My Dad Was in the Cold War - Scene 1

My Dad Was in the Cold War
A Memory Play in ____Scenes
Scene 1

(Room without artificial light, streaks of daylight trying to break thru closed shades. Facing opposite of the window, is a crib. It’s littered with dolls and stuffed animals. There is a non-descript dresser on the north side of the room and a small black rocking chair)
My earliest life memory, that is memory not influenced by a snapshot or catalyzed by a family story, but memory of my own knowing, being took place when I was around 2 years old, maybe 2 1/2. I’m in my crib and I’m standing. It’s morning. Soon, I hear the shower water turn on. I know what the water turning means, and am overcome with excitement and anticipation. I pace the crib. Some time later, my dad, showered and dressed enters my room. (Father enters room, he is striking, with dark black hair, blown dry smooth, dark olive like skin, hallow eyes. He wears a crisp white shirt, bold tie circa early 1970’s, and carries a briefcase. He is energy. Electricity) My dad leans into my crib and begins singing,

Hi Ho
Hi Ho
It’s off to work I go

As he sings, I begin marching in my crib,

La, La, La, La, La, La
Hi Ho Hi Ho Hi Ho Hi ho

He kisses me goodbye, and leaves my room, (father exits, child has stopped marching; watches door).

----

People would describe him as electric. His brother, summer girls*, my papa (mother’s father), our dry cleaner, Fred who made house calls, and my childhood friend Debby’s mother, Barbara would repeatedly tell me what a looker, how charismatic, a stunner, my father was. I too was under his spell of electrons and neutrons. When he walked into a room, crowds would actually pause, women would coyly glance, and men would walk over to him, shake his hand sometimes hug him. I would lean on him, maybe hold his hand, people needed to know that he was mine; we were together. My dad was a celebrity and all he did was arrive.

Pick-ups, and entrances were his specialty. He could be hours (and often was) late picking me up at an airport where my 9 or 10 or 11 year old self was visiting him in one of his adopted towns of Houston or Honolulu. I could see him a hundred feet away, walking confidently, casually- in terminal, a smile cocked to one-side, occasionally glancing at anything (window, metal) that may pick up his reflection.
“DAD! DAD!” waving my arms. “Here! Over here!”
He would then stop, lower himself to my height, open his arms in a grandiose manner, and I would run and melt magnetically into them. There was no greater joy in my young life.

*summer girls- young girls from Wisconsin or Michigan who would come spend their summers taking care of primarily a Jewish family’s children. Sometimes they made the children drink beer, and eat all the food on their plate.