The Dance of Love
Philadelphia was teen heaven in the 50s. A music Mecca.
Doo wop on the corner.
Bandstand after school. (Long before it moved to LA and became American Bandstand in living color, it was a Philly staple.)
We had the greatest disc jockeys in the world: Georgie Woods, the man with the goods; Jerry Blavat, the geator with the heater; and my personal favorite, Jock-O — “Oo-poppa-doo, how do you do.”
On Saturdays, radio station 950 held a dance club.
That’s where I met Virgil.
Danny and the Juniors sang “At the Hop” right there, in the studio, and we bopped and screamed.
Then the DJ played a slow one: “All in the Game,” by Tommy Edwards.
A handsome, broad-shouldered boy led me to the dance floor. He held me close. Very close. And whispered the lyrics into my ear.
“Then he’ll kiss your lips
And caress your waiting fingertips
And your hearts will fly away”
I felt warm and all aflutter. No one had ever held me like that. I was frightened. Thrilled. Overcome.
He led me to a table and got us a couple of Cokes. “What’s your name?” “What school do you go to?” He wanted to know everything about me. And I wanted to know everything about him. It was like we were alone, in a room vibrating with kids doing The Slop and The Stroll.
Virgil was named for a Roman poet. He lived above his father’s pizzeria in South Philly. The opposite end of the earth from my neighborhood, where the boys I knew were named for their dead uncles: Izzie. Shlomo. Jake.
He gave me a napkin and a pen. “Write down your name and address. Tomorrow I’ll come over, after church.” I wrote, though I knew he was forbidden fruit. Taboo. Off-limits. But I was smitten.
The DJ was playing another slow one and we danced again:
“For your love
Oh I would do anything
I would do anything
For your love
For your kiss
Oh I would go anywhere”
We were besotted.
*******
Somehow, he found me. Via bus, subway, trolley, he landed on my doorstep and I pushed him toward the street before my parents could see who rang the bell.
We strolled along a nearby strip of shops that were vibrant six days a week, but dead as a door nail on Sunday, in the age of Blue Laws.
We couldn’t think of much to say. I was cold; he was thirsty. Then the clatter of a trolley sealed our fate. He hopped on and threw me a kiss.
“Bye, Donna.”
“Bye, Virgil.”
We never saw each other again. I was sad for a long time and finally told my Mother why.
“Don’t worry, honey,” she said. “You’ll know when the right one comes along.”
***
Fast forward.
It’s the 60s.
I’m doing the bossa nova at a club in Atlantic City with a blind date.
A tall, very tall, guy cuts in.
I crane my neck to smile up at his pretty face.
He’s a great dancer, whirling me around the room with supreme confidence.
The next day he drives me back to Philly in his red Catalina convertible.
The top is down; my hair is blowing in the breeze.
“Where’d you get that pretty name, Donna Brookman?”
“I’m named for my father’s mother, Dora; he calls me Dvoyala. And you?”
“I’m named for my father’s brother, my Uncle Moishe.”
Click.
I invite him in to meet my parents.
I marry him.
Blame it on the bossa nova. The dance of love.
“The Dance of Love” appeared in Winter 2023 Vistas & Byways.
The Used Violin
The son of impoverished refugees was given a used violin for his tenth birthday which he neither asked for nor wanted. 
After months of attempting to master the instrument, he came to believe that screeching discord would forever be the fruit of his labor. He could not make it resonate with beauty. His heart would never dance when he eyed the thing in its ragged case or plucked its weary strings. And, though always a gentle boy, in a fit of frustration one day he smashed the violin and hid the pieces in his closet.
“Where are you going?” his mother called, as he attempted a nonchalant exit from their little backyard, where she was hanging laundry. “You have to practice.”
Suddenly overcome with remorse, he couldn’t look at her, knowing that she had saved pennies from her tailor’s wages to finally purchase the object he had just destroyed, an object that had been lovingly handled by scores of boys before him.
He never played an instrument again, but he loved his mother dutifully evermore and upon the birth of his first child he purchased a piano as an homage to her. His children became musicians and at each recital, each concert he felt her presence, her pride and her forgiveness.
Where are those peaches?
Where are those peaches?
The ones whose juices dripped down my chin?
That clung to their pit, each crevice a gold mine for my pudgy, picky fingers.
Gone now, the way of the butter & egg man, the corner butcher and Chevrolet station wagons.
Not even the fruit stand at my farmer’s market has peaches that pleasure,
bring end-of-summer gratitude
before it all goes to sleet and slush and bone-cold weariness.
I turn to new-fangled heirloom tomatoes to quench my need.
Will they be remembered by my sons with wistful longing?
Riding the Waves
I remember when my bubby taught me to ride the waves
It’s a mechaye, she would say, Yiddish for pleasure
Laughing, holding my hands
I would forget the trouble at home and laugh with her
She knew ― most of her children had married badly
If you know what I mean
Her grandchildren consequently sad angry listless
On sleepovers she would give me a nickel and send me to the grocer across the alley to buy rolls for breakfast, crusty Kaiser rolls like the ones she’d loved in the old country
And I’d feel so grown up, so trustworthy and loved
Breakfast would be grand, slabs of butter on the bread, a hardboiled egg
Coffee for her
Milk from the icebox in the backyard for me
Sleepovers with my bubby, days at the beach with her
Were counterpoints to sorrow
Who knew they were preparing me for forgiveness
For rising above the past
Forging ahead to joy
Like riding the waves with an invisible hand
To prop me
We, the “Elderly”
Sent by a friend, without attribution:
- We grew up in the 40s-50s-60.
- We studied in the 50s-60s-70s.
- We dated in the 50s-60s-70s.
- We got married and discovered the world in the 60s-70s-80s.
- We ventured into the 70s-80s.
- We stabilized in the 90s.
- We got wiser in the 2000s.
- And went firmly through the 2010s.
Turns out we’ve lived through NINE different decades…
TWO different centuries…
TWO different millennia…
- We have gone from the telephone with an operator for long-distance calls to video calls to anywhere in the world, we have gone from slides to YouTube, from vinyl records to online music, from handwritten letters to email and WhatsApp…
- From live matches on the radio, to black and white TV, and then to HDTV…
- We went to Blockbuster and now we watch Netflix…
- We got to know the first computers, punch cards, diskettes and now we have gigabytes and megabytes in hand on our cell phones or iPads…
- We wore shorts throughout our childhood and then long pants, oxfords, Bermuda shorts, etc.
- We dodged infantile paralysis, meningitis, H1N1 flu and now COVID-19…
- We rode skates, tricycles, invented cars, bicycles, mopeds, gasoline or diesel cars and now we ride hybrids or 100% electric…
Yes, we’ve been through a lot but what a great life we’ve had!
They could describe us as “exennials” people who were born in that world of the fifties, who had an analog childhood and a digital adulthood.
We’re kind of Ya-seen-it-all.
Our generation has literally lived through and witnessed more than any other in every dimension of life.
It is our generation that has literally adapted to “CHANGE”.
A big round of applause to all the members of a very special generation, which are UNIQUE. Here’s a precious and very true message that I received from a friend:
TIME DOES NOT STOP
Life is a task that we do ourselves every day.
- When you look… it’s already six in the afternoon; when you look… it’s already Friday; when one looks… the month is over; when one looks… the year is over; when one looks… 50, 60, 70 and 80 years have passed!
- When you look… we no longer know where our friends are.
- When you look… we lost the love of our life and now, it’s too late to go back.
Do not stop doing something you like due to lack of time.
Do not stop having someone by your side, because your children will soon not be yours, and you will have to do something with that remaining time, where the only thing that we are going to miss will be the space that can only be enjoyed with the usual friends. This time that, unfortunately, never returns…
The day is today!
WE ARE NO LONGER AT AN AGE TO POSTPONE ANYTHING.
Pass it on to your best friends. Don’t leave it for later