What, Me Worry?

This week the hilariously funny man Tom Davis, half of the Saturday Night Live writing team of Franken and Davis, died of throat cancer. He was diagnosed around the same time I was. He fought the good fight, but ended up succumbing to a fatal tumor that lodged in the bones of his spine and pelvis. I’ve been told that my throat cancer, currently in happy remission, might reappear in my lungs, or liver, but no one said anything about tumors down there.

Franken and Davis, insanely funny guys. “I wake up in the morning, delighted to be waking up, read, write, feed the birds, watch sports on TV, accepting the fact that in the foreseeable future I will be a dead person,” Davis wrote. “I want to remind you that dead people are people too.”

    Robin Roberts of Good Morning America fought her own cancer battle five or so years ago, only to learn recently the chemo treatments that arrested her breast cancer had planted the seeds for a new version, this time in her bone marrow. So she’s back in Cancer Land. I know you can recall people in your life who’ve gone in and out of Cancer Land a few times. It’s not unusual to hear of warriors with multiple tours in Cancer Land. Like my friend Dr. Sandy Shultz once told me: cancer is an adversary every bit as cunning as Al Qaeda. When you understand that, you gain the ability to sit back and relax. It really does no good to imagine what might or might not happen next. And even if nothing at all untoward happens cancerwise, there’s still the specter of old age and, inevitable death, the final chapter on everyone’s horizon.

    My husband Michael visited Cancer Land nearly fifteen years ago. All these years later he enjoys a cozy and practical relationship with the reality of death. This is good for me, the recently reprieved, the tentatively hopeful. Such intelligent rationale and healthy fatalism is ultimately comforting.

    Last Sunday, a mostly gray day punctuated with angry squalls of rain, thunder and lightning, Michael noticed a break in the weather around 5 p.m. and suggested a walk on the wide, breezy promenade at Smathers Beach. I picked my head up out of the book I’d been reading, and told him I was afraid of being struck by lightning. So, no.

     “Oh don’t worry about that,” he said. “If that happened you’d never even know it. And it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. Think of all the misery you might miss. You’d avoid the risk dying a lingering death of cancer or of drying up of old age.”

    I came out from under my quilt, sneakered up and followed him out the door. By the time we arrived at the beach I sort of hoped I would be struck by lightning. What a great line for my obituary!

Who would notice this?

    My old friend Lois Kline celebrated her surrender to cancer with a huge party for family and fans. She was 86 years old. Lois and I shared a friendship of the sort that transcends time and space. We bumped into each other every two or three years. It never mattered how much time or circumstance separated us between visits. We had rapport. Lois had rapport with life. She was a fan of my writing, and she always let me know. I was a fan of her joie de vive. She was the kind of woman you call “real.” A few weeks after her big party she died. Her obituary, which she wrote, appeared in the paper. It made you feel happy to read that obituary. It also made you wonder about yourself: have I done everything I wanted to do with this brief appearance on Earth?

Two years down the road from Cancer Land. (Thanks, Alyson, for the happy picture,)

    The last time I saw Lois, just a few months ago, we chatted merrily, as we have dozens of times before, and she mentioned she’d been terribly sick with gall bladder disease. I now surmise it was the prologue to the pancreatic cancer that took her life shortly after that. On that day, she did not know she was terminally ill. Nonetheless, said she was thankful to have lived for 86 years. She said being old was rough. She said she had begun to be curious and ready for what comes next. After a few minutes Lois paused for a beat or two and then, cocked her head to the side and demanded: “What in the world happened to your neck, woman?”

    She’d apparently not heard of my visit to Cancer Land. Surgery on my neck has left me somewhat rearranged. Cancer treatment, after all, is always a deal with the devil. So I’m not the same as I used to be, but who is? In any event, since that surgery, husband, family, friends, and coworkers have all assured me my scar and tissue deficit is barely noticeable, unremarkable, and certainly no one meeting me for the first time would suspect from my appearance that any bad thing had ever befallen me. But Lois, with the spirit of a soaring eagle, and the keen eyes to match, noticed. I laughed out loud. Thank you, Lois, for your unerring honesty. And thanks for acknowledging those hard-won battle scars. Thanks for reminding me to live till I can't.

Miguel Perez and his grandfather, Miguel Perez.

    My ex-father-in-law is absurdly healthy, also is in his mid-80’s. He doesn’t do much anymore. He lives quietly, and often consults his doctors with health issues that have so far turned out to be not life-threatening. Still, his patience is wearing thin.
    “How’s your life going, Grampa,” my son, his grandson, might ask him.
    “It’s taking forever!” Grampa always answers.

    One of these days I’m going to write myself a brilliant obituary. It will be long, and probably expensive, because the Key West Citizen charges by the inch for obituaries. But that bill won’t be my problem. And right there, you’ve got something else to like about being dead!

Hemingway Reconsidered

Antonio Gattorno, a Cuban artist, sketched Hemingway in 1934

When it comes to Hemingway it seems we just can’t get enough.  I have been this way forever, more caught up in the Hemingway legend and lore than that of any other writer. And I am not alone in this.  Every day of the week we bump into pedestrian tourists from every corner of the world en route to the Hemingway House and Museum, Key West’s number one tourist attraction, located just around the corner. When I moved into this house, I hopefully envisioned that a molecule or two of Hemingway’s genius might survive in the air I breathed, or that his magnificent mojo might linger on the lazy tradewinds buffeting our neighborhood just below the Key West Lighthouse.

    Hemingway’s star burns brightly fifty years after he shot himself to death while his wife Mary slept. He was 61 years old and burned out, emotionally, mentally, and physically. He was done with this life and he apparently knew it, not surprising to imagine in a writer described by his biographers as being self-absorbed and delicately strung. Controlling, too. Hemingway began calling the shots long before that final, fatal one.

    It is amazing to consider how Hemingway single mindedly paved the way to his fame and fortune, dependent for years on funds provided by his wives’ trusts and their willingness to keep his path cleared of impediments like pesky journalism jobs, mortgage payments, unwanted pregnancies, crying babies, and histrionic reactions to his outrageously selfish nature. They believed in him and he believed in him and he made it work — with their supremely significant support.

    In spite of all the bravado associated with Hemingway in Paris, in Spain, in Africa, and at sea, the man was actually rather clumsy, the books say. He adored truly brave men who fought bulls and won boxing matches. Those were his heroes. But he met his physical challenges in the wild armed with a gun or a fast boat, and a sturdy rod and reel or a hefty pair of boxing gloves. He had deep contempt for F. Scott Fitzgerald, a great writer, because he was unmannishly incapable of holding his liquor. He was jealous of others' success, friends or not. He discouraged his wives from having interests or deep friendships outside of the marriage. His first wife Hadley, whose legacy lived on in the lovely, high cheek-boned beauty of her granddaughters Margeaux and Mariel Hemingway, was an accomplished pianist. But when Mrs. Hemingway scheduled a concert in Paris, her husband didn’t show up. Hadley lost her nerve. The concert never happened and Hadley’s great talent goes largely unrecognized. Did you know?

    Hemingway kept track of Hadley’s periods in a little notebook he carried in his pocket. When her period was late, he despaired. Babies were a bother in any number of ways — the division of their mother’s affections primarily, and then, it was difficult to travel with them. Sadly, Hemingway’s three children all spent much of their childhoods without the presence of their famous father, often with caretakers while their parents traveled for months at a time. Remember the story “Hills Like White Elephants”? Well it ain’t just about a couple having a conversation over a beer at a train station. Just ask the critics.

     Hemingway’s second wife, whose family purchased for her as a wedding gift the house that is today Key West’s Hemingway House, was a writer. Her writing career ended on the day she married Hemingway. Pauline was pretty and fashionable and modern. Hadley was earthy and substantial. With single mindedness of purpose, somewhat akin to Hemingway’s blind dedication to his talent, Pauline cunningly befriended Hadley, and then took Hemingway from her, setting aside her strict Catholic scruples (she never missed Sunday mass) because she just couldn’t help herself. Hemingway, whose vanity was a flimsy and pliable thing, rued the theft till the day he died, writing often of Hadley’s feminine perfection and ultimately holding Pauline in contempt.

     Then came Martha Gellhorn, who calculatedly posed herself on a bar stool at Key West’s Sloppy Joe’s Bar one day in 1936. She planned on knowing Hemingway, who was by then well-published and much publicized. He was also growing restless with life on Whitehead Street, beneath the lighthouse. The address of the grand house of Hemingway, far more splendid than any other in the neighborhood then and now, was listed as a tourist attraction in a 1935 guidebook published by the city. It was not unusual after that for his curious fans to wander into the Hemingway’s yard. Meanwhile, Pauline was growing weary of keeping the children quiet and their menagerie of pets fed and watered while Hemingway holed up in his studio pursuing his art by day, patronizing downtown bars by night. Martha Gellhorn was hot, more attractive than Hadley or Pauline, younger, and a fine writer. She was accomplished, too, as a war correspondent. Always up for a catastrophic scene, Hemingway got himself hired as a correspondent and followed Gellhorn into the Spanish Civil War. Imagine the excitement of those times for wartime writers — living in hotels, ducking bombs, never knowing if the next rendezvous would be their last. The strange aphrodisia of wartime cemented their relationship, and, only weeks after divorcing Pauline, Hemingway married Martha. After the war they settled on a farm in Cuba, and entertained other notable personalities of the day. But it was not a happy marriage. Hemingway was growing grizzly and fat, while Gellhorn was reaching her brilliant and long-legged professional stride. They parted with animosity, and Gellhorn later famously wrote that after the wartime dust had settled, she recognized Hemingway as a brute and a lousy lay to boot.

    Hemingway’s last wife, also a writer, was Mary Welsh. They met just as his and Martha’s marriage was collapsing, and on their third date, Hemingway proposed. Mary was married to another, but wasted no time in freeing herself up for Hemingway, whose need for a woman to love him and provide him with unwavering support, was deep and profound. Mary stood by her man as he clamored into the sloppiest days of his life. He began to frequently injure himself in ways both mundane and dramatic. There were burns from drunken falls into campfires, plane crashes, gashes and infections. His liver was failing. His blood pressure was up. He suffered diabetes. He endured depression. The hostility he'd kept mostly covert for so many years became blaringly obvious. He was noticeably abusive to his wife.

    And in the middle of all that, with the ever-faithful and long-suffering Mary responsive to his every beck and call, he wrote the novel that put him squarely on the world’s literary map forever. It was The Old Man and the Sea. He wrote it in a blast of clarity, in a kind of fever, and knew, as he wrote, that it was his finest work, that he had reached the sure pinnacle of his success. And as scalers of the highest peaks know, getting down the mountain is often far more arduous than the climb to the top.  And so it was for Hemingway.

    The Old Man and the Sea changed me. It opened my 14-year-old eyes to the possibility of words telling so much more than just a story, blowing the lid off my conscripted little world. I wrote an English paper on the book. I got it! And the teacher got it that I got it and gave me a big fat A Plus. I watched the same thing happen to my son when he read Hemingway’s greatest hit. He told me he wanted a tattoo in homage to Hemingway. I discouraged him. I told him that although Hemingway’s work was great, Hemingway the man had been a creep and certainly no one to be emulated.

    Many years ago when a cherished hero of my childhood came to Key West to participate in the Hemingway Look-Alike contest, I was horrified to witness the high esteem in which he held Hemingway, the man. I felt it was a sacrilege that he, who truly was a magnificent and even noble man, was interested in aligning himself with the fat, white-haired, bearded middle-aged Hemingway wannabes who assembled on the stage of Sloppy Joe’s bar to be judged in a competition that had absolutely nothing to do with art.  It was a celebration of the middle-aged Hemingway, a man who, in one way or another, had trashed the lives of just about every person he’d met, man, woman or child.
What’s to celebrate about that? I wrote a newspaper column at the time, and in it I ridiculed him for his folly. His family has held me in contempt ever since. But before he died, he forgave me. Because he was a noble man.

    Now that I am older, older in fact than Hemingway when he died, I can sometimes consider the Hemingway phenomenon in a different light. I understand that Ernest Hemingway was driven to create, to strive for greatness, to live forever, no matter the cost. And though it is true he was not a very nice guy, he inspired us well beyond nicely. He inspired us spectacularly. I envy him his dedication, his unshakable faith in his talent.  Every July Key West celebrates Hemingway with running races, arm wrestling, a look-alike contest, fishing tourneys, walking tours, trivia contests, and lots and lots of drinks. Hemingway lives on, long after the blood and bones of him are dust, he endures, because he lived his life as an endurance contest, always believing what the old man Santiago did: that "a man can be destroyed but not defeated."

Dying For Affordable Healthcare

Three years ago I was diagnosed with cancer of the throat. It’s a nasty business, cancer, and when you hear the news you think: “what do I do now?” and then “let’s start doing it, now.” In a little town like Key West, people being treated for cancer get to know each other. In waiting rooms we swap remedies for the horrific burns, sores and weakness that come of treatment. I paid 37 visits to the radiology clinic, and there I was friended by two men dealing with the same cancer. The younger one, Jeff, was an independent contractor house painter, around 40 years old. The other, Cecil, about my age, was a musician. Neither had health insurance, so, in addition to being stripped of any and all energy, and thus the ability to work at their jobs, they both struggled to find ways of paying for their treatments. Cecil had a wife. Mrs. Cecil was bright and personable and devoted to her husband’s recovery. She also worked fulltime, as a bartender. Her job offered no benefits like insurance. Cecil’s treatments were paid for by Medicaid. And all of their savings. Not long after we three started, the radiation ruined Cecil’s teeth. Mrs. Cecil talked of her frustration in searching for a dentist to perform the indignity of pulling his teeth and fitting him with dentures at a price they could afford. They finally found him in Miami, and were forced to pay for it out of pocket. Medicaid did not help with that expense. It was a real hardship. Less than a year later, Cecil’s cancer returned and he died.

     Jeff, the youngest in our throat cancer trio, was surprisingly chipper during our radiation treatments. Aside from a rosy hue to the skin on his neck, he did not seem to be as horribly affected as Cecil and me. The standard treatment for throat cancer is chemotherapy and radiation, both at the same time. It’s quite gruesome. It’s chemo in the morning and radiation in the afternoon with breakfast, lunch and dinner served through a tube implanted in the stomach. One day I asked Jeff how he was doing with the chemo. He told me that he wasn’t having chemotherapy yet because he was waiting for Medicaid to approve it. Rather than wait for the go-ahead from Medicaid for standard treatment, his doctors had advised him to go ahead with the radiation, to do at least something to keep the cancer from spreading. And so he did. He had half the treatment, and waited for the slow-moving wheels of Medicaid to grind out an approval to pay for the other half of the life-saving equation, which was chemotherapy.

     Five months after I finished radiation and chemo, my cancer returned. I had surgery and more chemotherapy, and finally the cancer was arrested. Meanwhile, Jeff gave up the struggle of being treated for cancer in Florida and returned to his family home in Connecticut.  I read his obituary in the Key West Citizen a few months later. Somewhere in that horrible season another local man was diagnosed with throat cancer. He’d been gainfully employed, and health insured, for many, many years. The economy had changed all that, his insurance had run out, and he was back in school to learn a new trade when the cancer diagnosis came. He had a wife, a car, a home, grown kids, a life rich in years well spent, most notably as a beloved, volunteer soccer coach. In spite of all he and his artist wife had done right, they were without health insurance. They scrambled to rearrange their lives and their savings to make themselves eligible for Medicaid. There were fundraising parties. There was much sympathy and horror all around. After all, we are a community of artists and hand-to-mouth living citizens – the coach brought the truth sharply into focus; this could happen to any of us. Not long after his shocking diagnosis, and just before he dove into the real hard and nasty part of his treatment, the beloved coach died. Why he died is unclear. One morning he just didn’t wake up. Heart attack? Or broken heart?

    I was working for a national corporation when I was diagnosed with cancer, but I’d only been working there for a few months and the insurance company questioned whether or not my cancer had been pre-existing. Ultimately I was able to prove that I’d not surreptitiously gotten myself hired in order to have health insurance and be treated for cancer. My husband mercifully spared me from the bills around my cancer. But I did take a peek at the year-end statement from my insurance company. It said my cancer had cost them over $100,000.
     The last time I saw my oncologist he said he would make no promises about how long my remission would last. But he did tell me this: “Cancer returns on the day your health insurance runs out. Do not be without health insurance.” And so I work a job that provides health insurance because I am quite literally terrified of being without it. Dying for lack of health insurance seems to me like drowning just off Mallory Pier, at Sunset, with crowds of American tourists watching you, sorry for your struggle, but too frightened of drowning themselves, too concerned with their own survival, to dive in and help.

What the world needs now is love:

No One's in the Kitchen with Johnny

The old man and the sea: Johnny Conte in his kitchen in Rockland, Maine. Summer, 2010.

The junk pile outside of Conte's. Not everyone finds it charming . . .

If you are in Maine this summer, you should go to Rockland and pay a visit to my old boyfriend John Conte’s seafood restaurant. It’s called Conte’s Fish Market, or at least it was the last time I looked. It may have changed by now. But not to worry. Whatever the name, you can’t miss the place. It’s right on Main Street. It's an institution. Although nothing stays the same at Conte’s, because Johnny Conte’s point of view and philosophy of living are pretty constantly in flux, I can promise you the dining experience at Conte's like no other. Eating there is kind of like going to the principal’s office for dinner. You’re in trouble, suspect, merely for showing up. Go there knowing that you will be subjected to a bizarre presentation. You could compare John Conte to Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi. Ask for ziti instead of spaghetti, or shrimp instead of scallops, and you risk the wrath of Johnny’s generally gnarly mood. Your waitress will advise you on Johnny's shade of gloom that evening. Generally, the report is not sunny. The menu is handwritten on a chalkboard, at the door, and patrons must decide, before being seated, what it is they want for dinner. No lingering over the menu. No cocktail hour. Don't ask questions! You make a commitment at the start, which is so strange because making a commitment is something Johnny Conte could never do. He is a lifelong bachelor. That John has never married gives me some satisfaction. Back in the day I loved Johnny desperately, and surely would have married him. But he would not marry, then or ever. Me or anyone. His restaurant is his fish wife, his own Molly Malone.

We were young and we were merry. N.Y. 1971

Kathy & June at the chalkboard menu. Rockland, 2007.

     My brother Rocky, who was once Johnny’s best friend, has for many years been in love with Kathy, a woman who followed me on Johnny’s long list of romantic conquests, way back when. Rocky and Kathy have been lovers for many years, sometimes taking long breaks from each other, then reuniting for fresh attempts at harmonic bliss. But Kathy (who works at L.L. Bean, another Maine institution) is just an aside here. The point of this story is Johnny Conte, who might be a genius, and is definitely quite mad. And not in a particularly charming way.

The menu.

Aw shucks. Johnny being interviewed by Tony Bourdain. Rockland. 2010.

     When food writer Anthony Bourdain’s television crew showed up at Conte’s, they were advised that Johnny did not come out of the kitchen for anybody. Ever. And in my experience this is true. Once John sent out to the table of my husband Michael and me a lobster clutching in its claw a postcard from Key West I’d sent him years earlier. Michael got a kick out of that. But Johnny has never appeared to meet my husband. Nonetheless, Michael is one of the reclusive Conte's most ardent fans.  Bourdain was granted an interview with the infamously kooky Chef Conte. Later, in his blog, Bourdain spoke disparagingly of Johnny’s haughty attitude. It is difficult to imagine two bigger egos.
     One time when we dined at Conte’s Johnny told me he’d been taking painting classes in New York City. He showed me a framed painting of a simple bedroom.  Raw. Achingly lonely.  I was awestruck. I knew Johnny loved to paint, but I’d had no idea he was so good. Had I made a big mistake? Maybe I should have hung on a bit longer. Had I missed out on being the great artist’s muse?
     The next day Michael and I wandered through a bookstore. I came upon a picture book of Van Gogh’s greatest hits. I leafed through it. And there, on page 27, was Johnny’s painting. Precisely the same image Johnny had shown me in his restaurant a day earlier. Years later I took a painting class with Rick Worth here in Key West. Rick’s teaching technique is brilliant. He instructs his students, step by step, on how to mix colors and use technique to create a duplicate of a genuine work of art mounted before them at the front of the room. The results are quite extraordinary. Everybody walks away with a great little painting, and you can see how the amateur might think the work is actually their work. And that’s how, I assume, Johnny Conte came to pass off Van Gogh’s, "Bedroom at Arles" as his own.

Van Gogh's famous, "Bedroom at Arles." 1888.

     But that was such a long time ago. When all is said and done I must confess I owe a great debt of gratitude to that man. I learned from him how to make a divine marinara sauce. He is why I came to Key West. I came here after Johnny broke my heart. And, as I said before, the trail of broken hearts is bloody and long.

Miguel wearing his Conte's T-shirt, circa 1975.

     When he was around ten years old I took my son with me when I visited with Johnny Conte.  As Johnny and I talked over old times, Miguel played in the crazy/chic junktique collection in the yard of his (at that time) New York restaurant. Johnny drank many glasses of wine. Miguel dubbed my first great love “Johnny Chianti.”
     Now my son is a grown man, with a girlfriend from Maine. This summer he’s going there, and we’ve told Miguel that anyone who goes to Maine must visit Conte’s Fish Market restaurant in Rockland. Go for the incredible food. Go for the outrageousness. I’ve told him to be sure to announce his presence to John Conte, because I like to think my son is someone Johnny would come out of the kitchen to see. It's a common mistake, over-estimating John Conte's interest in you and yours. President Harry Truman famously said: "if you can't stand the heat stay out of the kitchen." But in John Conte's world, I think it's the other way around, as things often are for the eccentric chef. I think John stays in the kitchen precisely because he can't stand the heat.

Send in the Clowns: My High School Reunion

A happy day with the class clowns in Key West.

The high school reunion is a cliché inside a cliché. It occurred to me at mine the more people change, the more they stay the same.  The mean girl is still mean. The fast girl is as inappropriately flirty as she was at 17. Her third husband seems to be a good sport. The smartest guy in the class, once an Adonis in his baby blue gymnastics uniform, and my favorite dance partner at the sock hops, is now a pudgy, sex-obsessed weirdo, possibly with a foot fetish.
    “How do you girls walk around in those high heeled shoes?” he pondered. “Are you wearing them, too, June?” he asked.
    I showed him my stacked heels. He said: “Let’s go back to my hotel room and make up for lost time.”
    I was both flattered (I’m a mature woman after all!) and disgusted (I’m a mature woman after all!).
    I went to the reunion with my high school best friend, the brilliant and accomplished, whip-thin Vicki. When I told Tom, the first boy I ever kissed, that I was there with Vicki – “We’re still great friends” I said, he lifted an eyebrow rakishly and asked “how great?” 

Good Morning America How Are You? Peter at Ft. Taylor.

    I had been so excited, in those dizzy days before the event, about seeing Tommy again. Would he remember how we kissed for hours and he gave me whisker burns with his scruffy pubescent mustache? He did not remember. Nowadays Tommy is that guy at the party who sits alone, clenching a beer like a prayer, shoulders slumped, staring at the floor, hoping for someone, preferably an attractive female, to become intrigued with his disconnectedness.
    Decades after our steamy graduation night back in the decadent '60s, my classmates looked pretty darned good. Well-preserved. Youthful. Healthy. I’d figured Vicki and I would be the hottest women there, but we weren’t. Every woman looked great. The men, not so much.
    “I went to high school with a very attractive group of people!” I told my husband, who preferred to sit out my New York reunion back here in Key West. In fact, attendance was sparse. Probably less than a quarter of the class showed up to see what time had wreaked on their peers.
    “That’s not necessarily true,” Michael said. “It's more likely that people who don’t age well don’t exhibit themselves at class reunions.”

Jennifer's birthday on the beach. See the green heart cake? I made that. See the man in shades? He's the guy who's kept our feet on the ground for 25 years.

    The happy, chatty girls of the high school in-crowd organized the party, prepared the food and the booze, and made sure we all paid admission. Among them, Jennifer, the captain of the cheerleader team, and, during the years of our time there, the most avant-garde dresser at John Jay High School. Jennifer was a great mix of kooky and straight. I liked her. She always said hello to me back in the day, which she certainly didn’t have to. She was cool. I was a geek.
    Also in attendance was Peter, another member of the high school hip crowd and also, as I recall, universally pleasant. In the Celebrity Round-up in the yearbook, Peter and Jennifer were named Class Clowns.
    “Who do you suppose will be the big match up at the reunion?” Vicki asked, as we drove past Martha Stewart’s Katonah estate on our way to the reunion. “Who will find each other again?”

Beach bums: Jen, Peter, Michael. Ft. Taylor Beach.

    As it turned out, the most reunited at the reunion turned out to be the class clowns, Peter and Jennifer. They hooked up at the party, spent the weekend together, and headed off into the sunset, in Peter’s camper. It was terribly romantic the way the two traveled about in that tiny camper, sending email updates from far flung state parks and exotic beaches. It was like 1968 all over again.
    Many months later they showed up in Key West. We had a great time. Peter really is crazy, off-the-wall funny, as well as a great musician. And Jennifer, full of stories of her adventures with both the famous and the infamous in her madcap past, is energetic and fun. They loved Key West and Ft. Taylor Beach and the challenge of finding a place to park their camper and sleep free like tin can tourists.
    Then, one night, Jennifer came to the door of our house. Alone. There’d been an argument. She’d fled the camper. She slept in our loft. The next day Peter came for her and all was put right. The clowns reunited, yet again.  And again, they rode off into the sunset, in that camper, while we less adventurous and more tethered folks watched with more than a little envy their apparent escape from normalcy.

June, Peter, Jen in our back yard.

    Eventually Peter, who is very clever with his hands, bought a house in Central Florida and set about remodeling it for re-sale. He flipped and flopped several properties. But settling in one place, Jennifer said, put a damper on their happy relationship. It floundered. They fought, parted, departed, made up, reunited, fought, and so on, in an endless drama Michael began calling, “Two Class Clowns and Their 3-Ring Circus.”
    Twice Jennifer has moved herself to Key West with the plan of staying forever, with or without Peter. Each time there has been a search for a new nest, a job, a life. Twice Peter has followed her here, in that camper, and slept outside her door.  Twice she has packed up her things and gone back to him, most recently, last week.
    Sunday, when the clowns fought at Peter’s home, Jennifer phoned to say she was leaving him. This time, for good. She added that were she ever to even consider going back to Peter I should save her from herself by any means, even if it meant tying her to a chair. She reminded me that doing the same thing the same way again and again and expecting different results is one definition of insanity. But I’ve tried to convince her that living in a circus, though exciting, is probably ultimately too discordant for grown high school graduates — even if the music is really, really good.
    Today, I heard through the grapevine that Peter and Jennifer are in their camper, back on the road, heading for New England.  The wild animals are in their cages. The circus is moving again. 
    This is a cautionary tale. To anyone considering a high school reunion, a second look at the people with whom you shared your most angst-ridden years, I say consider carefully. Do you really want to go there? Is it ever a good idea to revisit the ghosts of our pasts, in the flesh, a thousand years later? Just look what happened to me . . . my first kisses half forgotten, a lone, whisker-burned memory. And look at the class clowns, who ran away with the circus and the romance of the road. Sometimes I wonder.  Did romance ever really happen at all?

If You Don’t Look Good, We Don’t Look Good

Sassoon gives designer Mary Quant the ultimate no-muss, no-fuss hair cut. So Sassy!

  Vidal Sassoon, the haircare guru who forever changed the way women wear their hair, has died. He was 84 and I consider that to be a very nice length of lifetime, right?   Anyone today working in the business of hair — cutting it, styling it, washing it or blow-drying it, owes a debt of gratitude to the guy who freed us all from rollers and old-fashioned space helmet-like hair dryers that kept our mothers captive for many long, hot Saturday afternoons. 
    Praise for Sassoon’s genius is piling up like hair under a busy barber’s chair. Tabitha Coffey, the star of the Bravo reality show Tabitha Takes Over tweeted that her day had been ruined by the news of Sassoon’s death. Madison Avenue salon owner and celebrity stylist Oscar Blandi said Sassoon showed him the “true art of styling” and made him fall in love with the hair business.

Legend has it that when Mia Farrow had her long, silky mane of blond hair cut short by Sassoon her then husband Frank Sinatra served her with divorce papers. It was much too sassy a move for Frank.

    I knew a guy who fell out of love with the hair business thanks to Vidal Sassoon. He was Richard Heyman, who owned the Gingerbread Square Gallery here in Key West. Way before Richard found his way to the Southernmost Point, he made a small, but impressive enough fortune in the hair business. Mr. Richard’s Salons occupied several storefronts in Toledo, Ohio. Each salon employed a busy staff of hairdressers. It was the mid-'60s and respectable women, of which there were plenty in Toledo according to Richard, dutifully maintained their hair with unerring dedication to tradition, just like their mothers had. 
    Richard Heyman was enjoying great success in the hair business when the innovative Vidal Sassoon splashed onto the scene. Sassoon was English, and in those days London was the trendsetting capital of the world with icons like Twiggy, Mary Quant, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, all topping their brilliant, arty heads, with no-nonsense precision cuts ala Vidal Sassoon.  Richard packed off for London, and studied with Sassoon himself. And because Richard never did anything half way, he learned to do a flawless Sassoon cut, just like they did in London. Richard brought London style back to Toledo, and his customers loved him for it. Sassoon’s wash and wear cut was all the rage. And Mr. Richard’s Salons became the trendsetting place to go for mod hair.

Yeah!! No more rollers! No more teasing! No more shellack!

    But Sassoon’s innovations turned out to be not so good for Richard’s business. 
    Before Sassoon, the hair routine in Toledo went like this: once or twice a week women would visit the beauty parlor for a wash, set and comb out. This holy trinity of hair care could be administered to as many as 25 customers in a day. It was done assembly line style. First the shampoo girl shampooed. Then the hairdresser put the hair in rollers. Then, a turn in the hair dryer, with its strange, hot, ear-roasting solitude. Finally, back to the hairdresser for the comb out. Hair was teased, sprayed and shellacked into place, where it stayed put until the next visit.
    The Sassoon haircut changed everything. It was possible, before Sassoon, to fluff  (Richard’s word) a whole neighborhood of women in one busy salon day. But the Sassoon haircut, with its careful symmetry, demanded time. No rollers, no dryers, no hairspray or shellack needed. Further, one good precision cut haircut could keep a woman out of the beauty salon for weeks at a time.

Mayor Richard Heyman laughing at my hair.

    Richard’s beauty parlors went from being money making wash, set and comb-out factories to leisurely salons, where hair stylists in mini-skirts and 5-point hair cuts lavished their progressive customers with refreshments, conversations and picture books of Sassoon-inspired hair designs, and carefully calculated each woman’s leap into the trendy world of the sexually revolutionary '60s. (Morning hair that tossed right back into place after a wild night in bed made the one-night stand far more practical.) Mr. Richard’s business foundered. And since Richard Heyman enjoyed nothing less than bustling success, he grew restless, sold his hair care empire, and moved to Miami to consider his next move.
    Richard came to Key West, where he founded the Gingerbread Square Gallery. He loved the island city and dedicated himself to making Key West the best place it could be. He got into local politics. And then another ground-breaking move: he was elected America’s first openly gay mayor. Revolutionary. I worked for Mayor Heyman for four years, and learned from him important lessons that put me on the path to a very happy life.

Don't you just know that Sassoon and Mr. Richard are partying together, somewhere, where you don't need hair?

    So today I’m thinking I, too, owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Sassoon, not just for freeing my mother and me from the tyranny of rollers and hairspray, but also for sending to Key West Richard Heyman, a man who changed my life with his spirit of fun, of fair play, of enthusiasm. RIP Vidal Sassoon. And RIP sweet Richard. May you party on in Hair Heaven.

I Love New York (on TV)

Seinfeld

    Here in Key West Seinfeld is on from 11 to midnight, two episodes, every night. A while back, when I was ill, I got into the habit of falling asleep to Seinfeld. It was therapeutic listening to those familiar voices, reminding me of the absurdity of the world in which I so wanted to stay. Now that I’m healthy again, I still do bedtime Seinfeld reruns again and again. I could probably recite verbatim most Seinfeld scripts, just as I can sing the score from West Side Story from memory. Really.
    For many years I worked Thursday nights -- Seinfeld night -- and only heard the talk about this new, very funny television show called Seinfeld. I was a late comer, but once I found the show, I couldn’t get enough of Jerry and Elaine and George and Kramer. Those characters are authentic. I knew these people when I lived in New York! George’s father -- that guy was my father, the quintessential, short, grumpy New York dad. They even look alike.
    When I hosted the locally produced television show MD TV, we chose to come on right before Seinfeld. MD TV was on for 8 years. We were on long after Seinfeld had hung it up. The key to our success: that lucky time slot of 7:30, Thursdays, right before Seinfeld.

Anderson

    I’ve heard he’s gay -- not that there’s anything wrong with that. I love Anderson Cooper’s brand of journalism, but also his wry sense of humor, which he exposes far more often in his morning talk show than on his serious nighttime news show. Cooper is an American institution, a Vanderbilt heir, who could be hanging out, doing nothing but looking real good, with Paris Hilton and the other famous for nothing celebs. But no. Anderson has character and ambition. He has earned his fame, fair and square.
    His mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, to whom he shows utter adoration when she appears on the show, designs fabulous jeans. Gloria has led a poor little rich girl fairy tale life, with fantastic highs and horrific lows. How could her son Anderson be anything other than amazing?
    Anderson and I share a passion for dulce de leche ice cream. His talk show is at 9 a.m., opposite Rachel Ray, a show I used to like, but now turn to only when Anderson’s show is too real, like when he interviews murderers or dog trainers. Rachel is charming, sure, but when she lists ingredients for her daily recipe, she seems to think we all live just down the block from Balducci’s.

Mad Men

      Ah, New York in the '60s. I remember clearly that smoky train ride between Grand Central Station and Katonah. I might have chatted with Don Draper on that train ride that he, an advertising executive and I, a student at the Fashion Institute of Technology, so frequently rode. We’d have flirted and shared a beer and many cigarettes, and we may well have taken that relationship a step or two further, because that’s how we behaved in the '60s. And yet at the time, just like the people on Mad Men, I wasn’t having much fun, doing what everybody was doing. I recall a pervasive misery, an aching sense of not fitting in. I saw a terrible reality gap between what my parents believed and demonstrated to me in the way they were living their lives, and the way people around me, and at my school in New York City, were living theirs, breaking all tradition, being free, outrageous and, well, shameless. I’d seen what shame could do so I wanted the opposite. I was 17 when I met a man and woman who unabashedly told me they were living together. In sin! I was certain that merely sitting at the same table with them would guarantee me a place in Hell.
    There’s a real sense of darkness around that show. It’s in the music, the endless smoking and drinking and sly sexing and moping children. Each week I wonder, who is the guy toppling off the top of the building? It really could be any one of them. In the '60s, it could have been me.