This morning I, “Dianne Schirg,” made this marvelous discovery from a simpler time when a family visit to Bellwood, Pennsylvania, was noteworthy.
Category Archives: Reminiscence
Milton Ehre, 1933–2009
A measure of age and experience, or simply the passage of time, is how many people we’ve known who are no more. When you’re young, death is extraordinary, but as you age it is expected. Every generation sees it leaders, scientists, thinkers, artists, and celebrities pass out of existence and even sometimes forgotten (I’ve been asked who Clark Gable was by those who had no reason to know). While millions mourn the untimely death of Michael Jackson, I turn to the less surprising passing of Milton Ehre, University of Chicago professor emeritus of Slavic languages and literatures.
Like the late Wayne Booth and Ned Rosenheim, Mr. Ehre was one of a handful of professors who made a strong impression on me, yet of most of those I have only a specific memory or two. Saturday night at Wildfire J. recalled something his father had said at dinner years ago, and I realized how vague all my memories are. I don’t remember details or conversations, only sensations and feelings.
Mr. Ehre’s name, with its resonance with “millionaire,” made some of my classmates titter quietly. He probably knew it and was amused by it. From what I understand, he was no ivory-tower academic, nor were his classes easy. Any pre-med hopeful who thought Mr. Ehre’s or Mr. Rosenheim’s classes were going to be a free pass to a good grade must have wished they’d pursued something less demanding, like Shakespeare or Anglo-Saxon literature.
I must have liked Mr. Ehre’s teaching style because I found myself in more than one of his classes. His beard made me think of him as a human Ursa Minor — a diminutive bear of a man.
Except that he talked funny.
I came from what had to have been the whitest of white-bread towns, where almost everyone I knew from school had the unremarkable flat accent of the western New Yorker. Some parents, displaced by World War II and its ravages, spoke with European accents, but most of us with our dominant British, Polish, German, and Italian ancestries, looked and sounded as vanilla as the ice cream at Dairy Queen. My first few weeks at the small university in the big city, where I met Sikhs, Jamaicans, Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Indians, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans — and New Yorkers. That’s right, people with the truly alien accents of Brooklyn and Queens.
I don’t know exactly where Mr. Ehre was from, but it almost had to have been somewhere in New York City. His appearance, his accent, his mannerisms gave him a character every bit as colorful to me as the impression left by turbans and salsa parties.
With Mr. Ehre as professor, I expanded my literary repertoire beyond the safe confines of the British Victorians and the American storytellers. After completing Literature and Society in Modern Russia (1860–1914), a history department class which at first I left with an incomplete, then a B, Russian and Soviet history and even Baba Yaga seemed to make more sense. It was as exotic a world to me as the Japan of The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, which I no longer recall (time for some re-reading?).
Of Mr. Ehre, of whom my memories are so vague, I can say only, “He was a man, take him for all in all, / I shall not look upon his like again.”
Dream: Coming home to roost
Across the field the only thing we could see from our home were woods and the roof of a white house. I was told that an old man lived in the house and that the flock of pigeons on its roof belonged to him. I don’t remember meeting him, and he and his house seemed wondrously mysterious to me. Simply seeing its green roof among the trees made me feel like I was living near a fairy-tale place.
One day the pigeons disappeared. The man had died. A large, unruly family moved into the house. No matter how long and hard I peered at that roof, its surface unbroken by white dots flying in and out and bobbing about, I could not bring the magic back. I always thought it had died with the old man, but now I know I had grown up too much to be able to perceive it anymore. It was gone forever. Now it was just a house among trees, inhabited by a dysfunctional family that didn’t love it or much else.
In my dream, I was looking toward the house and the trees that had sheltered it. Most of them were gone, and it had become a vista of concrete monuments. (I attribute this to having seen a photo the day before of the John F. Kennedy memorial in Dallas, a soulless monstrosity designed by Philip Johnson.)
When I went to the town board to protest the ruthless destruction of the trees and house (and the symbolic destruction of my childhood and its magic), I remembered I had also seen concrete Olmec heads along this new skyline. Olmec heads are fabulous, but why had trees been butchered for an ugly, tasteless representation of something that didn’t belong there? Much as I hated what I had seen, something about this point seemed wrong to me, and I struggled to justify it even to myself.
“Purveyors of this sad story”
If GE “brings good things to life,” the Internet brings good things to light, or back to life — for example, the CBS Radio Mystery Theater (CBSRMT).
Radio Hall of Famer and Those Were the Days host Chuck Schaden aired a few episodes of CBSRMT many years ago, but was thwarted in his quest to broadcast the series by some kind of rights issues. Today many CBSRMT episodes can be found online as MP3s — which means I may need to break down and procure an MP3 player.
I was 12 years old when the CBSRMT series began to air, usually at midnight. I listened to the program in the silence of the night, trying to be quiet as I huddled under the covers and squirmed to the ominous tones of bass woodwinds and E. G. Marshall’s “Pleasant . . . dreams?” I felt vulnerable in my little room in my little trailer, with little between me and the evils of mankind and the unknown supernatural.
I listened to an episode this Saturday, “The Lodger” starring Kim Hunter, which was originally broadcast 13 May 1974. I would see Hunter a few years later at Buffalo’s Studio Arena Theater in Elizabeth the Queen with George Chakiris.
“The Lodger” is a familiar story told many times on radio. For 1974, this version had a vaguely retro feel as a city newspaper reporter somehow gets the scoop on every killing. With blogs and news blogs and constant news updates, is there such a thing as a breaking news scoop anymore?
The commercials also took me back. One, for a discount grocery chain, touted, among other comfort foods, Pepperidge Farm Layer Cake on sale for 69 cents. It may sound strange now, but 69 cents was nothing to sneeze at for a frugal working man like my father (the licensed driver and therefore the grocery shopper and bargain hunter of the family). Of course, this commercial was targeted at “her” — Mom. Even in 1974, the title of “Mom” was attached to the majority of domestic chores. (As far as I’ve seen on the television at work, in 2008 household cleaning products are still within the woman’s domain.)
The other commercial I paid attention to was for Budweiser, then still “The King of Beers” and known for the company’s signature Clydesdale horse teams and the light musical theme heard in the background. The male voice talent suggested that you “reach for a glass” although “it’s great beer any way you drink it.” With a glass, you get the full benefit of “the wonderful head of foam” — “those bubbles, tiny though they are, still amount to something pretty special at the top of your glass — taste appeal and eye appeal.” This is due to “exclusive beechwood aging and natural carbonation.” The result is “a difference you can taste.” So, “when you say Budweiser, you’ve really said it all.”
No sports, no celebrity, no sports celebrity, no sex or rock music, and no irrelevant cuteness like frogs. Just “something pretty special at the top of your glass.”
At least until microbrews, imports, and ADHD came along. Who today would pay for air time, even after midnight, for such a boring commercial about the product?
After the episode ended, a few moments of news commentary came on, delivered by Fulton Lewis III, defending President Richard Nixon. In a ponderous, old-style news voice, Lewis talked about how allegations of a “specific nature” had been answered “promptly and firmly” by the White House, whose response referred to “concerted efforts by some sources to circulate fallacious reports,” the “vindictiveness of some people,” and “the purveyors of this sad story.” Lewis, who said that Nixon’s language could be “rough,” also asserted that those who knew the president, including him, agreed that racial, ethnic, and religious slurs were not in his vocabulary.
Nonsense. Any Caucasian of Nixon’s age had slurs in his vocabulary, even if he didn’t use or believe in them. For many Americans, they were part of the culture of the early and mid-twentieth century, along with Jim Crow laws and segregation. TV producer Norman Lear built a long-running comedy series on a character of Nixon’s generation — All in the Family‘s Archie Bunker — whose bigotry was his hallmark. Later, the evidence would show that not only were slurs in Nixon’s vocabulary, but that his racist vocabulary was more extensive than Archie Bunker could have dreamed.
How fascinating it is to look at even relatively recent history with the knowledge and superiority of hindsight. As I listened to Lewis righteously and indignantly question the charges and the motives of the “purveyors,” I knew what he couldn’t — that he was a dupe of the failed coverup and that the man he was defending would prove to be the “crook” he claimed not to be. Yesterday’s heated debate long ago resolved itself into today’s cold fact.
I can’t wait to dive into the rich treasure trove of CBSRMT episodes that await — not only for the emotions revived by nostalgic memories bur for the history I witness, didn’t appreciate, and have already forgotten.
Back to school
From what I’ve been hearing, nearly everyone is back to school already. I know I’m aging because school seems so different now (required supplies?), yet it doesn’t seem that long ago that I was in the classroom.
For me, school started the day after Labor Day. Our first day of school was in September, the last in June. I can’t imagine returning to school in August. Of course, that is what children are used to, so it’s nothing to them, but to me it’s all wrong.
I didn’t have a choice as to which public school to attend or how to get to it. I was in a district, and that’s the school I had to go to, by school-owned bus. Although I was at the first stop on the route, I was not allowed to cross Rte. 20 (state law? school rule?) to board, so I was always the last picked up, on the return trip. If there were 46 seats on the bus, I was the 47th passenger to get on. By the time I was in high school, I was lugging not only books (no book bag or backpack), boy style (arm straight down), but also a bulky, 15-pound bass clarinet. Unlike city buses, school buses aren’t made for standing, so that was awkward, and it was painful to stand in front of the bus in clear view of so many potential tormentors. I liked school; I dreaded the ride.
In one of my high school years, my last class of the day was, I think, history. I managed to get the seat in the column and row farthest from the door, by the windows. I could see everyone, but the others could see me only out of the corner of the eye. I paid attention to the class, mostly, but sometimes the pull of the sun or the snow or the trees, was too strong, and my mind would wander. And sometimes I would daydream about . . . privacy.
While a typical teenager might have dreamed of clothes, parties, and boys, and a more poetic one of symbolism and beautiful or ghastly imagery, I fantasized about privacy. I didn’t always like the regimen of school, especially having to attend classes that didn’t suit me (geometry, gym. I didn’t understand why people I didn’t bother still taunted me. Sometimes, my own tendency to wisecrack was my enemy. Mostly, though, I didn’t like that, for seven hours a day, I had no place to go, no place to hide, no place to call my own, Whether I was on the bus or in the hallway, the locker room, or class, someone could see me. And that meant I could not relax or be myself; I could not stop expending energy on negotiating the social morass.
Ah, I would think. I can manage this now because, when I’m an adult, I won’t have to.
I was that naïve.
In college, I was torn. I wanted to have friends, so I spent time in public places instead of studying — and still I didn’t make that many. And at times I retreated to my room to all the privacy I could desire — and became so lonely and depressed that I developed debilitating hives.
That didn’t work out very well.
As an adult, I have 12 to 13 hours of privacy, 7.5 of which are spend sleeping. During the rest, I may be lonely and a little down at times, but I need at least some of that time to myself. As a sheltered adolescent I could not foresee my future (and certainly couldn’t plan it). I didn’t know what the work world was like. I never knew what I wanted to do. So now, during my commute and at work, I have no more privacy than I did at school — the best I can do is escape to the windowless, sterile “sick room” when I really need to, although it is not the place to heal or to imagine. It’s just a temporary retreat. But most of the time work is like school — I’m on public display, failing to negotiate the social niceties, and subject to all the nastiness.
And unlike a student, I don’t even get the summer off.
Happy anniversary to me!
If my memory is correct, this month I celebrate (if that’s the correct word) 35 years of menstruation, or approximately 420 flushed eggs. As much as I’m not keen on ritual, at least as practiced in American society, I’m feeling a strange need for a ritual to acknowledge this anniversary. With a ritual, perhaps I wouldn’t feel so different and alone. Maybe I could share some of my secrets and fears, and maybe someone would understand them — really understand them.
Despite all the secret society filmstrips and lectures, I didn’t even recognize my first period when I got it. All I knew is that during the afternoon I started to feel bad. It wasn’t a headache, a stomachache, or anything recognizable. It was an overall sensation of ache, emptiness, pain, and malaise. I thought I was going to die and that that wasn’t a bad idea, under the circumstances.
The feeling came out of nowhere, as did the light brown stains in the panties. After telling my mother how lousy I felt, I showed them to her and said, “Do you think this [whatever it is] has anything to do with it?”
I don’t remember my adolescent cycles being painful, but then I had other things to focus on. PMS and dysmenorrhea seemed to come with adulthood, along with anxiety and depression. Welcome to the world of grown-ups.
Nothing helps PMS for me — for the past 10 days I have been tense, irritable, and despairing, despite knowing the underlying physical cause. Knowing and recognizing the pattern gives me no control over my feelings and little over my behavior. Last night I disappointed J. because I couldn’t bring myself to go to the University of Chicago folk festival. I had slept much of the day, trying to block memories and feelings, and to sit at a uplifting concert with tension pummeling my innards and my heart seemed unthinkable. Even grocery shopping, which requires some effort but is at least as unemotional as it gets, was preferable. Poor J.
Over-the-counter painkillers help the dysmenorrhea, but as time went on I took too many of them.
On one memorable occasion, my period started when my aunt had taken me to Charlottesville, Virginia, to see Monticello, Michie Tavern, and Ash Lawn. For me, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see them, so I could not afford to feel terrible, and I didn’t want to ruin my aunt’s trip, either. (She wanted to go because she was approaching 70 and didn’t know how much good health she would have left to take such trips. She proved to be wiser than she knew — after a very active life, she died at 71 of pancreatic cancer.)
So, in the morning I took more than the usual amount of ibuprofen, more than the dosage recommended for an entire day.
It didn’t work quickly enough, so I took more.
And more.
And more.
I don’t know how much I took within the next hour or two or three, but I guessed later that it was somewhere between 18 and 24. Although I was woozy, naturally, I did enjoy the trip, one of the highlights of my life. But I vowed never to do anything so foolish again.
A few years ago, I quit taking ibuprofen and aspirin because I wondered if abuse of them had contributed to my hearing loss. Now I seem able to get by on the regulation dosage of time-release acetaminophen.
If I assume 22 years of PMS, 12 times a year, lasting 10 days on average, that means that for 2,640 days of my life I have been a physical and emotional wreck, whatever my actual circumstances. That’s more than seven years. Seven years. For those seven years, which doesn’t take into account the dysmenorrhea, I have not been rewarded with a spouse, children, or a happy and stable family life. It’s been seven years of futility, of unrewarded pain.
Now, as I approach 47, remind me why I am supposed to dread menopause — the end of something that never really began but that caused a lot of misery for a lot of years.
Toes, tourniquets, and imagination
For the past week my right big toe has been in varying stages of infection. When this happens, I leave it alone, and usually it resolves itself in a few days.
By Friday, however, it was clearly demanding attention. It was and is red, hot, swollen, and tender. There seemed to be two options: amputation or antibiotics. Despite temptation, I opted to start with the latter supplemented with an antibiotic bandage.
Last night when J. and I returned from Whole Foods, I took my shoes and socks off first thing — and spotted blood on the bandage.
“Hmmm,” I said, “where did that come from?”
“What?” J. said, focused on checking his mail using my DSL connection.
“Blood,” I said, removing the bandage carefully. Usually my toe doesn’t bleed. “Oh,” he said. Nothing ruffles him when he’s focused, although spurting blood might get his attention.
I peered at the bandage. I took off my glasses and peered more closely at the bandage flecked with red and at the toe, which was still red, hot, swollen, and tender, but which was definitely not bleeding.
Then it hit me what the “blood” was.
“Hmmm, never mind, it’s the fuzz from my red socks,” I said. “Hmmm,” he said.
I may be more imaginative than intelligent, but at least I’m methodical.
Which brings me to tomorrow.
As far as I know, I’m signed up for a class on CPR/AED (automated external defibrillator). This should prove interesting, because this is the kind of practical, useful information and work for which I am ill suited. In a society where every pair of hands is needed to do something productive, like cooking, sewing, or crafting, I would be voted off the island immediately.
I’m reminded of my Girl Scout days, probably at least 35 years ago. One day, probably on a Sunday afternoon, I found myself in what I think was a community center or church in a neighboring town, participating in a first-aid class. The atmosphere of the place, which with its folding chairs and whitewashed walls and echoes of spaghetti dinners was perfectly ordinary and even institutional, combined with the dreariness of the day seemed to inspire my imagination with an impossible-to-describe feeling of both homeliness and novelty. Places that were new to me always left me feeling strange, probably because I did not get to go to many of them.
All I remember of the class is demonstrating our newly acquired skills on an adult dummy and a baby doll.
There was one other thing. I came away thinking that tourniquets were bad, a very last resort, because they meant amputation. This impression was so strong that I had it for years, until I was older, less imaginative, and more knowledgeable, when I finally understood the purpose and use of a tourniquet and that limbs didn’t fall simply because one had been used.
While this is step one of enlightenment, it doesn’t mean I could ever learn to apply one.
I think of one of my Girl Scout friends, an eminently practical girl who undoubtedly breezed through the program and who used to wonder occasionally how someone so “smart” could be so stupid, and who still seems to feel the same way about me. I suspect she is not alone.
And I think of the idealist protagonist of Anne of Green Gables, whose daydreaming inattention to food storage led to a mouse drowning in the pudding, to her foster mother’s chagrin. I can see Anne, ever the dramatist, mistaking red fuzz for blood (and citing an appropriate poem for the occasion) and envisioning amputation while bypassing the reason.
Thirty years of adult life and loneliness have stifled some, perhaps much, of my imagination and my tendency to skip the details and to react before thinking, and out of necessity made me a little more pragmatic and practical. The cares of adulthood seem to be the enemy of imagination. We don’t have the time or the luxury not to be practical, efficient, and responsible — all things that sap the joy out of living.
I miss that Girl Scout, who was both bright and stupid and who frustrated everyone with a practical nature.
And I could use a friend like Anne.
1977 blizzard, a birthday, and awareness
There are few dates I remember specifically unless I write them down, which I seldom do. January 28, 1977, is one of them. I was 15 years old, it was my mother’s 58th birthday, and my father didn’t come home.
I realized today that 31 years have passed since that night. I think I finally convinced my mother to blow out the candles and to cut the cake. It was an anxious, sad occasion, minus any joy, and then we didn’t know that she would celebrate only six more birthdays.
At 15, I think I really believed that parents lasted forever. A couple of my uncles by marriage had died by then, but I never thought of my cousins as being without fathers. I didn’t think of such things at all.
At 58, my mother knew that nothing lasts forever, or even very long. She’d lost her parents, she’d lost siblings in both childhood and adulthood, and she’d lost a husband and child. Life had programmed her to be anxious, and had not as yet programmed me at all. While her determined anxiety and fears troubled and even annoyed me, my uninformed optimism undoubtedly disturbed her. How could I be so sure that everything would be all right and that my dad would be safe in the storm?
I couldn’t, and probably I wasn’t. But I wanted to be, and therefore I was.
Two years later, a boy in my high school band was hit and killed by a drunk driver. We had been only nodding acquaintances, but he was intelligent, talented, and friendly. I was shocked. I went to the wake and met his parents, but it was months before I accepted that he would never play the trumpet with us again. It felt wrong. How could someone alive suddenly not be alive, not show up for practice? And when would this absence end?
My dad turned up the next morning, not entirely understanding the consternation and stress that his enforced absence had caused. All’s well that ends well, but there was nothing happy about my mother’s birthday in 1977. We were trapped by the weather and by fear.
My mother had me when she was 42 and died when she was 64. Of all our birthday celebrations, my dad’s, hers, Virgil’s, and mine, her 58th birthday is the only one I remember, the one during which an awareness of loss and what it could mean must have crept into my consciousness. At 46, I now know all too well the effects of loss and fear of loss and find myself fighting not to become my mother, sure of the worst. Children and adolescents can afford to be optimists; I can’t afford not to be one. I want to believe.
Fisher-Price #969 Ferris wheel
One of my favorite childhood toys is a Fisher-Price Ferris wheel, which must have been a Christmas present when I was five years old. Fisher-Price is based in East Aurora, New York, and was a source of local pride. I remember my parents and their friends talking about how thoughtfully made my Ferris wheel and other F-P toys were, and how engaging.
I must have taken good care of my Ferris wheel because it survived my childhood unbroken, with all the decals intact, and in perfect working order. I also held on to all four of the “Little People” who came with it; the dog even has his plastic ears (it seems that some children chewed or broke the ears off theirs).
It remained in near-perfect condition until 1987, when my dad moved from Hamburg, New York, to Bellwood, Pennsylvania. In my thoughtlessness and haste, I must have packed it carelessly, and the United States Postal Service took care of the rest. The box arrived in Chicago in a banged-up condition, and a large corner of the Ferris wheel base had broken off. Recently, I glued it back together, but it was a messy break and needs restoration to return it to a semblance of its former appearance. I could have cried. I probably did. Whenever anything like this happens, I hear my mother’s voice saying, “You don’t know how to take care of your things!”
I’ve since discovered that the wheel is broken next to one of the struts, which is an aesthetic issue more than a structural one. I don’t know how or when that happened.
The Ferris wheel has been in my closet since it was shipped in 1987; when I moved a few years ago, I was much more careful with it. In fact, I may have carried it to The Flamingo to prevent any accidents or losses. It still makes me a little sad every time I see it; it reminds me of all the lost and broken connections to my childhood.
I was reminded of it in August when I stayed at the Ann Arbor Bed and Breakfast, a 1960s chalet. The dining and living rooms are full of vintage decorations and toys. While I was admiring them, it suddenly occurred to me — I don’t know why it hadn’t before — to look for my Ferris wheel on ebay. Perhaps the proprietor suggested it to me. So, with an interest in seeing other Fisher-Price Ferris wheels and perhaps even in acquiring a second one in what ebayers terms “played with” condition, I created an ebay search.
To my surprise, I have been finding a number of these Ferris wheels on there. This makes sense; probably thousands of these toys were produced 40+ years ago, with many ending up in the attic or cellar, at estate sales, and in antique stores as children grew up and moved out.
What surprises me even more is the variation among them. Of the dozens I’ve looked at, only two to date have matched mine. For example, there’s what is known as the “mean kid” pushing a bar that appears to turn the wheel. Mine sports a blue shirt and yellow baseball cap turned fashionably sideways, but most of the “mean kids” wear different color combinations such as green and yellow or green and red.
My riders, three children and a black dog, are also different from most. Some Ferris wheels seem to have come with adults, even grandmothers complete with granny glasses and hair buns. A few sets, which seem to be more recent than my circa 1966 edition, include people of color. The sets vary in size, color, and design; I suppose these “Little People” were made to fit a variety of Fisher-Price toys.
Another difference is where the music movement was manufactured. Most seem to have come from Japan, while mine was made in Switzerland. Most likely mine is an early edition of this toy, which, along with other Fisher-Price toys, evolved.
This makes my carelessness even worse, as my combination (blue shirt, yellow cap, Swiss-made movement, the particular “Little People” set) seems to be the hardest to find.
Many of the Ferris wheels for sale on ebay are missing all or parts of the decals; mine are starting to come loose as the 40-year-old glue dries out. While some undoubtedly fell off on their own, I can imagine how tempting it was for four-, five-, and six-year-old children to peel off the stickers. Indeed, some of the wheels have no decals left, and some sellers do not seem to be aware that the wheel and ticket booth had them at one point.
I have no intention of selling my Ferris wheel as long as I can help it. They seem to sell for $20–$40, at which point I hear my dad’s voice saying, “For that piece of junk?!” The other day, one that was similar to mine, from a seller in Lancaster, New York, sold for nearly $70 — to a man in Switzerland who would have to pay more than $30 for shipping! For a moment I wondered if he’d designed the Swiss-made movement.
Or perhaps he, like me, is trying to recapture some of the wonder and sweetness of childhood, when a simple toy could bring joy that is still remembered.
Marcel Marceau
22 March 1923 to 22 September 2007
At some point during my first job, I learned that many of my co-workers had a great aversion to mimes and clowns, describing them as “scary,” “creepy,” and “weird.” Over the years, I’ve found that this distaste is common; something about mimes and clowns disturbs the contemporary American mind — perhaps the combination of sophisticated modern sensibilities and some association with unpleasant childhood memories.
Not my mind. I loved Marcel Marceau’s act.
When I was a student, probably in high school (I don’t think I wrote these things down, alas), our French class went on a couple of excursions. One of them was to see Marcel Marceau. Afterward, when I understood who he was and what he was known for, it struck me that French language students had gone off to see a French performer whose act did not include a single spoken word. It wasn’t like attending a Eugéne Ionesco play performed in French by French-speaking actors, as we also did, or having Jacques Yvart come to our school to sing in French. We were not going to benefit from hearing French spoken. Instead, I believe we took advantage of an opportunity to experience a French icon.
And we did. Marcel Marceau was marvelous. He did not need speech to convey a change in character or emotion. His facial expression, posture, movements, and body language proved that spoken language is not necessary to communicate. A middle-aged Frenchman, a Jewish survivor of Nazi occupation, spoke eloquently to a group of teenage WASPs without saying a word.
The skit I remember best depicted a series of failed suicide attempts — by gas, by hanging, etc. Always something went wrong, and silently the character went about the grim business of trying every means possible. With the crass lack of thought that is perhaps natural to youth, we, along with the adults, laughed at each of the hapless character’s futile attempts to end his life. While we may not have recognized it at the time, the humor lay in the irony — a failure at life, a failure at death. As one obituary said, “Marceau likened his character to a modern-day Don Quixote, ‘alone in a fragile world filled with injustice and beauty.'”
Marceau, like those who inspired him, including Charles Chaplin and Buster Keaton, was no failure. He could not save his father from Auschwitz, but he did what he could to save Jewish men by forging documents and children by taking them to Switzerland. More than 30 years after World War II, his performance gifted me with the appreciation for bringing “poetry to silence” that I still have today, another 30 years later.
When I hear mimes and clowns disparaged, I remain silent. Now that silence is in honor of Marcel Marceau, a great mime and man whose artistic and humanitarian legacy needs no defense from me. It speaks for itself.