Elisabeth is on the phone to Jake. They’re talking about the baby. All the cute little things he’s doing and she is, at this end of the phone, smiling and animated in a way that she only gets when she is thinking about her children and grandchildren. She has struck a bargain with herself to let herself relax and let go of the small thoughts that weigh her down here in Florida. She gives advice about problems the kids are experiencing but she has learned to keep it simple and limited. She knows that the boys have lives of their own and she’s able to contain herself like she never could when they were living at home, under our roof. Also, they have wives who have parents of their own. Too much input can sour the mood of parenting. I remember the boys when she would tread too heavily on them with the advice and the scheduling… “Oh! Mom! I can do this myself!”, they used to say. The whine penetrating the sheet rock walls and making the other boys and me smile, thankful it was not us at the receiving end of her guidance. But, also, thankful that she was there and sharing and caring. A delicate balance which we are glad to weigh.
Vivian Flamm left yesterday, early in the morning, to catch her flight back up to Maine. Like all visitors we were glad to have the company and almost as glad to see her off. I hope that doesn’t sound too callous because I don’t mean it to be. While she was here it was so nice to hear Lizzy and her gabbing and laughing over their afternoon wine. It was nice to see Liz at her best cooking up special meals and setting the dining room table for a guest. She loves that-though she might claim not to it is plain that she does enjoy being the host. And the same way she patiently palavers with her sons for half an hour at a time while I can’t seem to keep a phone conversation going for more than a few minutes, she will entertain a guest long after I’ve retreated to the Florida room with the dog next to me and a book in my hand. It is a strain for me to continue a conversation that I have lost interest in. I am apt to become impolite when pressed to communicate. I don’t feel like being impolite but I realize now (it only took seventy years!) that that is what I am. Unlike Elisabeth, I have few filters and less patience.
So, we visited Vivian last year up at her house in Maine and spent what I thought was a couple of pretty uneventful days in her cabin and visiting a rustic town or two. Listening to Elisabeth and her talk about it it was a very successful trip enjoyed by all. We offered her an invitation to come down to us in Florida. We’d met her here through mutual friends (Stuart and Phyllis Fierman). She was renting a condo in Jupiter at an exorbitant price and her little dog had eaten some of the casing off of one of the interior doors. She was distressed at the prospect of losing her security deposit so I repaired it for her. She invited us to dinner as a sort of repayment. and she was outgoing and fun to be around so we kept up the contact. That contact resulted in the trip to Maine during the summer, and an invitation from us for a more affordable visit to Florida. She came for a week. A duration that was easy to manage even for me and a welcome distraction for Elisabeth. I spent a bit of time with the ‘girls’ but mostly they occupied each other with food shopping, trips to the second-hand stores and laughing over wine and TV in the evening. My part was to stay out of the way , which I think I did quite well with a characteristically pleasant demeanor. They formed a classic girlie twosome. I would have been a fifth wheel or a third leg-I am not clear on the correct application-but I kept in my place.
The most positive interaction between them took me completely by surprise. I noticed them out on the front porch each with a bit of red wine in stemmed glasses by their side and their I-Phones clutched in hand in the modern, classic , I-phone pose. Nothing amazing about that but…I suddenly realized Elisabeth was dispensing instructions to Vivian on how to adjust the phone. How to access information. How to delete mail. Barely a few months ago Elisabeth was up to her neck in I-Phone confusion and here she was now the teacher! I hung back out of sight while I listened to the confident advice she was dispensing and marveled at my student’s abilities. Like a parent at a school graduation or a cub scout awards banquet my heart swelled up with pride. And the pride she felt was also palpable. I left them alone with their phones and their comradery and retreated to my book. Smiling.
The last night of her stay we took her out to dinner to what one might call a tourist visit into enemy territory. Vivian is very proud of the fact that her parents were ardent Communists. Back in the day she was exposed to Soviet style politics of the type that was so popular before the rise of Nixon and Joe McCarthy. During the depression it was in vogue the way it was popular to belong to the Hippie/anti-war movement of the 60’s. Communist Party style meetings in Brooklyn. Summer camp in the Catskills. Union Labor demonstrations. Zionist fund-raising and the movement for the establishment of a Jewish state. If you meet Vivian it is only a matter of minutes until you learn all about her family’s leftist leanings in the old days. While my family never went in for that stuff-we were from Philadelphia not New York- I became heavily influenced by the “Left” while in college. She and I must have come within touching distance at some anti-war protest or a rock concert in the 60’s somewhere for sure. So, it was with a heavy-handed salute to history and irony that on her last night in town we went to the fish fry dinner at the local VFW post. At 5:00 pm we took a table among the last of the Korean war veterans and the graying, slightly paunchy Viet Nam Vets we once thought we hated. Along with the crowd dressed in grandpa and grandma retirement garb we snuggled comfortably and we drank the wine from a box from plastic disposable cups and chowed down on “Surf ‘n Turf” and cole slaw. The flags and the pictures of the regiments of soldiers lined the walls and the urinal target of “Hanoi Jane” made the place seem like a tourist destination to Disney’s Old Soldier-Land. The dislike for the The War and the War Machine felt present but substantially muted. In a way I felt like I was a spy out of date in a land where I once was the enemy but now was a neutralized non-combatant.
Elisabeth and Vivian talked about the food and I ate my steak. I watched as they set up the bandstand in preparation for the Master of Ceremonies an Elvis imitator named “Cowboy Bob” and a night of Karaoke. I wondered what ever happened to the Nitty Gritty Dirt band and “The Eve of Destruction”, and “one-two-three what are we fighting for?” Is there is no Friday gathering for the people who believed in those things. Just as well. We finished up our meal before the evening entertainment began. We had alternate plans. We took a ride out to Congregation Beth Am in Jupiter where we first met Vivian so she might meet up with some of her other acquaintances before she left for Maine in the morning. One last “fling”. We parked in the lot and walked into the well lighted, well appointed temple and wished each familiar face a Sabbath greeting- “Shabbat Shalom!” the service was longer than usual as a seventy year old woman was becoming bat mitzvah. She was obviously wealthy and dressed in gold and plush, black velvet, looking too much like a portrait of Elvis. Judging from the size of the audience she must have been a very popular person in the temple. The usually sparse crowd on a Friday night was replaced by a packed house of couples dressed expensively in suits and cocktail dresses. The Bat Mitzvah ‘girl’ stayed on the stage through the entire service crossing and uncrossing her legs and smiling down at all of her friends below. It is impossible for me not to note on the evidence of plastic surgery and cosmetology everywhere. Everywhere, but I comment here not in judgement, but for the sake of accuracy. And while enjoying a sampling of the sweets at the after-service oneg it came to me, that this is where the hippies went. This place is the VFW for the protesters. For the people who went to see Country Joe and stood outside of the Bitter End to hear Bob Dylan.
We walked out to the car and the ‘girls’ were talking about setting their I-phones for a 6:30 alarm so Vivian would be on time for her flight. We made our plans to try to get back to Maine this Summer. Mostly I was quiet on the ride back to Hobe Sound thinking about where I fit in. I felt the same, pretty much, at both the VFW and in temple. My back ached the same in the folding metal chair bellied up to the table at the Vet’s as I did in the plushly upholstered pews. Not much difference to me at all. I was looking forward to sleeping in my own bed and also visiting and snuggling down in the tight quarters of Vivian’s book-filled cabin in Maine. I think I’d like to go fishing up there this time around. Perhaps I will visit the VFW-or the Grange-and have a drink with some of the fellas and tell ‘fish stories’. I feel good about being an American-finally. It is a great and wonderful place.
Sunday, February 9, 2020
