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