Sometimes I wake up and think of you and realize you were in my dream. The dream seems so real that I reach out to embrace you.
Sometimes I am sure you are here, but I am unable to find you. It feels too real for it to have been a dream, and if it was I am upset that I am awake and you are not here with me.
I lie back and the sadness sweeps over my soul and the longing won’t leave me alone. I fall back to sleep and awaken once more to the realization that I didn’t dream of you again, and I feel disappointed.
I get out of bed and walk to the window. It is another perfect day except that you are not here, and so I await the night and long for another seductive dream.
Our first color television became something to argue over, just like a million other things when we were children. My brother and I were assigned days of the week when we would take turns to choose our programs. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays were mine and David’s days were Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. This schedule worked pretty well except for Sundays which were to be divided between us. David and I didn’t share well; in fact, we hardly got along, so the only television in the house was the source of countless conflicts. To add to our troubles, we had a live-in housekeeper named Sadie who favored my brother. Of course, when my parents were around, she wouldn’t display this inequity; no, only when they were out for the evening and she was in charge.
As soon as I found this old photo of David in front of the T.V., it brought back all the memories — good and bad. I loved those programs because they took me away from the turmoil in our house and out of my own spinning head for the few hours in the evening when I was allowed to watch. The problem was always Sunday.
This particular Sunday that I recall, David took charge of the T.V. early in the evening and wasn’t going to share. When I complained to Sadie, she responded that David could watch what he wanted. I remember arguing how unfair that was, and before long, Sadie was dragging me out of the living room and into the bathroom. Maybe her intention was just to wash my mouth out with soap, but then why was she forcing my head against the porcelain sink? She was careful not to break the skin or cause any bruising that would alert my parents, but the repeated banging was painful.
Another Sunday evening when David and I were arguing over what program to watch, Sadie forced me outside on the porch and locked the kitchen door. It was dark, and I yelled to be let back in. I don’t know how much time passed, but it seemed like forever until she opened the door, careful to make sure it was well before my parents were due home.
I must have told my mother about what was going on when they weren’t home, but when I asked her as an adult why she didn’t do anything about these attacks, she told me she never knew. Why wouldn’t I have told her? Did Sadie threaten me in some way that things could get even worse if I tattled on her? Or could it be that my mother was afraid if she told my father that it would be the end of their “nice evenings out together.” I wish I knew the answer.
Still, I loved watching my favorite programs. Here are the ones I liked most: Lassie, The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, I Married Joan, Leave it to Beaver, Perry Mason, Beat the Clock, The Millionaire, My Friend Flicka, Queen for a Day and Whirlybirds. Do you remember your favorites?
…her name was Katie. And after a lifetime I remember this today. She would come to my house at lunchtime and visit with our housekeeper when my mother wasn’t home and I was supposed to be napping. I was not quite old enough for a big bed, and that is why I still slept with training rails.
I don’t remember why I was out of bed and standing at the kitchen door, but I do remember being dragged back into my room by this woman Katie.
I had a stuffed doggy who came with a collar and leash, and that afternoon Katie removed both and placed the collar around my neck and looped the leash through the bars of the bed so that I was tied down and restrained.
I don’t remember anything more except for crying. Screaming and crying. Screaming and crying. I don’t even remember who came to release me much later from my safe bed that had become my prison.
Years later I remember asking my mother why she let this happen to me. She said she didn’t know what I was talking about. She said it must have been a dream.
It wasn’t a dream. I know this happened. Was I too afraid to tell anyone for fear I would be punished or no one would believe me? That is what they say happens to children who are abused. I didn’t know I was abused then. I remember now.
Ever since I can remember, I’ve had a sophisticated food palette. My parents introduced me to fine dining mostly because on the weekends the housekeeper was off, and they wanted to go out, not once but twice. Saturday was for more formal dining, and Sunday was always casual.
Of course in the fifties and sixties we were not offered the complex varieties of the cuisines of today, but we still enjoyed our food adventures just as much. The most popular restaurants in my city were on La Cienega Boulevard, well known as Restaurant Row. Our two favorites were Lawry’s the Prime Rib and Steers for Steaks. Lawry’s has always been acknowledged for their savory prime rib and signature salad, tossed at the table in an ice cold spinning bowl. Steers offered a succulent culotte steak and fresh garlic bread with copious amounts of butter that I can still taste today. In 1947 Restaurant Row inspired Southwest Airlines to offer a weekend excursion built around it.
When we didn’t feel like driving, we could take just a short two-block walk from our home and arrive at several of our favorite weekend dining spots. Cafe Swiss on Rodeo Drive is where I tasted my first cuisses de grenouille (frog legs) with butter, lemon and parsley and fell in love with escargot, vichyssoise and crepe suzette.
Ah Fongs on Beverly Drive was our favorite for Chinese food. Their Beef Soo Chow and Rumaki were out of this world, and in the late sixties it was here where I tried Chinese Chicken Salad for the first time. It was the only Chinese Restaurant around, and it was very popular for Sinatra and the rest of the Hollywood elite.
A favorite of mine was an Italian restaurant a few blocks west called Peppino’s. I loved the red leather booths dressed in white formal tablecloths and the tuxedo-clad waiters with their Italian accents, but what always drew me back was the big cart pulled up to the table by a special chef who would toss the Caesar Salad into a giant wooden bowl — one-minute eggs, olive oil, lemon juice, fresh parmesan cheese, garlic, lemon juice and anchovies.
Fine restaurants fifty years ago offered an experience that is rarely available in even the better of the fashionable restaurants of today. Among the things I miss the most are a quiet ambiance, professional waiters and waitresses whose goal in life was pleasing their customers, fine linen and tableware, and the absence of cell phones.
My favorite Caesar Salad recipe:
INGREDIENTS
18 to 24 crisp, narrow leaves from the hearts of 2 heads of romaine lettuce, or a package of romaine hearts (about 1 pound)
2 tablespoons freshly grated parmesan cheese, imported Parmigiano-Reggiano only
Special equipment: A large mixing bowl; a small frying pan
PREPARATION
Preparing the salad components:
You will probably need 2 large heads of romaine for 3 people — or use a commercially prepared package of “romaine hearts,” if they appear fresh and fine. From a large head remove the outside leaves until you get down to the cone where the leaves are 4 to 7 inches in length — you’ll want 6 to 8 of these leaves per serving. Separate the leaves and wash them carefully to keep them whole, roll them loosely in clean towels, and keep refrigerated until serving time. (Save the remains for other salads — fortunately, romaine keeps reasonably well under refrigeration.
To flavor the croutons, crush the garlic clove with the flat of a chef’s knife, sprinkle on 1/4 teaspoon of salt, and mince well. Pour about a tablespoon of olive oil on the garlic and mash again with the knife, rubbing and pressing to make a soft purée.
Scrape the purée into the frying pan, add another tablespoon of oil, and warm over low-medium heat. Add the croutons and toss for a minute or two to infuse them with the garlic oil, then remove from the heat. (For a milder garlic flavor, you can strain the purée though a small sieve into a pan before adding the extra croutons. Discard the bits of garlic.)
To coddle the egg, bring a small saucepan of water to a simmer. Pierce the large end of the egg with a pushpin to prevent cracking, then simmer for exactly 1 minute.
Mixing and serving the Caesar:
Dress the salad just before serving. Have ready all the dressing ingredients and a salad fork and spoon for tossing.
Drizzle 2 tablespoons of olive oil over the romaine leaves and toss to coat, lifting the leaves from the bottom and turning them towards you, so they tumble over like a wave. Sprinkle them with a generous pinch of salt and several grinds of pepper, toss once or twice, then add the lemon juice and several drops of the Worcestershire, and toss again. Taste for seasoning, and add more, if needed.
Crack the egg and drop it right on the romaine leaves, then toss to break it up and coat the leaves. Sprinkle on the cheese, toss briefly, then add the croutons (and the garlicky bits in the pan, if you wish) and toss for the last time, just to mix them into the salad.
At a very young age, I remember celebrating Chanukah. I’m not sure if we lit the Menorah or if we even had one. What I remember most is looking forward to receiving a gift every day. My favorite year was the boxing glove one when my brother David and I would stop fighting long enough to put them on before we lit into each other. Each year after that there was one less gift until there was one and then none. I’m pretty sure we had a small tree once or twice but nothing special. It was set up in the corner of our playroom, and it was adorned with some silver tinsel wire without a single ornament. I never knew I was missing the smell of gingerbread baking or latkes or even ham because my mother never cooked except for assisting our live-in housekeeper by tossing the salad. Of course there wasn’t any help on Christmas Day, so we would go to the country club, The Beverly Hills Hotel or the Beverly Wilshire. I didn’t think it was different in anyone else’s home in Beverly Hills until I spent the night one Christmas Eve at my friend Mary Lynn’s house. She had the most beautiful tree — — the kind in magazines and in storefront windows on Wilshire Boulevard. And the presents! There were hundreds (at least that’s what I remember) all around the tree, and I was told I could stay a little while after breakfast to watch my friend open a few. Their tree was the centerpiece of the magnificent living room, and the Christmas Carols and laughter as both sisters took turns opening their gifts made the most joyous music. I’m not sure if anyone noticed as I said my goodbyes and slipped through the back door where I would walk home across the alley to my house with no signs of it being a day any different than any other day. I think I’ve been sulking ever since about Christmas and all the other winter holidays that begin after Halloween. And when my daughters were growing up, they wanted so badly to celebrate, and I tried. But not nearly hard enough. There were several years of Christmas trees interspersed with Chanukah, but I never got into it. Except for Lawry’s every Christmas Eve for prime rib and yorkshire pudding. And those sides! Christmas Day there was always a movie and Chinese food. I prefer birthdays.
When I was four, my father began taking me to Kiddyland. One of my favorite rides was the ferris wheel, until this one particular afternoon that changed things forever. We were going around and around up high and down low like we always did, but this time when the ride ended, we were at the very top. It was so much fun sitting up so tall over all the treetops and houses and watching the people way down below. I was having such a good time until I realized we weren’t coming down and letting people out. We were hanging there in the air swaying back and forth, and something was wrong. I turned to my father to ask him what was going to happen next. How were we going to get down all the way to the ground? Were we going to be okay? What was going to happen? Who was going to save us? He said,“I will try to save you, but if it means a choice between saving you or your mother, I would have to choose to save her.” He said he would save my mom because she was his wife and I was just a child and he could always have more children. I couldn’t trust him after that, and I never felt safe again.
A few years later when I was seven, he sent me to sleep away camp for the whole summer. Two months away from home as a child seemed so long it might as well have been a whole year. The other girls made fun of me because I didn’t know how to wash my own hair or even cut my toenails. The best day of camp was going to be visiting day because I knew that once my parents got there and realized how sad I was that they would change their minds about the full eight weeks and let me go home with them. I packed up my trunk the night before and quietly slipped it back underneath my bunk before anyone could see what I was doing because I was too ashamed to tell anyone I was leaving after only three weeks. The next day, as our blue and white Buick drove up the path to the camp, I was waving and already had begun to cry. Mom was crying, too, as she threw her arms around me and held me to her. I kept crying as he told me to eat my cafeteria lunch and to stop spoiling our nice visit. And he said, “If you don’t stop crying this very minute, I’ll really give you something to cry about.” When we walked outside, my parents were supposed to meet my counselors and see my artwork, but my father took my mother’s arm and led her toward the car. I was really sobbing then and pleading with my mom to let me go with them. I held onto her skirt and then her leg as he pulled her closer to the car. He told her to let me go, but she couldn’t because I was holding on so tight that I ended up being dragged along the dirt. After he shut her door and locked it, he swiftly got into his side and drove away without looking back. I never got to kiss my mom goodbye.
There was a time when I used to believe in psychoanalysis. To me it made much more sense than the other modalities, especially behavior modification, but I’ll get to that in another story. This will basically sum up my experience with Dr. Bernard Weintraub, Psychoanalist, and my last day in his office.
This particular session I spent really working on trying to get in touch with my feelings.I went back to my childhood and let everything that came to mind come pouring out — When my father tried to strangle me. When my brother electrocuted my fish. When I was afraid to go to sleep at night because I thought someone was going to take me to save me from my father. When my boyfriend put me in the trunk of his car to sneak me into the drive-in movies and forgot about me until he was almost home. I told him one distressful thing after another. It was awful reliving all those images, and I was crying.
Remembering that Dr. Weintraub had a box of Kleenex on his desk, I stood up from my designated reclining position on his sofa and walked over to reach for a tissue. On my way back to the couch, I could see that Dr. Weintraub was writing in a book and thought it strange because it wasn’t like him to take notes during our sessions. For a second I thought that perhaps my childhood stories touched something so deep within him that he felt compelled to capture every word. But when I walked a bit closer to him, I saw that the son of a bitch was balancing his checkbook! And when I asked him why he would do such a thing during my time with him, he said “Lie back down and tell me your fantasy. Tell me everything you’re feeling at this moment.” I wanted to say “Are you kidding you fucking asshole?” but instead I just turned around and walked out and never looked back.
I don’t believe in psychoanalysis any longer. You know, all it really is is the therapist holding up a mirror to you so that you can see the reflection of your inner self. And what I learned from the two years I spent in psychoanalysis is that it’s a lot less expensive to buy your own mirror.
Every evening when he’d come home from work, he was always very hungry. Not eating in time always meant he would be irritable, but he was always irritable. My mother used to warn me that I shouldn’t bother him until after dinner, but sometimes I couldn’t wait. This particular time I went to his room to ask permission to go to my friend Kirtlye’s house. She had called to invite me to dinner and was waiting for me to call her back. When I asked my father if I could go, he said “Why should I allow you to go? When was the last time you did anything to make me happy? You know, Danna, I was telling your mother the other day that I’ve gotten more pleasure out of the dog than I ever have from my children.” I said “That’s really sad, Daddy.” He said “Yes, it most certainly is. And whose fault do you suppose that might be? And now you want my permission to go to your so-called friend Kirtlye’s house, do you? Well? I’m waiting for you to tell me why I should allow you to go.” I didn’t know how to respond. I remember saying, “I just want to.” And then he said “You just want to? Well, I want you to think about all the things you’ve done to make me unhappy. What about fighting with your brother last night? What about letting your poor mother finish the dishes while you watched television? And what about last weekend when we went out to dinner and everyone else ordered the $3.95 Early Bird Special, and you had to have the $5.95 dinner and wanted escargot as well?” Anyway, he told me that it was too late to go to my friend’s house because I had reminded him of all the things that made him so miserable and that I had caused him to become angered all over again. He said it was getting late and maybe next time I’d learn my lesson and behave better so he could feel happier about me. But nothing ever changed and — — well, he always found pleasure in the dog.
The summer I was thirteen, our family took a trip to New York. I had never been on a plane before nor seen a musical, so I was extra excited about this trip. My mom took me shopping on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. We went to Saks Fifth Avenue, I. Magnin and Haggerty’s and shopped for new clothes for me. My mother always took pleasure in taking me shopping and rarely shopped for herself. When she did, she shopped the sales. That summer she found a beautiful pink wool suit and a cream silk blouse on sale to wear on the plane because in those days we dressed to fly. My mother was just as excited as I was, as she was looking forward to taking me to the city where she lived until she moved with my father to Los Angeles in 1943. I listened to her order our theater tickets and make dining reservations. We were going to see Mary Martin in “The Sound of Music” and Patty Duke in “The Miracle Worker.” When we were shopping on Fifth Avenue after lunching at the Russian Tea Room, my mother spotted a lovely blue dress the color of her eyes in the window of Bonwit Teller. She asked the sales associate to put it away for her to try on later. I was sure she was going to try on the dress after I was back in our hotel because I thought she would want to wear it that night. We had been invited back stage to meet Mary Martin and the rest of the cast. And there were going to be friends of hers there — old classmates from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts where she had studied many years earlier with Hume Cronin and Betty Field. But when it came time to dress for dinner that night, she put on one of her older suits that she had brought with her from home. When I asked her about the blue dress, she replied that she was saving it for a special occasion. I was confused as I considered going to a Broadway show quite an occasion. Years later I came to realize that everything was being saved. She never used her good china or silver because she was saving them for “one of those days,” …. that “special occasion.” The diamond ring her mother once wore was kept in her top bureau drawer untouched and unworn. She saved magazines, newspapers and scraps of material. She saved movie tickets, grocery bags and her mother’s old clothes. She saved rubber bands and pieces of string. The special blue dress that matched her eyes she saved and never wore until the day of her funeral, her last “special occasion.”
