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Happy Father's Day; Happy Summer

June 17, 2007 By pia

This was the first Mother and Father’s Day in many a moon I could be happy for other people.

In 90, my Dad planned his own Father’s Day. We went to visit his aunt in an old people’s hotel on Long Beach in the Island.
“Where are the girls?”
“They’re right here.”
“Hi, Aunt Ann.”
“Where are the girls? Such nice girls.”
“Right here.”
“Aunt Ann, it’s us, hello.”

Finally we gave up. That was before I was a Licensed Social Worker and knew giving into the fantasy was a viable valuable technique.

Aunt Ann had always been beautiful and sweet, and so she was in deep dementia.

Then we went to an excellent Mexican restaurant in Island Park. Island Park’s known for its excellent restaurants, beautiful inlets and waterways, great bars if you like bar fights. They look real nice. The bars that is, not the bar fights though there is a certain artistry to them.

My sister and I actually spent part of an evening sitting in the car listening to some great vintage disco and watching bar fights. Hey, we know how to have fun.

Island Park’s also known for Al D’Amato, and uh Mafia connections. It will always be remembered by me as the school district that refused to open one year for fear of AIDS from the toilets or some such shit.

But this Mexican restaurant is beautiful. A man sketched my father, and gave us the sketch. The man was a professional artist and my father at 76 had the type of face people liked to look at. Especially my mother who could still basically see then.

It was a perfect family day. My father had one wish. He never wanted to grow old and decrepit and he never did. He was to die Passover/Easter weekend of the next year.

I hope there is a heaven and my parents are reunited. My mother didn’t believe at all, and that used to worry me. Just in case, only people who believe….well, I don’t know. I don’t exactly have a religious education and we are Jewish and Jews believe in the big sleep, with….

My father half believed, and the half of him that did believe asked me if he should shave half his moustache while still alive, so when he died the people who knew him before 69 would recognize him.
“Only if you want to look like an idiot in this life, daddy.”

When I told this story to relatives they laughed. They knew my Dad, and it was so typical.

The summer of the last Father’s Day, my sister had a Hampton’s share and was to meet the man she’s still married to. They have a wonderful daughter who will be Bat Mitzvahed in November. So Father’s Day’s continues in our family.

I have to give Jacquelin a bit more than a fountain pen. (Old Jewish Bar Mitzvah joke: today you are a man. Here’s a fountain pen.) It was never funny to me and still isn’t.

So clamor for my book which is coming along, and almost up to shopping. That is the last I will say about it, until I have good news, and that’s one promise I do intend to keep. Even if I can’t keep myself from talking I will.

But clamor for it as I believe I have the best platform in the world; bloggers, and I would love publishing people to understand that people who read my blog buy books.

I can promise you that nothing in the book has been in Courting. Isn’t it amazing? I have a whole life never contained in here.

This particular book is about one pivotal year in my life. It’s a Senior Year in High School/coming of age tale but told differently than most, and I think told very well.

I even learned that linear thing, and how to find a true beginning, middle and end, while retaining the essential Pia’isms.

It took a long time. But I have many more books that are just spilling out.
•••••••••••••••

Blogging’s been changing so much. When I’m on summer vacation, I buy every woman’s magazine I can find. Never read most during the year. Gawd, do they have blogs, and some invite their readers to begin blogs under their umbrella.

But we who have been blogging for awhile, we did it. We made blogging into what it is today and we should be damn proud of ourselves.

Yes I know this began as a Father’s Day post. It still is. My Dad, for all his faults, wanted to share center stage with me. Actually he wanted me to take the stage over.

In my heart, somewhere, I know that my parents are up there, somewhere, together, planning my ascension. Not up there, but down here. They believed in my talents. Had weird ways of showing it sometimes, but….
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••

If you’re not celebrating Father’s Day, summer officially begins this week, and please don’t tell me you hate summer. Summer’s magic.

All dreams can be wished in summer and many will come true.

I will always believe in the beauty and majesty of summer. I am a Cancer, on the cusp of Leo and my parents always made me feel that all summer belonged to me.

That was one of the most wonderful gifts that they gave me. A belief that in this one time of year, dreams come true.

Days are long, and no matter how much work you have, there has to be time in summer for enjoying life.

It’s different than the holiday season. No pressure to find the perfect gift. Or the religious wars or anything that can cause friction. Maybe from bathing suits, but my secret to a happy bathing suit season is a secret.

Summer’s about slowing down, going to the beach, having barbeque’s, laughing a bit too much, listening to songs you can sing along to

Summer’s about possibilities, dreams still to be dreamed, day dreams that can turn into reality, 57 Chevy’s, old fashioned convertibles, ice cream soda, lobster rolls, dunes, getting sand in shoes and all over. Especially when it’s me

So have a wonderful summer. And clamor for my book. I’m not sure how yet. You figure that out for now.

I can’t believe that after four years, endless revisions, throwing out entire chapters, great stories and more, I have a viable book.

And just in time for summer.

When the stars twinkle just for me, and the moon comes out just for me, and two million people in Central Park sing “happy birthday” to me.

Dare to dream the impossible. It’s summer and anything can be possible. Man first landed on the moon in summer. Just for me. It was my birthday, not that I’m celebrating it this year 🙂 Really.
•••••••••••••

Please err on the side of caution. It seemed like almost every day since I have been in Myrtle Beach, some kid has been badly injured or died.

Two days in a row, kids fell off hotel balconies.

A woman, I have come to know and like, son’s best friend was celebrating his 24th birthday. At 6:30 AM he decided it was his birthday and he just wanted one more. He didn’t live past his 24th birthday. And my new friend’s son drove eleven hours from West Virginia in the pouring rain just to go to his funeral, and drove right back.

We all think we’re invincible, even at my age, but….

Hate to say this but if you drink or drug or both, please don’t drive. Otherwise I will take to the roads, and then….

On that note I’m off for the beach.

And back from the beach. Did I say clamor?

Honestly I haven’t been that great a blogger this past year. My mind’s been otherwise occupied.

I almost discourage comments by not having recent comments on the sidebar.

Sometime last week I had my 600,000 hit since November, 2004. I wasn’t really paying attention.

I take my blog off BE frequently but always end with the same or more credits. It’s one of the sweet mysteries of life I haven’t actually analyzed or obsessed over.

Filed Under: my parents, north myrtle beach Tagged With: electric haired chick, my parents, north myrtle beach, ramblings

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Comments

  1. cooper says

    June 17, 2007 at 10:37 pm

    The perfect post for the beginning of summer Pia.

  2. suray says

    June 18, 2007 at 2:28 am

    Wow, your post is very long, its need a lot of time to finish reading your post. Nice, touching post.

  3. Traveling Chica says

    June 18, 2007 at 9:06 pm

    There is some magic in summer, isn’t there? 🙂

  4. Bone says

    June 19, 2007 at 10:57 am

    Love your description of summer.

    On Seinfeld, Elaine gave a boy Boggle for his Bar Mitzvah. Now personally, I like Boggle, but he wasn’t enchanted with it. He wound up kissing Elaine instead and bragging to his friends about it.

  5. jacob says

    June 19, 2007 at 11:24 am

    May your summertime wishes come true.

  6. Doug says

    June 19, 2007 at 12:25 pm

    I agree with Cooper, there was a nice summer breeze blowing through that post.

  7. clockworkchris says

    June 20, 2007 at 3:09 pm

    I hope the beach has lots of seashells, clearest of blue oceans, and a lack of crabs, jellyfish, and other semi-dangerous annoyances. Can’t wait to read next weeks posts.

  8. Loquacious Curmudgeon says

    June 21, 2007 at 7:02 pm

    Personally, I love Summer, even though I live in a city that gets precious little of it – or perhaps because of that.

    I always enjoy reading your posts. You’re a very thoughtful, and thought provoking, writer and I truly admire that.

    And I’ll clamor for the book (and buy it when it comes out).

  9. Doug says

    June 21, 2007 at 7:11 pm

    I just came by to make sure you weren’t posting. Well done and keep up the good work.

  10. sage says

    June 22, 2007 at 6:55 am

    “Only if you want to look like an idiot in this life, daddy.”

    I love that line! Such sage advice from a daughter to her father. Enjoy your last week of vacation.

  11. bonnie says

    June 22, 2007 at 8:57 pm

    In the unlikely event that I ever find myself questioning the wonderfulness of summer I will have to come back & reread this.

    Not that that’s likely to happen. But if it does…

  12. Miz BoheMia says

    June 23, 2007 at 12:39 pm

    I love reading about your relationship with, and love for, your dad… it is something so foreign to me and I am just fascinated by that… the closest I have come to it is by observing Loverboy with our kids.

    As for dementia, we had a neighbor who flipped out, an elderly woman and a security guard had to be called in and he couldn’t get through to her because he was trying to snap her out of it and I could sense that that was a bad choice… so I gave in to her fantasy and became her neighbor, mother of her son’s friend… I calmed her down, figured out how to call her daughter-in-law, whom she somehow thought was an evil woman trying to kill her but, for some reason, after that night, the daughter in-law came to me crying tears of happiness telling me that something I must have said made her now think that she was her actual daughter and finally she could have a good relationship with her MIL… that popped to mind when you mentioned dementia and I didn’t know it was the right thing to play into their fantasies…

    It does feel like a summer breeze… Myrtle Beach did you mucho good amiga mia! May you come back home with the breezy energy you have connected to so well…

  13. steve says

    June 23, 2007 at 2:52 pm

    You are a lucky person.

  14. Jason says

    June 24, 2007 at 3:07 pm

    Lol, well, summer should be fun. Finally getting around to taking a vacation here myself, now that the stupid Epstein-Barr is going into hibernation….

    What a beautiful post. A great reminder of the importance of dads, actually.

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About Me

I live in the South, not South Florida, a few blocks from the ocean, and two blocks from the main street. It's called Main Street. Amazes me too.

I'm from New York. I mostly lived in the Mid-Upper East Side, and the heart of the Upper West Side. It amazes me when people talk about how scared they were of Times Square in the 1970's and 1980's.

As my mother said: "know the streets, look out and you'll be fine."

What was scary was the invasion of the crack dens into "good buildings in good 'hoods." And the greedy landlords who did everything they could to get good tenants out of buildings.

I'm a Long Island girl, and proud of it now.
Then I hated everything about the suburbs. Yet somehow I lived in a few great Long Island Sound towns after high school.

Go to archives "August 2004" if you want to begin with the first posts.

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