Friday, February 15, 2013

The Late 20's and a Caddy (Chapter 19)


The years 1927 and 1928 leading up to that lovely fall day in 1928 when we looked out and saw the new Cadillac parked in front of the house are the most vivid to me memory-wise. Calvin Coolidge was president, and I remember that day in May, 1927, when father was sitting with his earphones on listening to his radio in the sunroom - he suddenly jumped up and called out "Nanny, Martha come here quickly!" We did and he put his two sets of earphones on our ears. We heard the words from Paris..."He made it - he's here - Lindy is landing as I speak!" Campbell was shouting out the front door to any neighbors within earshot, "He MADE it-he's in Paris!"

And a national hero was born.

And the following Christmas at our school party, each of us had to perform one thing at our school party. I chose to sing the song "Lucky Lindy!" I was seven years old. That same year, mother took Martha and I to the Chicago theater to see our first talking picture - Al Jolsen in The Jazz Singer. I was so overwhelmed by the experience and by the huge meal that we had eaten in the new cafeteria in the downtown Loop that when I stepped out in the lobby after the show with my mother and Martha, I promptly threw up - loudly and TOTALLY all over the grand Oriental rug! Those were the days when the lobbies of theaters looked like the interiors of Sultan's palaces! And the great Chicago theater was, and still is, one of the grandest of them all! We left quickly, leaving uniformed ushers with mops and pails scurrying around - I was NEVER so humiliated!

My face was still burning when we finally got home and I climbed up in father's lap and bawled away! He was calm, and whispered to me "It's all right - Nannie dear - when I was a wee laddie, I threw up once in CHURCH!"

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