Oh, I’m on a roll.
Movies…old movies…oh, man…I got to watch ‘Ball of Fire’ with Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper the other night. I absolutely love that film. Richard Hadyn, the character actor is wonderful…He is probably best known as ‘Uncle Max’ in ‘The Sound of Music’…hey, that’s another one.
The Sound of Music was my favorite movie from childhood and I have to confide something here: whenever I’m feeling less than sure about my life or my choices or when I’m faced with a challenge, I sing ‘I have confidence’ to myself. Yeah, I know…that’s kinda wacky. I never said I wasn’t a little off. Somehow, that song does it for me. That, and the theme for ‘Gidget’. Gets me in the right frame of mind.
When I was younger and my sister was still alive, before I would go onstage, she would sing that theme song for me. Understand that my sister couldn’t carry a tune in a paper bag. It was sweet and it was funny. It used to hurt to think about her.
It’s been over 20 years since she died and it feels like yesterday. Funny, this post was supposed to be about things that make me happy. I suppose it is because I’m smiling as I type this.
My sister and I had some tough years together. She was 7 years older so we didn’t play together. My parents gave her the task of naming me; if I had been born a boy, my brother would have had the honor. She gave me a biblical name with the same first and last initial as hers. I remember her reading to me and giving me baths. At the time, you don’t realize that those moments are little tokens, little gems of love and compassion. I used to be such an unruly, noncompliant kid but she was patient most of the time. Once, when I was around 4 or 5, she decided to indoctrinate me into the junior Black Panthers. It was the height of the civil rights movement and my sister was an activist at an early age.
Her: What are you?
Me: I’m an Afro-American!
Her: What do you want?
Me: I want my freedom!
Her: When do you want it?
Me(after a loooong pause): Umm….I don’t know…
Her: NOW! YOU WANT YOUR FREEDOM NOW!
Me: Okay.
You see, I had no real concept of time at that age and didn’t understand the urgency. I felt relatively free as I was able to ride my bike, have ice cream if I had eaten my dinner and if I made a particularly convincing case, I could watch “Mission: Impossible” which came on well past my bedtime. Our neighborhood was integrated, so I didn’t see how the freedom timeline would impact my life. Usually, she would give up and tell me to go play my Disney records. But she would smile at me and give me a hug.
I knew that I was frustrating her, but she was my sister and I was younger–that was my job.
Later, when she had my niece and nephew I understood just how much she loved me and I returned that love as best I could. We had a lot of laughs while playing Rummy 500 and eating her famous crispy fried potatoes. The kids would be asleep, the house quiet and we would talk long into the night until both of us would shuffle to bed, quietly chuckling about some inside joke we’d just created.
Thinking about her makes me happy. Even though I’m crying.