Yearbook, Chapter 7

Bubbles and Bennie met by the lake in the afternoon on the day before they both were leaving for their different college destinations.  Bubbles had called Bennie to invite him to meet her.

"Are you nervous about tomorrow, Bennie?"

"Yeah, I am.  This is really the beginning of being a grownup.  I'm not sure I'm ready."

"I'm scared...but, there's no turning back."  

"I agree.  But, at least we have each other."

"I think we should start college on a fresh page.  I really like you and we had a lot of fun...but let's let it go.  Go to college and find new experiences.  We'll always have Oswego."

"If that's the way you want it..."

"I do."

They kissed as if it were for the last time.  

__________

the end

HUAC

The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having fascist and communist ties.

Beginning on October 20, 1947 (77 years ago), the committee held nine days of hearings into alleged communist propaganda and influence in the Hollywood motion picture industry. After conviction on contempt of Congress charges for refusal to answer some questions posed by committee members, "The Hollywood Ten" were blacklisted by the industry. 

"The Hollywood Ten" consisted of the following producers, directors and screenwriters: Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner, Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott, and Dalton Trumbo.

Studio executives told the committee that wartime films—such as Mission to Moscow, The North Star, and Song of Russia—could be considered pro-Soviet propaganda, but claimed that the films were valuable in the context of the Allied war effort, and that they were made (in the case of Mission to Moscow) at the request of White House officials. 

In response to the House investigations, most studios produced a number of anti-communist and anti-Soviet propaganda films such as The Red Menace (August 1949), The Red Danube (October 1949), The Woman on Pier 13 (October 1949), Guilty of Treason (May 1950), I Was a Communist for the FBI (May 1951, Academy Award nominated for best documentary 1951), Red Planet Mars (May 1952), and John Wayne's Big Jim McLain (August 1952).

Eventually, more than 300 artists – including directors, radio commentators, actors, and particularly screenwriters – were boycotted by the studios. Some, like Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, Alan Lomax, Paul Robeson, and Yip Harburg, left the U.S or went underground to find work. 

Others like Dalton Trumbo wrote under pseudonyms or the names of colleagues. Only about ten percent succeeded in rebuilding careers within the entertainment industry.

Trumbo continued working clandestinely on major films. His uncredited work won two Academy Awards for Best Story: for Roman Holiday (1953), which was presented to a front writer (Ian McLellan Hunter), and for The Brave One (1956), which was awarded to a pseudonym used by Trumbo.  

When Trumbo was given public screen credit for both Exodus (by Otto Preminger) and Spartacus (by Kirk Douglas) in 1960, it marked the beginning of the end of the Hollywood Blacklist.  He finally was given full credit by the Writers' Guild for Roman Holiday in 2011, nearly 60 years after the fact, and 35 years after his death.

Regrets 3

Ernest Borgnine, the actor, made a very positive impression on me during my youth appearing in many films: From Here to Eternity as Sergeant Judson, Vera Cruz as Donnegan, Bad Day at Black Rock as Coley Trimble and especially Marty as Marty Piletti.  

In the first three of the above films, Borgnine portrayed a villainous character.  However, he was the lovable protagonist in Marty.

Between 1951 and 1967, Borgnine appeared in some 37 films.  He was enjoying a very successful career.

After I graduated college in May 1967, I moved to the Detroit Michigan area as my brother Ted lived there.  I met and started dating Bonnie (Bonita) Sobol, whom I married the following year.

One day later in 1967, I found myself with Bonnie and some of her friends in the VIP lounge at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport.  Two of our group were heading out on their honeymoon.

As I didn't know well anyone in the group except for Bonnie, my eyes wandered around the VIP lounge, my first and only time in such an environment.  And there right in front of me, sitting alone on a sofa intently watching TV, was Ernest Borgnine.

Instead of walking over to engage him in conversation, I was frightened at the prospect that he would bite my head off for bothering him.  

In 2012, shortly before his death at 95, I saw his last  interview.  He was asked what he had learning over his long life.  He responded with, "Be nice to people."  That quote was reinforced by what I read in his autobiography and what I saw in numerous videos about his traveling around the USA.  

I regret that I did not have the courage to talk to Ernest Borgnine when I had the chance.  I am convinced that he would not have bitten my head off.  Quite the opposite I am sure.  

Take advantage of all opportunities.

Fiddler on the Roof

 Fiddler on the Roof  is a 1971 American period musical film produced and directed by Norman Jewison based on the 1964 stage musical of the same name. Set in early 20th-century Imperial Russia, the film centers on Tevye, played by Topol, a poor Jewish milkman who is faced with the challenge of marrying off his five daughters amidst the growing Antisemitism in his small village of Anatevka.

As I previously mentioned, I don't know much about the early life of my maternal grandparents who emigrated from Imperial Russia to the USA in the first decade of the Twentieth Century.  However, Fiddler on the Roof gives me some ideas about such early life.

The film was nominated for 8 Academy Awards, winning 3: Best Cinematography, Best Music: Scoring Adaptation and Original Song Score and Best Sound.  Among its nominations were Best Picture (won by The French Connection), Best Director (won by William Friedkin for The French Connection) and Best Actor (won by Gene Hackman for The French Connection).

Fiddler on the Roof is a metaphor for survival in a life of uncertainty, precariousness while "trying to scratch out a pleasant simple tune without breaking his neck."

Through Yente the matchmaker, Tevye arranges for his eldest daughter, Tzeitel, to marry Lazar Wolf, an affluent butcher.  Arranged marriage was a common practice in many cultures, including Jewish culture, and still exists in today's world.  Romantic marriage is a more modern concept. 

However, Tzeitel is in love with her childhood sweetheart, Motel the tailor, and begs her father not to force her to marry the much older widower, whom she does not love.  Tevye reluctantly agrees and, despite Lazar Wolf's humiliation, Tzeitel and Motel are married. 

Tevye persuades his wife Golde to accept the marriage of Tzeitel and Motel by claiming that a prophetic dream told him that Lazar Wolf's dead wife will haunt Tzeitel if she marries her husband.  Furthermore from the dream, Tzeitel is fated to marry Motel.

The necessity of creating the dream to convince his wife demonstrates the matriarchal structure of the Jewish culture...outside of the religious life.

At the end of the film, Tevya and his family are forced to leave Anatevka and, like my grandparents, emigrate to America.