I think I promised this story a long time ago. My parents met in Hartford, Connecticut in the mid-forties. They dated for a time but there was enormous pressure for them to not do this. My father, you see, was Jewish. My mother, you see, was Catholic. The elders at their respective houses of worship told them flat out to break it off and forget about wedlock. So did friends and several members of their families.
My mother's one brother opposed the marriage. Her parents were hesitant but their attitude was a skeptical "We sure hope you know what you're doing."
My father's parents had both passed but both of his sisters were strongly against marrying outside the faith. Non-Jewish wasn't the main problem. It was the "Catholic" part that didn't fly with them, just as my mother's friends and clergy were basically saying to her, "Listen, if you absolutely have to marry someone who isn't Catholic, couldn't you find a man who isn't Jewish?" My father's four brothers had views that ran the gamut. Only one, Nathan, was supportive enough to say, "It's your life. Marry whoever will make you happy and forget about what anyone else thinks." The naysayers were strident enough that they finally succeeded in driving the Jew and the Shiksa apart. The woman who would be my mother tried getting over him by marrying someone else.
That trick, as Rocky the Flying Squirrel says, never works. The marriage was annulled after a few months and before long, Bernie and Dorothy were an item again. The anti-Semitism she'd experienced from Catholic friends and church officials had diminished my mother's loyalty to that aspect of her life. She'd basically decided that if it came down to choosing between the man she loved and her religion, she was going to go with the guy. So they resumed dating, well aware that the next step they were contemplating — i.e., matrimony — would upset way too many of the people they knew. Then again, they were also aware they couldn't live without each other.
My father had a thought. He was working menial jobs in Hartford. At age 40, he had no real career but he did have a fantasy about getting into the entertainment industry — maybe radio, maybe that new TV thing that seemed to be catching on. He'd made one attempt to get a job writing for radio twenty years earlier but his first and only rejection had been so painful, he gave up that dream. Since so many friends and relatives would stop talking to them once they were wed, maybe they oughta move somewhere else…somewhere they could start a new life together. Somewhere there might be jobs in radio or television.
New York was discussed but that was a little close and my father had a hunch he'd be competing against fewer job applicants in Los Angeles. Besides, it didn't snow in Los Angeles and it was then a much cheaper place to live. L.A. in those days also seemed to symbolize New Beginnings.
Beyond that, there was this: He was then working for the Internal Revenue Service in Hartford. It was not a job he liked. He never had a job he liked…just ones he took to earn money. The I.R.S. then needed employees in Los Angeles and they were offering a one-time bonus for anyone who upped and moved out there to work in that town. It was something to consider, especially when he read the fine print on the offer. He could take a leave of absence from the Hartford office, go to L.A. and look around for a better job…and then if he didn't find one, he could go to work out there for the I.R.S. and still claim the bonus.
It made great sense but still, it was just so…so life-changing. They were both a little frightened about actually doing it.
In the meantime, an odd thing was happening to my father. People had begun stopping him on the street all the time and asking him to do something about the parkways or fix the sewers or support military action somewhere. This was because he looked an awful lot like a man named Abraham Ribicoff. Mr. Ribicoff would later become the Governor of Connecticut, a U.S. Senator from Connecticut and the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare under President John F. Kennedy. In 1950, which is the year we're talking about here, he was the U.S. Congressman representing the portion of Hartford where my soon-to-be parents lived. My father was spending much of his life explaining to strangers that he was not Abe Ribicoff.
One evening, he and my mother were dining in a restaurant, again discussing this daring idea of moving to L.A. and taking the vows. Suddenly, an angry woman marched up to their table and shouted, "Congressman Ribicoff! I've seen your wife and that woman is not your wife! I'm going to tell the whole world you're unfaithful!" She then stormed away, my parents laughed a lot and my father said, "Gee, maybe we oughta move out there just to save his reputation."
Adding a joke reason to all the real reasons for going west and getting hitched seemed to crystallize how real the real reasons were. Over the next few days, they refined the plan: My father would take the leave of absence from work and go out to Southern California on his own. He would get an apartment and then start looking for a better job than working for the I.R.S., preferably in radio and television. If he could, great. If he couldn't, he'd sign a three-year contract to work for the I.R.S. out there, which is what he'd have to do to get the bonus which would cover most of the cost of relocating. Either way, he'd then send for my mother and she'd fly out and marry him.
He came out, rented an apartment and made the rounds of TV and radio stations. The weeks he spent looking, he would later refer to as the worst weeks of his life. He had never lived alone before — there were always a few siblings on the premises — and he didn't take well to it. He also didn't take well to a parade of receptionists telling him they weren't hiring — and he wasn't even trying to get work as a writer. He was willing to take any job, however menial, but it didn't matter. No openings.
Before he'd started applying, he was prepared to take up to six months, if that was what was necessary, to secure a position in the entertainment industry. After two or three weeks, he changed his mind about the six months. The rejections were so total. The new apartment was so empty. And he was so worried. My father, as I've mentioned in these essays, was a world-class worrier. No matter how well things were going, he could always think of some possible if unlikely disaster upon which to obsess. He wanted very much to be with Dorothy and he'd lost her once to another man…
Well before even one of the six months was up, he went in and signed on with the local Internal Revenue office. After all, it was only a three-year contract. He could keep looking for something better after he and Dorothy were together again and forever. Then he quickly sent for his beloved. She shipped most of her belongings out, then shipped herself. On March 3, 1951, he picked her up at the L.A. airport and they drove directly to Las Vegas where they were wed at the Desert Inn, which was then a newly-opened motel.
Back in Los Angeles, they went about setting up housekeeping in a strange city, and one of the first things they needed was a local dentist. My father asked someone at his office if they could recommend a good one and he got the name of J. Darwin Harden, D.D.S., who had a practice in Westwood Village. Dr. Harden, a crusty gent who began every appointment with his signature line — "Well, let's see if you have any teeth left" — not only became the Evanier family dentist but an important resource. When my father needed a podiatrist, Dr. Harden recommended one. When my mother needed a gynecologist, Dr. Harden recommended one. And of course, he took care of my parents' teeth…and mine once I came along and grew some.
Every good doctor I've ever been to can be traced back to Dr. Harden. The surgeon who operated on my knee last month was recommended by my physician who was recommended by my urologist who was recommended by my previous physician who was recommended by the physician before him who was recommended by my opthamologist who was recommended by my previous physician who was recommended by the dentist who was recommended by Dr. Harden when he retired. (Anyone out there who remembers a comic book I used to write called The DNAgents may recall a character in it named Dr. Harden. Guess where I got that name.)
Now to understand the rest of this story, you need to keep track of a few relatives on my father's side. Keep this guide handy during the coming paragraphs. You'll need it.
- There was Uncle Nathan, whom I just mentioned. Uncle Nathan was my father's younger brother.
- There was Aunt Sally. Aunt Sally was one of my father's older sisters and a vocal disapprover of the Bernie/Dorothy union.
- There was Aunt Dot. Aunt Dot was the other of my father's older sisters and a vocal (but not quite as vocal) disapprover of said union.
- And there was Uncle Aaron. Uncle Aaron was my Uncle Aaron because he'd married my Aunt Dot.
- Also, my father had the three older brothers — Seymour, Irving and Henry.
Weeks before my parents married, Sally took ill. Very ill. The kind of ill that got her and everyone around her thinking about death. She was the first of the siblings to face the possibility and, as mortality does, it put some things in a different perspective. She began to think that maybe Bernie marrying a Catholic woman wasn't such a horrible thing. This got Dot thinking the same way. Neither was quite there yet but it began to feel wrong to condemn someone else's life choice.
Dot and her husband Aaron were contemplating a life choice of their own and so was Nathan. Bernard, you see, wasn't the first of them to move out of Hartford, Connecticut. Uncle Henry, who had risen to become one of the highest-ranked Jewish people in the Army, had been reassigned to San Diego, California. Uncle Seymour was preparing to relocate to New York. Nathan began to think he might like L.A. better, too. He was closer to my father than to anyone else in the family and he hated the winters of Connecticut. When he lost his job in Hartford, he decided he'd drive out to Los Angeles and check the place out.
Aaron also needed a new career. He'd been in the window display business. He and a partner had built a firm that manufactured low-cost display units you could purchase and put in your storefront window to enhance sales. The business had been quite successful but he'd quarreled so much with his partners that he wound up selling them his shares and getting out. Another business he tried was not successful so he decided he wanted to get back into the window display trade. The only thing stopping him was that when he'd sold his share, he'd signed a non-competition contract.
Ah, but there was a way around that. The non-competition clause only applied to the East Coast. He could set up any kind of window display business he wanted if he went, say, to the West Coast. With Henry in California and Nathan on the verge of emigrating there too, that seemed to be the place. Of course, Bernie was out there too but they weren't going to have anything to do with him and that…that woman he'd married.
Back in Los Angeles, my mother had been feeling ill, off and on. She finally called Dr. Harden who referred her to a physician who told her, as she sorta/kinda thought/hoped that she wasn't sick. She was pregnant. This is where I come into the story.
My folks were pretty happy about the news and that evening in their little apartment, they discussed how and whether to tell their respective families. My mother had been writing letters to her mother and of course would inform her…but what about my father's side of the family? My father decided to write to Nathan and tell him.
Just then, their phone rang. It was Nathan, calling not from Hartford but from a motel about six blocks from them. A half-hour later, they had a joyous reunion and they exchanged information: He told them that about Sally's failing health. They told him that another Evanier was about to come into the world. Nathan spent a few weeks seeing them, setting up his own apartment and finding a job. He lined one up working for Douglas Aircraft as a parts inspector — a position that would start in six months.
Then he began driving back east to Hartford, unaware that Aaron and Dot were driving west to visit California and see if they might like it out there. One morning in Kansas, Nathan decided to stop for lunch. He picked a little roadside diner at random, parked and walked in…and there he found his sister and his brother-in-law eating at one of the tables. A true story, everyone swore to me.
They had lunch, over which Nathan told them of the impending baby. That meant a lot to about-to-be-Aunt Dot, especially in light of Sally's condition. Sally had also been the hardliner against Bernie marrying a Catholic and her softening on the issue reduced Dot's opposition to it, as had the fact that Bernie and Dorothy had gone ahead and tied the knot so there was no point trying to stop that from happening any longer.
And now, there was this baby coming. She thought, "Gee, maybe he'll be a tall writer of comic books and TV shows and he might even be named one of the 25 Best Bloggers on the Internet by Time magazine…"
No, I apologize. She thought nothing of the sort. What she did think was that something was starting to feel right about that marriage…
After lunch, Nathan continued driving east while Aaron and Dot continued driving west. Somewhere between the diner in Kansas and the California border, Dot underwent an amazing transformation. The way she put it to me was, "I suddenly couldn't think of one good reason why Bernie and Dorothy shouldn't have gotten married." They decided that instead of heading for San Diego, their first stop would be Los Angeles.
So one day in L.A., Bernie was reflecting on how good his life was. He had a new wife and they loved each other very much. He had a new home in a new city. He had a new job and while it wasn't one he especially liked, it seemed to be steady…and maybe the best job he could get. And he was about to become a father. Everything was great, he thought, but for the fact that he was alienated from most of his family. He'd been trying to decide if he should write Dot about the pregnancy, just in case that made a difference to her, and had decided against it. "It won't change her mind," he told his wife.
The phone rang. He answered it. It was Dot. She was calling from the same motel where Nathan had stayed and she said, "So…I hear I'm about to become an aunt."
He was still in shock that evening when they all got together — him, Dorothy, Dot and Aaron. The folks who would soon be my parents could not get over that Dot and Aaron were not only here but were saying they were moving here permanently. "We were going to explore San Diego and San Francisco," Dot explained. "But if I'm going to be an aunt and he's going to be an uncle, Aaron and I agree we should be right here with you." Everyone hugged, symbolically if not physically, and all the nonsense was forgiven, forgotten and never mentioned again. I never knew any of this was ever an issue until I was around twelve and my parents thought I was old enough to hear and understand the story.
Dot and Aaron moved into a little apartment in the poorer part of Beverly Hills and Aaron began setting up his new window display business. Soon after came word that Sally had passed, followed by news that Nathan was driving back out to live and work in L.A. Both he and Bernie kept their same jobs — Nathan working for Douglas Aircraft, my soon-to-be father working for the I.R.S. — for the rest of their lives. Neither of them ever went back to Hartford either, not even to visit.
Nathan returned in time to be there, along with Dot and Aaron, when I was born…delivered, of course, by an obstetrician recommended by Dr. J. Darwin Harden. D.D.S. In later years, I'd be given credit for binding the family back together again, as if I'd done anything to make that happen. Personally, I always thought most of the credit should have gone to Dr. Harden.