to Brenda Fricker in My Left Foot).  It was directed by Ron Howard who assisted in the development of the story.  I happily watched the movie to the end, even though I had seen it many times before.

The movie begins as Gil (Martin) is with his wife (Steenburgen) and three young children at a Major League Baseball game.  He is day dreaming about a number of times when his father, Frank (Robards), had taken him to a game when he was a child, only to be abandoned to the care of an usher.  It reminded me of a couple of occasions when my own father did something similar. 

On Christmas night, December 25, 1952, my father bought three tickets to the North South Shriner’s football game at Miami’s Orange Bowl, my first time at a major sporting event (7 years-old).  Instead of taking my bother, Paul (14 years-old), and me, my father hired somebody at the hotel we were staying at to take us.  On October 26, 1957, my father had his assistant at work take me to Archbold Stadium on the Syracuse University campus to watch the Orangemen play Penn State in a football game.

Parenthood is a wonderful movie about an extended family that keeps having more and more children, and despite the ups and downs of parenting, wouldn’t have it any other way.  Steve Martin’s performance as a father was outstanding.  I was surprised to learn he was not a father in real life when he made Parenthood in 1989.  However, his only child, a daughter, was five months old when we met twenty-four years later.   

Below is some marvelous dialogue from the film: 

Helen (Wiest, Gil’s sister): It sounds like a boy Garry's (Helen’s son) age needs a man around the house.

Todd (Reeves, Helen’s daughter’s boyfriend): Well, it depends on the man. I had a man around.  He used to wake me up every morning by flicking lit cigarettes at my head.  He'd say, "Hey, asshole, get up and make me breakfast." You know, Mrs. Buckman, you need a license to buy a dog, or drive a car. Hell, you need a license to catch a fish!  But they'll let any asshole be a father.

 

Julie (Helen’s daughter):  If he thinks I'm having his baby now, he's crazy!

Helen:  Baby?

George (Helen’s boyfriend):  Your daughter's having a baby?

Helen: A baby?

George:  You're going to be a grandma?

Helen: No, no, no, no. I'm too young to be a grandmother. Grandmothers are old. They bake, and they sew, and they tell you stories about the Depression.  I was at Woodstock, for Christ's sake! I peed in a field!

 

Gil’s Grandmother:  You know, when I was nineteen, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster.

Gil: Oh?

Gil’s Grandmother: Up, down, up, down. Oh, what a ride!

Gil: What a great story.

Gil’s Grandmother:  I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn't like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it.

 

Frank [watching his son, Larry, get thrown from a moving car and rolling up next to his feet]: What was that?

Larry: [Larry stands up and brushes himself off] Oh, some friends of mine were just dropping me off.

Frank: Friends? Friends slow down, they even stop!

 

Frank: [talking to his son, Gil, about the unending burden of parenting] It’s not like that all ends at 18, or 21, or 41, or 61.  It never, never ends.  It's like your Aunt Edna's ass.  It goes on forever and it's just as frightening.  There is no end zone.  You never cross the goal line, spike the ball, and do your touchdown dance.  Never!  I’m 64 and Larry’s 27.  And he’s still my son.  Like Kevin is your son.  Do you think I want him to get hurt?  He’s my son.