Family and Friends

 

As will be the case in many of these photo entries, there is no particular order to this bunch. I tried to go from older to newer but that did not entirely work out. So I shall narrate the time frames as best as I can.

Above. Aunt Teri and Uncle Frank. She is my mother's last remaining sister, still with us at nearly 97. She is the one I visited in New York a couple of months ago. Uncle Frank was a bus driver. In one of the old photos I think I've already posted, I am a four year old opened and closing the door of his bus one afternoon near Woodlawn Cemetery (I think). Uncle Frank was an inveterate Camel smoker, without filters. He ended up with throat cancer, but survived it for quite a while before he did circa 1999. When I was a kid, they lived right next door to us on the fourth floor of a Bronx walk up.

This is my grandmother on my father's side. She was four foot 10 or 11 of Italian toughness. Born on Mulberry Street in Manhattan at the end of the 19th century. I can't say we were close. For some odd reason my mother wasn't invested in my father's side of the family, nor frankly, other than her sisters, in her own side. When she got sick in the 1970s, she became more family oriented, at least on her side of the family. And my father wasn't that crazy about his childhood. 

More pics from probably around the late seventies, at the top at least. My late cousin Barbara, my late Uncle Nathan, my Aunt Georgia, somewhat younger than she is in the lower photo. She lived until she was 100. She was a kind, and soft soul. On the right top my Aunt Rita, one of my mother's other sisters. She was the salt of the earth.  She also died way too young.

Above. I begin my life in Southern California. Some pics are before I actually oved, and some after. I couldn't tell you which at this point. I do believe the restaurant shot, which I think was La Villa Taxco, one of which was then in Hollywood, reflects my cousin being just a tad upset about something. At this time, she was about 14 or 15 and I was in my early 20s. They were very good to me when I visited and ultimately when I moved here, letting me sleep on their couch until I found a job. And then, for 31 years after that, I lived right across the street from them.

The above picture was taken in my Dad's apartment near Fairfax and Beverly.  Not sure of the date, but figure it is somewhere in the late 1980s or early 1990s. My friend Susan Margolis is listening to me hold forth, glass of somethin' somethin' in my hand. I am always a bit surprised by this photo of me. So sad I did not think of myself as attractive when I was young(er). What an idiot! Or truthfully. I was afraid to be. Now that I am old(er) such disclosures really aren't particularly sensitive. As you will see, below, my weight always fluctuated. At this point, I was my best size. Hmmm, Need to try for that again, just for nostalgia sake no?

More Dad, and me. The top polaroid? I think it might have been when Dad took me to a Greek place that used to be on Cahuenga, for my 30th birthday.  He always enjoyed the scenery.

Brothers Constantine and Steve at top. Steve was the youngest in Dad's multi-children family, and they really weren't close as there was something like 7 or more years between them. They never realized, either of them, how much they were like each other. The middle picture is later, probably in the 1990s or later, when my friends Len, and Chris, and Andrew and various folk used to gather for Christmas dinners and wild exchanges of gifts.

Above: My Cousin Carol and I on my 50th birthday in Malibu. I threw myself a party at Moonshadows and got a few rooms at the then not extravagant, but very nice, Malibu Beach Inn for visitors. Now renovated and owned by David Geffen, I would have to sell my possessions to afford it. That weekend I also did an ethics presentation at Pepperdine, and Carol and Mike (who took the picture) joined me. That's Carol also with Aunt Teri all the way on the right, in the 80s. Always looking good! Me in the middle also in the 1980s, with too much weight. I really hate this picture, but in the interest of transparency about the vagaries of life. . . . there it is and my Aunt looks great there. She still lives in that same apartment, which was once all rentals and now is a big old condo building. 

This pic is a little out of left field with the others, but I don't want to forget it. On the right is Geri F. Geri and I met many years ago, when each of us was in Rome, like the early 1990s. We met on a bus that I had taken a tour on of the sites. She was from Australia and really worried about one of her grandkids' health. I promised to pray for him. We parted at the Roman Forum but promised to keep in touch. Her grandson survived and thrived. And Geri and I became friends of many years. She even came to my 50th all the way across the world. It is a regret that I lost touch with her in the last 20 or so years. I never did make it to Australia, with my fear of flying. (I fly but it's white knuckle all the way).