Hanging with Stalkers

Tony Bennett died a few weeks ago. I had never seen him perform. The only encounter we ever had was in the basement of 30 Rock. I noticed him but didn’t pay too much attention because I had just discovered that I was sitting at a table with two lovely and intelligent women who had, on that day and that day only, elected to become stalkers. 

Who were they stalking? Arthur Kent, NBC international correspondent and over night sensation dubbed the Scud Stud. At least the two made a good choice when deciding whom to stalk. Did I mention he was very handsome and exceedingly sexy in his brown leather bomber jacket? He also had great hair. I was happy to watch him give me the news from the Middle East during the Gulf War.  That was enough for me.

Apparently not enough for my two co-workers. A friend and I had run into our colleagues, aka the potential stalkers, when headed for an after-work drink. They were on their way to the same bar because, as I would soon discover, Arthur Kent had just gone in there. 

We joined them and noticed they had picked a table with a good view of - you guessed it - Arthur Kent. Okay. Not a problem. I assumed they simply wanted a look at him. I assumed wrong. I discovered that when they brought out pictures showing pretty much everything Arthur had done that day. (How I now wonder since this was before we had cameras on our phones? But they had photos. One hour film developing? Must have been.)

Anyway, they had shots of Arthur Kent walking up and down the street (Madison Avenue as I recall) and going in and out of his hotel (completely forget which one). All the photos were taken as they shadowed him from across the street. I assured myself that they were being discreet. 

Or so I thought. While we were looking at the photos, we failed to notice that Stalker 1 (no names) had sent a drink to Arthur Kent. This was a bridge too far for me. Somehow, I came up with an excuse to get my friend alone outside the bar. “They’re stalking him! What do we do?” What could we do? We returned to the table and finished our drinks. I tried not to notice that Arthur Kent was ten feet away. 

But it was kind of hard to ignore him. That guy was really hot.  I’m not a stalker and don’t anticipate becoming one. However, I had to admit that by choosing Arthur Kent as the object of their affection, my stalker/colleagues did show good taste.

Arthur threw a smile our way as he passed our table on his way out. The stalkers did not follow. Maybe they were done for the day. Then again, maybe not. They knew where to find him. 

NOTE: Kent often reported standing beside Mile Boettcher a competent reporter who did not have stud qualities. Years later, I got on a flight from New York to London with him. He looked neat and well-groomed. He wore a great looking camel hair coat, Oddly enough, he was also on my return flight a week or so later. He looked beat. Whatever he’d been doing, grooming wasn’t a high priority. His beautiful coat appeared to have been through a lot. He might not have been glamorous - at least compared to Arthur Kent - but, if one can judge by experiences, he certainly worked hard. 

© 2024 Jane Kelly

My father’s $200K Weekend (Adjusted for inflation)

My brother did not want an obituary but that doesn’t mean I can’t tell a few stories about him. This is more of a family story but it explains how he ended up in the hotel business.

My mother loved hotels. So when the family spent the weekend in New York (something else she loved), she preferred to stay at the Waldorf-Astoria. In the Towers. If a place was good enough for the Duke and Duchess of Windsor who lived there for the New York Social Season, it was good enough for us. (It was not yet known just how much of a Nazi the Duke was.) 

It was on our first stay there, as I recall, that Rick became interested in how hotels were run. He was a freshman or sophomore in college without much direction but suddenly he had an interest and the next thing I knew he was off to Cornell, to the School of Hotel Management.

After graduation (and a brief stop in Wilkes Barre Pennsylvania) he was next off to Bermuda, the Bahamas and Marco Island before moving north to ski resorts like Mount Snow and Mount Washington. I was generally close behind. He and his wife, Beth, graciously made room for me and my friends. We took full advantage.

My father liked to say that one weekend at the Waldorf cost him $20,000 which, even with lower tuition rates adjusted to 2023 dollars, comes out to roughly $200,000.  Shortly after doing that calculation, he convinced my mother that the Taft Hotel was more convenient. To what I am not sure.

I got some career training at the Waldorf myself. In the age of manually run elevators, the operator let me drive the car. It required skill in those days. There was a handle to be manipulated to make sure the elevator stopped even with the floor. I got pretty good at hitting the mark although looking back I might have been allowed to operate the car only when my family members were the sole passengers. None of them were maimed or injured exiting the conveyance on my watch although I do not believe I was authorized to open the door. 

Sadly while my brother found a home in the hospitality business, my career dreams were dashed by the advent of self-operated elevators. Technology, not a uniformed operator in white gloves, decided where to stop the car. My expertise was no longer valued. In the wider world, I was replaced by a button.

My father told me not to be too upset. After all being an elevator operator had its ups and downs. I thought that was hysterical. I was nine.

© 2023 Jane Kelly

A Baseball Memory

Baseball posts tonight reminded me of what I was doing during the 10th inning of Game 6 in the 1986 World Series: flying into LaGuardia (neighbor to Shea Stadium) where the Mets were hosting Game 6. 

New Yorkers watching on the plane were feeling sad when the pilot turned off the screens for landing. The end of the game was a forgone conclusion. Boston would win. Not just the game, the Series. So, I was surprised to deplane into a concourse filled with jubilant New Yorkers. 

Why? Two words: Bill Buckner. He didn’t make the play Boston needed to clinch the series. There would be a Game 7 which New York would win.

The other day I saw an article “celebrating” the occasion. I still feel sad that flubbing one play at first base was the defining moment of Buckner’s career. 

I could never be an athlete. I could not have shown up on the field again. I lack the mental stamina. And, I have no talent.

© 2023 Jane Kelly

Gary Oldman Was Nice

“Are you a big Sean Penn fan?”

I liked the actor just fine but not enough to stand in an empty lot waiting for a glimpse of him. I explained to the man who asked that I was waiting for a friend. I did not know that the Old Town Bar and Grill (actually Restaurant not Grill but I don’t care - it feels like a bar and grill) was closed for filming (State of Grace 1990). This was pre-cell phone so my only choice was to wait in the adjoining empty lot for her to arrive. 

I was alone on the lot when Gary Oldman came out to have a cigarette. At that point I assumed that the actor could feel free to walk the streets of the US uninterrupted. I, however, recognized him right away. I had seen and admired him in Sid and Nancy. You would think I might want to tell him that. But, I didn’t. I, who loved to talking to strangers and would talk to a street lamp if I found myself standing next to one, did not say a thing. I never speak to a celebrity. 

How would the conversation go anyway? So, tell me Mr. Springsteen, what do you do for a living? What brought you to New York, Mr. Jeter? So, Mrs. Onassis, have you always lived in New York? The usual conversation starters just don’t seem to work.

So, as is my custom, after we acknowledged each other (maybe a nod) I ignored Gary Oldman. Little by little, he moved closer to me and glanced over. Not crowding me. Just making himself available. I got the impression that he was sending a message that if I wanted to ask him any questions, he would be happy to answer. But I lived by my rules. No talking to celebrities. 

Maybe I misread him completely but I got a very friendly vibe. Maybe he liked to talk to strangers and I was a stranger to him. Maybe he wanted to tell me to get lost, but I don’t think so.

I realize this isn’t much of a story but whenever I see the actor e.g. winning an Oscar or hear about him e.g. people love Slow Horses, I want to say that I think he is very nice or, at least, I suspect he is. I don’t really know. I don’t speak to celebrities.

© 2024 Jane Kelly

Lexington 1-2-3

A Puerto Rican Day Parade Memory. East side downtown bus. Driver having trouble dealing with traffic. So he got off.

Not a classic story but what elevates the tale is that, as far as I know, he never came back. 

This story does raise three questions:  

1) How long does it take a busload of New Yorkers to figure out the driver is not coming back for them. (In the early 90s about five minutes.) 

2) What percentage of the passengers know how to open the doors on those models? (Zero)  

3) How long does it take a busload of New Yorkers to figure out how to open the doors?  (A lot longer than you think.)

Lesson learned: if traveling on a popular parade day, take the subway.

© 2023 Jane Kelly

The Cops Dropped Her Off

Sometime in the 1990s, I did consulting that had me visiting libraries across the US and Canada. One of the things I liked to do on these trips was try out the local public transportation.

“Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet nor hail” or, more frequently cold, kept me off the local trains and buses. I was intrepid. So even on a cold February morning in Edmonton, Alberta, I waited on the platform to take the light rail to my session. The trip went well until I got to the other end of my ride and had to find my way to my final destination. 

For some reason, I was particularly confused in Edmonton. I wasn’t going to arrive on time without help. I guess I approached the policeman. He put down his right front window and I leaned in to explain my predicament. He was very nice.

As he launched into the directions, I realized there was a reason I was confused. He’d start, stop and correct himself. Finally, he just told me to climb in. 

He cleared his front seat which I believe was covered with his breakfast and I settled into the police cruiser. Front seat. Not where the criminals ride. However, I wondered if anyone watching me pull up at the meeting site in a cop car made the distinction. 

If they noticed that I arrived in a police cruiser, they were too polite to ask. No one mentioned it. I guess it would have been more suspicious if he came back to pick me up.

I am adding him to my list of very kind strangers who have no recollection I ever existed but whom I’ll never forget.

© 2023 Jane Kelly

Letterman at the DMV

I was only David Letterman’s neighbor for a year.  When I say neighbor I mean we lived in the same corner of the same small town. We lived on different roads.  Mine hit a dead-end at his. His house was a couple of miles from mine but to get from mine to his you passed at most two dozen houses. If that. So, I called him neighbor. Well, only to others. I never spoke to him.

During the time I lived in New Canaan, Connecticut, David Letterman was plagued by an uninvited guest on several occasions. I am fairly sure I spotted the woman walking down my road probably the best route from the train station to his house. It was rare for anyone but a jogger to pass by my house on foot, so I recall seeing a lone woman charging up the country road on a lovely Saturday. But, I didn’t think too much about her that morning, Later that day, she would appear on most US new outlets. In the meantime, I had to go to the DMV. Turns out David Letterman did too.

Letterman often drove up and down my road going to and from town. In town, I saw him at the Mobile station or, most frequently and most ironically, at the Post Office. (Reminder, his name was Letterman.)  His everyday car appeared to be a midnight blue Porsche 911, but I confirmed at the DMV that he also had two Ferraris. Different models I am told. I just knew they were both red. And to think I worried that I was extravagant buying duplicate t-shirts. 

To understand what happened next, you’ll need an idea of what my car looked like. I had moved from New York City bringing with me a car that was appropriate for parking overnight on an Upper West Side street. Read appropriate as old and scratched with fading paint and a missing left rear window. If I had felt any embarrassment about driving it in Connecticut, I could have passed the old Datsun off as my station car. That never became necessary only because I don’t embarrass easily. 

Back in the 1980s the nearest DMV to New Canaan was located in an old house in Norwalk. There was no parking lot, so I found a spot on the street. I was in line in the DMV when David Letterman came in with his assistant. I noticed, finished up whatever I was doing and left.

Back on the street, I was surprised to see that my car was parked between two Ferraris. A red Ferrari in front. A red Ferrari in back. We had four Ferraris in our town. One yellow. One blue. Two red. I’d been told the red ones belonged to Letterman. That was verified when he came out right behind me. 

I didn’t notice him until he was standing by the car in front of mine looking at paperwork that I guessed he pulled from the glove compartment. Or, wanted me to think he pulled from the glove compartment. He made quite a show of checking out some documents. 

My thought? He was keeping an eye on his cars and the owner of the disreputable vehicle that threatened them. I guess if I’d parked half a million dollars worth of powerful Italian driving machinery on the street, I would have done the same thing. 

While it’s good to have a neighbor with his own talk show (they keep you up-to-date on what’s going on in the neighborhood), there is a downside. You never know exactly whom in the neighborhood - or what local car - they might want to discuss. 

But it turned out I didn’t have to worry. I am pretty sure the memory faded quickly when he returned home and found a stranger hiding there.  Fearing for your life trumps fearing for your Ferrari.

© 2023 Jane Kelly

Underestimating MiMaMa

I only ever knew one grandparent. My mother’s mother. The other three grandparents had been long gone by the time I was born. My mother’s mother died at eighty-nine outliving her daughter by almost twenty years. 

My grandmother’s name was fluid. Born Jane Lee McDonald, she found that name a bit dull so she started calling herself Jean Marie. Distant relatives called her Jenny and that name appeared in one US Census. My sister, brother and I called her MiMaMa. 

MiMaMa wasn’t the warmest of women or the most likable. I support this argument with her favorite quote about herself: “If you didn’t like me, there was something wrong with you.”

Actually, some of her favorite quotes provide insight into her personality.

I once asked her why she appeared to like my sister more than my brother or me. Her answer? “I’ve known her longer.”

She did, however, try to be supportive - in her own way. Apparently, I was not the most attractive baby in the family let alone in the population at large. She told me, “I didn’t care what people said. I used to put you in your coach and walk you down the street just as if I were proud of you.”

Despite my ungainly appearance, apparently she believed I’d be able to catch a man which was critical in her eyes. “Grab a boy you like and hold onto him.” Was I off to my first job? No. College? No. First grade. Yep. No offense to the boys in my first grade class but none of them had yet proven they were marriage material. Besides, I wanted to wait a few decades before deciding if married life was for me.

But Mimama was of an era when marriage was a woman’s main goal. Marriage worked for her. She spoke from the perspective of one who had wed her great love. 

I don’t know at what age she met John Bennis, but she loved him for her entire life. He died at twenty-nine. Distant relatives told me that she threw herself in the grave at his funeral. I‘m not sure I buy that story but I can’t rule it out. She loved her husband dearly. Her only comfort was believing she would see him again in heaven. 

Mimama married a second time but she and her new husband made an agreement that they would each reunite with their deceased spouses after death. She continued to look forward to seeing John again, but she worried. Sixty years after his death, she pulled herself out of her wheelchair so I could see her full image. She was close to tears. “What will he want with an old woman like me?

I am sure my siblings and I underestimated both the painful situation she found herself in before she was thirty and the resourcefulness with which she responded.

Her life could not have been easy. Her parents immigrated from Ireland and settled in Philadelphia. I know they had three daughters of which she was the youngest, They might have had two sons. They were only names to me. Those boys might have been from another generation. When I return to genealogical research, I can figure that out. 

I don’t know what her father did for a living but I do know he walked over a train trestle to get there and that every payday he would bring her a nickel. The story is that one night returning from work he was hit by an unexpected train that crossed the trestle and killed him. He had her nickel in his pocket.

MiMaMa lost the most important man in her life three times. Her father when she was five, the love of her life in her late twenties and the husband who offered financial security in her early forties. Each time she had to bounce back. And, she did. 

I have photos of her opening a store in the Germantown section of Philadelphia sometime around 1922. Bennis’s Baby Clothes. She made and sold clothing for kids. I can’t imagine it was easy for a widow with two children starting a business in the 1920s. I don’t believe I could do it in today's world.

She married again around 1930 to a widower with six children and had another daughter. To hear her tell it, things remained comfortable throughout the Great Depression but while the country and the world recovered, her new family’s prospects were dimming. Her husband ran an ice company that sold to the retail market. Have you heard about refrigerators? The American public had. Her husband’s business failed and shortly thereafter he died. MiMaMa was back on her own. 

For a while, she and her two other daughters bunked with my newlywed parents, married three years with two babies according to the 1940 US Census. I am not sure how long that arrangement lasted but by the time I came along, she was living in a nearby apartment and teaching sewing to underprivileged teen-aged girls. I think her job was at a residence run by nuns. All I recall the adults talking about was the highly polished floors. It was on one of those shiny surfaces that she slipped and fell breaking her hip. She couldn’t have been much more than sixty when she found herself confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life which would be thirty years. Virtually all the time I knew her.

Again, something about her life I didn’t appreciate: what it must have been like for an independent woman who never quit in the face of multiple setbacks to become unable to do for herself,

I would go to see her often - not out of love but out of a sense of obligation. During most of those visits, she told me tales from her generation. I listened and learned but sadly I never wrote down what she told me. My memories are spotty, vague and confused.

If I had to pick a few words to describe MiMaMa, I would choose feisty, indomitable and, maybe, pushy. I never understood why my mother had a small wedding but chose to have her wedding portraits done by Bachrach. There are several shots of my mother and one of my father. Naturally. And, not so naturally, in my opinion, one of MiMaMa. I wasn’t surprised. I can picture her taking the best room when necessity drove her to move into my parents’ house.

Before she became mostly home bound, MiMaMa would return from funerals lamenting that there would be no one left to come to hers. I don’t recall much about her service except that she got a good crowd. I guess a lot of people liked her. 

There were many times I didn’t like MiMaMa. Maybe there was something wrong with me.

NOTE: My brother-in-law once told me that the women in my family were crazy. And he hadn’t even met the WAC turned underwear model or anyone on my father’s side - which rumor had it included a gangster’s moll. I like to think what he thought was true - starting with MiMaMa.

© 2023 Jane Kelly

What a Nice Man

My father was a very nice man. Not that he couldn't get angry. He could. Rarely, but he could. I can think of two times in the twenty-five years I knew him. But I think it is better to record a few stories that demonstrate how kind he could be.

My father worked for the same insurance company for over forty years. He worked his way up from the mailroom to Executive Vice President. I don't know if he actually started in the mail room or whether he used a popular cliche of the day to illustrate the progress he made. Either way, he moved up through the ranks.

I got to see him in action at work when I had a summer job in the Loan Department. He had a large office that sat off an open area filled with desks for clerical and secretarial staff. He didn't have to walk through that space because his office had a back door that opened to a small public lobby with an elevator and stairs.

I was rarely in his office but I was there one day when the back door opened and a young woman strode across his office to access the big clerical area.

"How ya doin', Mr. Kelly?" She was cheerful to the point of being jolly.

He replied with an equally cordial greeting as she passed in front of his desk.

I asked him why he didn't tell her it was a private office. He didn't think it really mattered. She only came through twice a day, was always pleasant, and never interrupted him. "If it becomes a problem, I'll suggest she use the other door." My opinion? He didn't want to embarrass her but, even more so, I imagine he got a kick out of the situation. He probably looked forward to her daily visits.

That was a nice man.

I found what might be his kindest action through the 1940 census. He never mentioned it.

At the time of the census, my parents had been married for three years and had two children. I wasn't one of them. I wouldn't be born for quite a while and by then they would be living in a house they owned. In 1940, I think they were still renting. I don’t have the exact address yet but I am fairly sure it had no more than four bedrooms. The people named as living in the house were listed based on their relationship to my father (head of household): my mother (wife), my sister (daughter aged 1), my brother (son aged 0), my grandmother (mother-in-law), my mother's sister (sister-in-law), my mother's half-sister (sister-in-law). I suspect my father was the only one working.

My grandmother's family had flourished during the Depression but as the 1930s came to an end, she found herself a widow for the second time. I don't know the details, but I recall my grandmother saying that the family made it through the Depression just fine, but then things took a downturn financially even before her husband died. (Her second husband owned an ice company. Have you heard of refrigerators?) I imagine that is how she and her other two daughters ended up living with a couple that were pretty close to newlyweds. 

That is a nice man.

After he died, my father was audited by the IRS. It was routine because the percentage of his income he gave to charity exceeded the standard maximum. I had to go through all his records and discovered he had missed some deductions. The IRS owed him. I’m still waiting For the money.

That's a nice man.

I could cite instances of his generosity on a personal level but let me just say there were many. He was a very nice man.

My father passed away on May 11, 1974 but his spirit had died almost three years earlier when my mother passed away. Watching his granddaughter while my sister worked gave his life some structure. Most days he walked the two-year-old to a near-by pub-like restaurant for lunch where they got to know the regular crowd. After my father died, my sister took her daughter there for lunch. All the patrons at the bar greeted Kelly warmly. They said they missed my father. They said he was a very nice man.

Yes, he was.

© 2023 Jane Kelly

Driving with Daddy

When I was a kid I spent a lot of time in the car with my father.

    Until I became a preteen, if he needed to visit a relative, I rode along.

    Until I got out of high school, if he needed to pick up and return relatives after holiday dinners, I rode along.

    Until I got out of college, I worked summers at his company. If he was going home when I was, I rode along.

Hours and hours of conversation and I remember none of it. 

I do, however, remember the singing. I think we preferred to sing after dark. (What? Did we think no one could hear us after sundown?) But, daylight could not stop us. Nothing could stop us. Our repertoire included American classics from the 19th century that everyone back then seemed to know (think Steven Foster), classic numbers from the American Song Book (Cole Porter was a favorite), and tunes from current Broadway shows (the "Lida Rose/Dream of Love" duet from The Music Man played a key role in our repertoire).

For people who could not actually sing, we were pretty good singers. In a world where one could earn points for enthusiasm, we would have been stars. I don't recall any practice sessions. I have no idea how he taught me to sing harmony. I guess he just led by example.

We also prided ourselves on our ability to sing off-key. Our "Long, Long Trail Awinding" was painful. Even we couldn't stand to move beyond a few bars.  

I wish I remembered more details and not just about the singing. I can only picture isolated moments from those drives even from the trips that occurred regularly.

On many Sunday afternoons, I rode with him to see his half-sister who, because of schizophrenia, was hospitalized for most of her adult life at the Norristown State Hospital outside of Philadelphia. Most of my memories are negative. My aunt, looking dazed, left bright red lipstick stains on cigarettes even though she never appeared to inhale. (I only figured that out as an adult.) The hospital was big and old with a marble entrance hallway that was often cold and frequently populated by patients with similarly vacant stares. It could have been a Hollywood set. A horror-movie Hollywood set. Looking back, this might not have been the best kid activity, but I never minded.

I imagine I went along at all times of year but what I can envision most are summer days when we took my tricycle along. There was a lone tree sitting on top of a mound that I am sure looked like a mountain to me.  Looking back it may have soared to heights of three, even four, feet. My father would lift my tricycle to the top, position it and I would ride down. I can’t imagine how many times he had to repeat this process, but he never complained. I think he was happy for the company. Or, maybe he liked seeing something joyous (childhood) in the midst of so much sadness.

I would make trips with him to see his mother's family. She had died when he was around seven leaving behind just one son, an only child. However, she had a huge number of siblings. I'd have to check the census to see how many. I never met all of them but my father was a dutiful nephew to all of them. And, they were doting aunts and uncles to him. Several of them still lived in the house where their parents had raised them, referred to as Third Street. Where on Third Street? I don't think I ever noticed or asked. The house was a three-story row home that looked the way most people envision row homes, lined up along a narrow street with white marble steps and not a spec of vegetation in front (although there was a lovely private fenced-in garden in the rear).  I imagine that even in a six-bedroom house, the family was crammed in although another thing I am not sure about is if they ever all lived at home at the same time. I wish I knew more about all of them but the main thing I recall is the ride to and from Third Street.

The journey, not the destination, mattered most.

    I remember a road that was like a roller-coaster when, in our pre-seatbelt car, I loved flying as we went over the bumps.

    I remember getting excited when we saw "the men," large metal electrical transmission towers that carried high-voltage electrical wires.

    I remember spending an entire trip trying without success to cross my legs the way my mother did when she rode in the front seat.

But most of all, I remember the singing. 

There was a long, long trail ahead and we were going to sing our way to the end. The end came way too soon for my father. He died at sixty-six. Forty-nine years ago as of this writing. I am still singing my way along. 

© 2023 Jane Kelly

Golf Lessons from Dad

I was never athletic. Luckily for me - bad for females in general - sports wasn’t a big thing in the life of most women in my day. As far as I knew, I did not have an athletic gene anywhere on my genome. Not even a recessive one for shuffleboard.

It isn’t that my family wasn’t into sports. They were. But by the time I came along sports in our house involved more watching than doing. 

My mother had ridden in her youth. We have lots of photos of her on horseback over the course of the 1930s. Then according to her account she was thrown and dragged. She never got on a horse again. I don’t know how much she ever played tennis but she was quick to hand her racquet over to me as soon as I was old enough to hold it. (Notice I did not say “use” it. Another story.)

My father was not a scholastic athlete but when younger he did play tennis and row sculls on the Schuylkill River. By the time I was born, he was in his forties and limited himself to golf. He was over fifty by the time I was ready to hold a club. Or, at least by the time he thought I should be ready. So, off we went for a round of golf together. 

I have brief memories of that day and I am fairly sure it was just one day.

    After becoming concerned that I was finding too many balls, he questioned me to make sure they had stopped rolling before I found them.

    He had me sit out a hole. I think it was the ninth hole. Whatever fairway ran by the clubhouse. Later, I thought maybe he hadn’t paid greens fees for me, but then I learned there were no greens fees for members. He was probably worried I’d be removed from the course.

    There were several creeks that crossed the fairways. I found it much safer to roll my ball across the old wooden bridges than try to hit it over the water. My estimate? I took around five strokes to get across.

    I was really good at getting out of sand traps. I mean, really good. Of course, that means I was also really good at hitting my ball into sand traps. Only one of the reasons you don’t see me on the LPGA tour.

But that wasn’t the main reason I ended my golfing career before my age hit double-digits.

There was a medical incident.

As I recall we were outside some sort of shop. It might have been the pro-shop but it wasn’t in the club house. My memory places it somewhere near the ninth hole. My memory also says it stocked ice but maybe it was only towels. Whatever. It was the spot my father picked to teach me how to drive a golf ball.

I remember his standing behind me, showing me how to position my feet, telling me where to direct my gaze, and placing his hands over mine to demonstrate a proper grip. Looking back on it, he must have said, “And now you would swing.” I, however, heard “swing” and swung.

There was blood. Not a lot. Not flowing, more like seeping from somewhere near his ear.  The people in the shop were very helpful. The details about how are hazy but no further medical treatment was required. 

Nonetheless, after that day, my father gave up on golfing as a family affair. My brother preferred caddying to generate revenue. Neither my mother nor my sister had any interest. As the youngest child, I had been his last hope. Luckily my father had golfing buddies who played every Thursday afternoon and most Sundays. 

Not that the rest of the family didn’t support his country club life. We backed him up when it came time to eat the monthly minimum - usually on a Sunday night when we climbed back into our church clothes so my mother would not have to cook.

Some of my fondest memories are sitting in the lounge area before dinner. The big comfortable sofas were definitely there but I wonder if my imagination added a fireplace for winter evenings. I like to recall a gentle fire warming the area, true or not.

My favorite visits took place in the warmer months when the patio was open for drinks and dinner was served under the awnings on the porch overlooking the course. I think those dinners shaped my taste in restaurants for my entire life. I might not have developed any golf skills but I became very good at dining.

Not every dining experiences was calm and bucolic. I recall meeting a boy my age (whom I could not identify under hypnosis) who liked to pretend-drive the golf carts. I will always wonder why the club stored the carts facing down a tall hill. I am pretty sure this kid could get the carts rolling but I don’t recall that he could get them to stop. I remember hopping off a slow-moving cart. I do not recall hearing any splashes after that and can only assume the carts never reached the precipice. No thanks to the two of us.

Eating the minimum had another great impact on my future life. One night when I was about seven, the club featured a raw bar. My first. I discovered oysters. I have memories of many trips to the buffet table. I have no idea how many oysters I ate but enough to last a lifetime. I didn’t get sick. I’d just consumed my quota. Twenty years passed before I tried again. I had one. My last.

NOTE TO SELF: I wonder whatever made my father think I’d be any better at bowling.

© 2023 Jane Kelly

Working with Daddy

Long before Take Your Daughter to Work Day (Now Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day) became a thing, one of the biggest events of my summer was the day my father took me to “the office.” I am not sure how the yearly event came about. Maybe my mother needed a day alone with me out of the house or maybe my father thought experiencing office life would be good for me. I don't actually know at what age he began taking me or how long the tradition lasted, but I know I was in elementary school when it started. I remember being in a body that was very small for the furniture. When I grew large enough to fit at a desk, I actually worked for pay for four or five summers. 

As an unpaid employee, my principle job was running numbers on an old-fashioned adding machine - probably unnecessarily. Nonetheless, I did learn something that helped me throughout my life. If your total is a penny off, you inverted two numbers somewhere. I never learned that trick anywhere else. 

I also learned that coffee breaks were important. Many of the executive staff - friends and golfing buddies - walked a block or two to meet at the greasy spoon every morning. I thought that was the restaurant name, not the category. I don’t remember what I ordered but I enjoyed the tradition a lot. The men (only men in those days) tolerated me with kindness.

After our break, I returned to the big table in my father’s office probably to put papers in alphabetical order for filing. And, then it was time for lunch.

Lunch was usually a more formal affair, a traditional business lunch minus the martinis that were often on the menu in that era.

After lunch, I spent some time “helping” a very kind woman at the switchboard - another archaic skill. But learning skills wasn’t the objective. Spending time was. 

I suspect we “worked” a short day. My father always wanted to beat the rush hour traffic. Besides, he needed to get home for cocktail hour with my mother. It was a different time.

© 2023 Jane Kelly

Mingling with spies in London

Back in the 1990s, my friend Susan and I stayed a few extra days in London after a business trip. One night, we ventured out to dinner at what we considered our regular neighborhood place near Kensington Palace. (We were not guests at Kensington Palace. I was staying around the corner on the top floor of a lovely but cheap hotel in a converted townhouse where I shared a bathroom with strangers I never saw. Susan must have still been on expenses. She was staying a tube ride away.)

I guess we were chatting about our trip to Russia a few years before when my friend heard the guy at the next table say, "I can't believe who they're letting into Black Ops these days." He meant us.

Susan was facing the table where two middle-aged Americans were finishing dinner and possibly their second, or third, bottle of wine. Somehow, we ended up in conversation with them during which we discovered:

   They worked for some American intelligence agency, a fact that should not have been disclosed but was because of something else we learned.

    They were very drunk. Although they should not have been because we learned one more thing.

    Only one person in the party should drink while the other abstains.

We were a bit skeptical about their claims to be spies of some sort, so the one guy who did all the talking offered what he considered proof.

He knew a lot about the NSA headquarters building which was still relatively new. We figured anyone could get ahold of that information although later I learned it wasn’t that easy. But, we figured his knowledge didn’t prove his status. How could we even know his information was accurate?

So, he directed our attention to the table in the back corner of the restaurant where a male customer (middle-aged and a little tough looking) was having dinner alone. The alleged agent told us why the solo diner had chosen that seat with his back against the wall: he could observe the entire restaurant but specifically his colleague and him. He told us to watch. When that fellow finished, he would be replaced almost immediately by a similar diner. Okay, he got that right.

Still, we were not convinced. So, he pulled out his passport. (Did I mention that he was very drunk and the other guy appeared too drunk to care?) Anyway, the passport. The biggest, fattest passport I had ever seen. I no longer recall what the hotspots around the world were at that time but I do remember that there was a stamp for each of them. This was not a passport used for an Eurail tour. Most of the stamps were for countries savvy tourists never visited. Including Rwanda in 1994.

The Rwanda genocide was only a few months behind us. Watching this alleged agent talk about it convinced me he was there. He might not have been there for the NSA, but he was there. He felt the pain. He got specific. He may not have been sober in the usual sense but his thoughts were. I feel bad that I challenged him once. Intelligence agent or not, his memories were real—and painful.

I don’t remember what other proof he offered, but when I pulled out my credit card, he had a violent reaction. He threw a fifty-pound note on our bill and paid. “Never pay with a credit card.” Apparently, he still thought Susan and I were inept Black Ops operatives. 

I didn’t quite believe the guy but I was still feeling a little creeped out by the experience. I insisted on walking Susan to the tube stop. We had just stepped inside when a young couple with Eastern European accents rushed up and thrust a map at us. A big map. I held one side. Susan held the other. I don’t recall what they asked about but I was convinced what they really wanted was a better look at us. And, our fingerprints. 

I tried to convince Susan that within the hour our fingerprints would be zooming across whatever technology spies used in that era. Susan thought I had gone around the bend.

I thought maybe I had when I got back to my room on the top floor of my small hotel. I heard footsteps.  Upstairs - but there was no upstairs. Perhaps an attic? Possibly, but by now it was pretty late. I could think of no reason anyone would be digging around in the attic at that hour. I stayed in that room several times - before and after that night - and never heard a sound from above. My fearful reaction seems ridiculous now - but not after a night out with alleged spies. 

Susan thought my reaction was silly. Until . . . she got on her flight to Washington DC (I lived in New York by then) and ran into the chatty drunk, now sober, by the restrooms. (The other guy was asleep or passed out.) She wasn’t totally comfortable having them on her flight, so when she ran into the two alleged agents in the parking lot, she kept her distance.

I think it was a good decision. Just in case.

© 2023 Jane Kelly

Times I wrote my own obituary

The other day a friend sent me an article about a mother who expressed her concerns about her daughter’s safety by drafting possible obituaries for her. This reminded me that I used to create headlines about unlikely death scenarios for myself. Not full obituaries. I am not morbid. Usually.

So on 2/6/2023 I checked to see if I had recorded any of my proposed headlines for a possible blog entry. I discovered that I had. On 2/6/2018. Do I see any significance that I opened the file exactly five years to the day since I created it? Only an indication that I really should start working on these entries a little more regularly. I have close to 200 to work my way through. 

Anyway. . .

I started doing this many years - actually many decades - ago when I saw a headline in my hometown newspaper:

Local Girl Killed in Car Crash in Remote Chinese Province.

 

This was before travel to even the easily accessible Chinese locations was at all common. I was fascinated. I wanted to know why was she there and how did she end up dying in such an unlikely manner. Then, I realized I was in that position on occasion. Not that often. Nonetheless there could be obit headlines for me that might raise some questions. One of them was even on a Chinese road.

Local Woman Killed in Crash on Chinese Highway 

Three Chinese Nationals Also Perish

I don’t know how the Chinese drive these days but in 1986 when I was lucky enough to go to China on business they drove like maniacs - at least on the two-lane roads my party used from Shenzhen to Guangzhou. If there was a speed limit, I was not aware of it. Every time we passed a car, we appeared to be in a game of chicken. Spoiler Alert: we always won.

Local Woman Trampled by Mob in Spanish Political Demonstration

I couldn’t have seen it coming. I was strolling down a street in Barcelona when an angry mob turned the corner no more than thirty yards ahead of me. They were carrying signs and, as the years go by I would swear, pitchforks but that was probably a memory from a Frankenstein movie. I had been chatting with a tourist from Florida who grabbed my arm and pulled me into a doorway. The mob went by chanting something. I have no idea what. I would never have known why I died. 

Local Woman Dies in Overturned Irish Army Van

Three Members of West German Equestrian Team Also Killed

How long ago did this happen, you ask. It was the WEST German Equestrian Team. After the Dublin Horse Show, I got to ride back to the stables with my brother’s sister-in-law whose horse, if I recall correctly, had just won. The memory of the actual show was eclipsed by the memory of the ride. At least the part of the ride when the van in which we were riding ran onto a curb, a very high curb. Three very large, very loud German riders were tossed around in the back seat. Any one of them could have crushed me to death. The driver quickly regained control, but I couldn’t help thinking the headline announcing my death would have been thought-provoking.

Local Woman Killed in Crash of Mexican Laundry Truck

I didn’t actually know why I was traveling in the back of a laundry truck in Mexico City. I later found out I was being smuggled across a picket line at the University of Mexico. All I knew is that a coworker and I were being transported in an empty panel truck while holding onto poles in an effort to stay upright. It took a lot of effort. It was probably best we couldn’t see the driver or the route he was taking. My memory says it was a bumpy one. 
 

Yoko Ono Killed in Runway Crash at Heathrow

380 Others Also Perish

This headline would have just been annoying. Who wants to be reduced to a number. I didn’t see Yoko. She was in First Class. But I knew how the headline would read. I was happy when they delayed the fog-plagued flight until morning. 

All of these unused obits are old. I don’t know if that should make me happy or sad. My life is much simpler now.

Local Woman Killed Rolling Off Couch While Reaching for Dropped Remote

Victim Unable to Find Phone to Call for Help

Woman Unable to Open Food Packaging Starves to Death

No one would stop to read that article.

© 2023 Jane Kelly

Mark Wahlberg vs. Matt Damon

Apparently, I am not the only person who has trouble telling Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg apart. I’ve read articles about the phenomenon. The difference seems obvious to me now. Now - after watching several Mark Wahlberg movies believing they starred Matt Damon.

Which is why it was not surprising that when, around the turn of the last century, I passed a friend a note (pre-texting) at a trendy LA restaurant “Matt Damon is at the next table.” She responded, “No. He’s not.” 

She was right. He wasn’t. Mark Wahlberg was. Not that I could convince her of that. 

Mark and what appeared to be three of his buddies were seated beside us. Mark picked up the tab. For their table. Not ours.

Me: See. He paid.

Friend: They were just some guys who wandered in off the street.

Me: Number 1, we are in LA. Guys don’t wander in off the street. They probably valet-parked. Number 2, we just paid $60 each for a snack. We didn’t even have a meal. I don’t think they are just some guys.

She still didn’t believe me. She never would. Not that the topic came up very often. Until Entourage came on HBO when I brought it up again. 

Me: See. We were there at the beginning.

Friend: Blank stare.

She never believed me. 

NOTE to self: when you ran into Matt Damon in Cambridge MA, you did not think he was Mark Wahlberg.

@ 2023 Jane Kelly

Stuckey’s

During a year of illness following two years of pandemic, I really missed taking road trips. Even before I got sick, I accepted that I would never be the road warrior I had been when young. Sixteen hour days with only an AM radio for company in a 1971 VW convertible - not the most comfortable car ever manufactured - were out of the question. My dream was to drive across the country again but this time in two hour hour spurts. Two, two-hour shifts a day.

Ideally, I would rise at a reasonable hour (i e. leisurely pace), drive two hours to a roadside attraction where I could sightsee, find refreshment and gather the strength to move on. If no attraction was available, I might be able to find a spot for a leisurely lunch before starting an afternoon drive that had to end at an overnight accommodation with proximity to a nice meal. 

Previous driving trips were challenges. Get there fast. Keep moving. Tell yourself you’ll come back to visit the scenic sights. Don’t waste time on meals. If there was ever a time to take advantage of convenience stores, those trips provided the right opportunity.

Many years ago, when I started my first drive cross-country from Pennsylvania, I found a band of Wawa, another area of Sheetz and then, when I hit the Midwest, Stuckey’s. Miles and miles of interstate punctuated by little else than Stuckey’s. A traveler in those days could pick one on a whim. A traveler in those days had to pick one on a whim. There was not much else around. And, if you missed the exit? No worries. There would be another.

All Stuckey’s looked the same. I found that comforting. They sold the same tchotchkes, offered the same facilities and served the same food.  I forget what I would order but I am sure it was the same thing every day. Same was a keyword. 

So, I was really surprised when I stopped for lunch one day at about 1PM and just did not want the same-old-same-old. I don’t know what I found to substitute but the desire for change mystified me. I got back in my car and started driving. I just wasn’t hungry. It took me a while to realize that was not surprising. 

I’d already eaten lunch at 11AM.

© 2023 Jane Kelly

My Life as a Trucker

More than 2,000 legionnaires came to the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia in July 1976, for the American Legion's annual three-day convention. Over 200 people who visited the hotel became sick. Twenty-nine died. The mystery disease that killed them would come to be known as Legionnaire's disease. The hotel closed that November. 

Eventually, all the furnishings were sold off - including the dishes. The illness was related to the duct work. None of the hotel furnishings were in any way at fault. But, the stigma persisted over the years. So when my brother bought the dishes for a large hotel he was running, he got a good price. What he did not get was anyone willing to transport them on a five-hundred-mile trip to Northern New England. Enter little sister, Janie, graduate student, fortuitously on break.

I was happy to serve. Being an over-the-road trucker had always been a dream of mine - before I learned the reality of long hours, tight deadlines and loading your own truck. I envisioned hours of leisurely drives through lovely settings to exciting locations while my brain enjoyed the free time to do whatever it chose. Any trucker can tell you why I was wrong. 

My own experience had been and, with this one exception still has been, limited to a few UHaul trucks. Most for moving. I loved the opportunity to transport hundreds of place-settings of china. A true trucking job. I was very proud, but given the public's suspicion of all things Bellevue for many decades, I could not brag about my new career for forty years i.e. now.

I did not have to pack or load the dishes. I took a UHaul to a location that I have long since forgotten. In my memory, I went after dark but I think that scenario might be a product of my imagination. It all felt very cloak-and-dagger as I set off up I95 - the next morning I am sure. I wasn’t so into intrigue that I wanted to travel in the dead of night. Besides, in those days, without social media, there wasn’t as much intrigue. Nonetheless, I would not have shared info about my load with the guy in the next truck at the rest stop, let alone the world at large on the Internet.

The ride was a quintessential East Coast trucker experience. Uneventful except for a snide toll-collector on the Jersey Turnpike ridiculing me for not knowing how many axles my truck had - as if I were the first Uhaul driver who didn’t have the correct change ready. I am still annoyed.

Anyway, all remained quiet until Rhode Island. In the late seventies, the drive from Philadelphia to Boston had a couple of hairy spots not least of which was the merge of I95 and I195 in Providence with a little Route 6 thrown in for good measure. (It has since been moved and adjusted.)

That intersection used to be a huge merge. I can’t find out how many lanes at its largest. Not two. Not three. Not even, I doubt, four. It felt like eight. I was in the far left lane when it happened. A blow-out. In heavy traffic. Heavy merging traffic. 

I can’t describe the details of what happened next. I should dramatize wild careening through unforgiving traffic while the truck veered out of control. I am sure there was some swerving involved but my recollection is that sensible drivers figured out what was going on and let me pass. In fact, I have no idea how I pulled it off but I would say less than a minute passed before I found myself parked neatly on the side of the road in my unscratched truck.

How did I get help?  I have no idea. Certainly not by cellphone. I assume I waited until someone (cop, Good Samaritan or tow truck operator) stopped and somehow got in touch with the local UHaul guy who came and got me. He lived in the office and was thrilled for the company. He even offered to share the roast he was preparing in a toaster oven.

That turned out to be unnecessary. High-school friend, Ginny Walsh, and her mother came to retrieve me and took me home for a great meal, a good sleep and, I am sure, a nutritious breakfast. They returned me to the UHaul office the next morning and I resumed my trip on a new tire. I arrived without further disaster. 

No one was ever harmed by the unjustly maligned dinnerware which arrived almost completely intact. Almost. Tragically, one dinner plate was lost.

Thus ended my career as a trucker.

NOTE TO SELF: Mike Perlis

I had a passenger in the empty truck on the way home. A recent college grad who worked for my brother had gotten sick and needed to go home to Connecticut to recuperate. His mother was a music librarian/professor at Yale so I dropped him off in New Haven. Then I moved on.

Years later when I worked from my apartment in New York City, I kept the TV on for background noise. It was the height of the trashy-talk-show era. I am pretty sure Sally Jesse Raphael was on. I looked up and spotted the kid. Mike Perlis had become the publisher at Playboy. I checked on him to write this. He went on to other jobs including serving as President and CEO of Forbes. He is currently on the Board as Vice Chairman.

I take some credit for his success. I saved his life. Okay, he wasn’t that sick. And, okay he probably could have gotten to a train. But I like to think I played a small role in his career. Whatever. We had a fun ride.

© 2023 Jane Kelly