Sometimes I ramble, sometimes I rant, but I know this: life is much too short to be without books, Indian food, wine, pets, and, most important…good friends.

Jul 12, 2016

My mother at one of her voice recitals, circa 1947, Los Angeles, California

You Really Should Write These Down

Towards the end of one of my favorite movies, “Crossing Delancy,” Sam tells Izzy that she should keep the stories and words of wisdom her bubbie is always relaying. Something along the lines of “these are gems she gives you — you should write them down.”

My parents grew up in California in the 1930’s and ‘40’s; Dad all over the state , and my Mom in Los Angeles. Dad, thankfully, has written his memoirs and given each of his children a copy. Anytime I want to, I can go to these books and read about the summers he spent at the farm my great grandparents had in Arroyo Grande: about his aptly named dog, Shrimp; his (very) brief attempt at a tap dancing career with his little sister, Jerry, when they were billed as Tap N Toe; working Saturday afternoons at the soda fountain his parents ran for awhile when it was the only job they could find; his version of why his fraternity brothers at the University of California, Santa Barbara nicknamed him “Speed” (a story his children like to tease him about, as we think his version is severely whitewashed). These are just some of the treasure chest of memories and anecdotes that not only include my dad, but much-loved family members who are no longer here.

I always tried to get my mother to do the same thing. Write down the stories. Speak them into the tape recorder. Use the software that would write her spoken words on to the computer. The few stories she did tell about growing up in Los Angeles were great: how, from a young age, she would explore the city by taking the streetcar everywhere, without fear of being abducted or harmed; being a latchkey kid before there really was such a thing, since it was the Depression and both her parents were fortunate to have jobs; how those hours she spent alone at home weren’t lonely because they were filled with listening to classical music and operas on the radio; fostering her life-long love of the movies by spending all day in a movie theater where she would see cartoons, newsreels, and a feature film all for the low price of ten cents — all the while getting lost in an MGM musical, being there with Cathy and Heathcliff on the moors, or watching her all-time favorite actress, Bette Davis, saying immortal lines like “Oh, Jerry, let’s not ask for the moon…we have the stars”; the Christmas season she worked at Robinson’s department store and was tortured by the never-ending loop of “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” playing in the background, then accidentally relaying her hatred of the song to the composer who just happened to be in the store for a promotion; how much fun she had when she attended the music program at Los Angeles City College — a voice major with a lovely soprano range, she was in the program with Marni Nixon (the singing voice of Natalie Wood in “West Side Story” and Audrey Hepburn in “My Fair Lady,” among others) and Jerry Goldsmith (one of the best, and most prolific, Hollywood film composers), who would always stop what he was working on and play Liszt’s “Un Sospiro” whenever he saw her enter the rehearsal room.

All wonderful stories, but I always wanted more of them. To get more detail of growing up not only during that particular time, but in that particular city that still has such a mystique to it. Over the years, mom would jokingly say she was going to write a book about growing up in Los Angeles and call it “Bette Davis, Where Are You,” but she never did. She honestly thought no one would be interested, despite protests to the contrary. I could never get her to write the memories down, and I did try for many years. Mom is gone now, sadly, as are those experiences I could never get her to tell.

If you are fortunate enough to still have your parents, grandparents, or any extended family around, please do yourself a favor and get them to write, speak, draw, or use hieroglyphics to get their memories down before it’s too late. Have them write names, places and years on the back of old family photographs. Scan those pictures and make those memories permanent. Hear the stories that go along with them. Get that perspective of another time and place and the history of your family. There are great stories. Your stories. Don’t let them get away.

Trust me on this — these are gems they can give you. You really should write them down.