A Red State Hero

Chapter 61 NEWPORT AND ALL THAT

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Earlier in our story we met John, Dorothy's brother. John, who built a house for Glenn and Dorothy and who looked after and provided for them after Texas. In the years between then and now, John moved to Florida where he took up house building and after forty years and hundreds of houses his wife, Alta, died and his life seemed to dry up. Glenn and Dorothy invited him up to West Virginia for the summer months. As summer was coming to a close, Glenn planned to take him up to the Cape to see Daniel and all the wonders of New England.

The visit was nearly as short as the letter that preceded it. Daniel could not make sense of it. From the moment the Blue Bird Bus pulled into the parking lot, Glenn seemed to be in a hurry. "We'll go to Newport first thing in the morning, if that's all right with you," he said.

Daniel prepared lobster and steamers and quahogs for dinner. Glenn and John went after the clams and quahogs to Daniel's surprise, even dipping the clams in his special recipe of melted butter, brown sugar and Tabasco sauce. "This is good," Glenn said as John seconded his appreciation.

"You got to get the amounts right," said Daniel, "too much brown sugar will ruin it."

David gamely tried the steamers only to give his verdict with the word, "Yuk!"

Later in a ride around Hyannis, John who had spent his life as a homebuilder, asked Daniel, "Are these shingled houses with the fake stone fronts common around here?"

"Naw," said Daniel, "they're pretty recent."

"Well, I have three objections to them," said John, "first-they're not historical, second-they're not aesthetic, and third-they're not structurally sound."

"Why's that?" asked Glenn.

"Because the stone is heavier than the lumber backing that's holding it up and under certain conditions if the stone comes down, the front of the house will come down with it."

They were next to the harbor now and John said, "These houses are God ugly; they look like they've been put up to make an impression."

"Yeah, a bad impression," said Glenn.

"People on the Cape call them New York houses," said Daniel.

"I know, we have the same thing in Florida, big garish, ugly houses."

"Lots of these homes are built on stink ponds," Daniel said, "tidal basins that smell like toilets in the summertime. The Cape Cod people are laying for these people when they come up to buy property in the wintertime. They're always amazed that they bought water frontage so cheaply until they come back in June."

Once Daniel drove to Route 6A they rode along in silence admiring the beautiful colonial houses. After a while Dorothy said, "It all looks like a postcard doesn't it?"
______________________________________________________________________________
The next morning Glenn was ringing the doorbell at seven o'clock. Once they reached Newport, John and Glenn declined the tour of the Breakers. Instead, while Dorothy and Caroline stood awestruck by the mansion's excess, Daniel, David, John and Glenn took the cliff walk behind the Vanderbilt's "summer place".

"Why would anyone put up a gall darned place like this anyway?" asked Glenn, "just think of what you could do with all that money."

"These folks weren't thinking about going to heaven, they were thinking about the here and now," said John.

"Money doesn't make you happy," said Daniel, "little Gloria was one sad character."

John smiled and said, "If you're gonna be sad, it's better to be sad rich than to be sad poor."

And so it went on as the three of them worked their way through a series of adages about the wealthy.

Out of the blue John said, "A lot of these Newport families were Jewish to begin with," and with that he opened a tirade of Anti-Jewish remarks.

"Strange," Daniel thought, "that so many Christian descendents of Jews were like his Uncle John, John's mother was Jewish and he wore the map of Israel on his face but his attitudes were those of his Scotch-English Father who proudly referred to himself as a white Anglo-Saxon. Daniel was amused at this thought-the Scotch were, sure as hell, not Anglo Saxons but whatever. He tried not to react to his uncle's sprew even though some of it was directed at him.

Glenn sat through all of this silently with an embarrassed grin on his face.

But even though the Breakers didn't make sense to John and Glenn, Daniel could see why Cornelius built it. It was good for socializing, impressing and intimidating-depending on who was at hand. Of course, fame and status came with the place and all the minions who were exploited and ripped off took a perverse pride in their connection. This trait is not unusual; consider the praise lavished on Queen Elizabeth who is descended from Robber Barons too.

But Glenn was affected and when he returned to the car he said, "You know, a man thinks he knows something but when you come to a place like this, you realize how small your world really is."
______________________________________________________________________________

The next day was Martha's Vineyard. They caught the first ferry and endured a chilly ride over the water. Only Daniel and David had the presence of mind to bring a sweater but this made Daniel feel guilty so he offered it to his mother who declined it and then to Caroline who declined also. Finally Glenn said, "If nobody wants your sweater, I'll take it." The sweater put a smile on Glenn's face and he smiled all the way across the channel.

When they reached Oak Bluffs, a tour bus was loading and Glenn said, "Let's get on, hurry, hurry."

This wasn't what Daniel had in mind. His plan would have involved lunch. It would have involved a short walk to the Tabernacle where William Jennings Bryant preached against the gold standard. He would have brought up the Scopes Monkey Trial and walked around the gingerbread houses that filled the Tabernacle Compound. Instead they were aboard a hot bus whose driver talked incessantly over a microphone that protruded form the dash, "And on your left the home of Diane Carroll," which was presumably somewhere among the trees, "and on your right the graveyard where John Belushi is buried," also among the trees.

Only at Gay Head was there some respite from sights hidden by trees. It was here in this forlorn spot that David asked if he could ride the merry-go-round in Oak Bluffs.

"You mean the oldest carousel in America," said Caroline, "the one with the brass ring, the one that Rodgers and Hammerstein were thinking about when they wrote CAROUSEL."

But no one took the hint. There were no questions about anything else to do on the island. Returning to the docks, the driver said, "Just in time; the ferry back to Cape Cod will be leaving in eight minutes."

There had been no sitting at beaches looking out to sea, no walks on the gallery-checkered Main Street. Nothing that took time and contemplation but rather one endless maddening whirl that Daniel didn't understand.
______________________________________________________________________________

The third day was Provincetown. On the way up the Cape, Caroline warned John by saying, "You know, Provincetown is a Gay Mecca." It was a phrase she had heard from the chef of the Courtyard Restaurant that she and Daniel had been operating for the past few years.

"Don't worry about it," said Glenn who had been to Provincetown several times before. "Just remember this," he said to John, "if you drop your wallet, don't bend over to pick it up-just kick it to the corner."

Everyone laughed and looked at Daniel as if he should tell the next joke. He knew plenty of gay and anti-gay jokes. "When Daniel first came to the Cape with his ex-wife," said Caroline, "they played in Provincetown opening shows for Waylon Flowers and his Puppet Madame and Craig Russell, the legendary female impersonator."

But still, Daniel didn't tell any jokes, jokes about minorities were a nasty business he thought and he had heard plenty of them in his lifetime. When he played for Ike and Tina Turner, he learned that such jokes were a two-way street. He heard vicious anti-white jokes and in Provincetown he had heard vicious anti-straight jokes, jokes where straights were called "breeders". Perhaps it was because all of these small groups Orientals, Jews, blacks, gays and a multifidous assortment of others were outnumbered and overpowered. He had still heard from them all-remarks and jokes that were meant to hurt and that were often times cruel and hateful. These thoughts coalesced Daniel's mind and walled him off from the hilarity taking place around him.

Once he had parked in the big public parking lot his mother said, "I want to get something straight before we get out. I don't want to eat here. I don't want to eat any food that has been touched by someone who might have AIDS."

Daniel thought this was ridiculous but he didn't say so. He knew his mother meant it and he knew nothing would change her mind.
In no time the credit cards were un-holstered and were used until they were smoking, precipitating several trips to the Lincoln's large trunk. "It's all junk," Daniel said to himself as he eyed a large stuffed armadillo, a carved ivory seal, and several pieces of Scrimshaw.

When they were exhausted with shopping, Daniel ushered them into the Portuguese Bakery.

"I said I'm not gonna eat anything here," his mother whined but he assuaged her fears by saying, "This place is run by a family that comes here every year from Lisbon. There's nothing at all to worry about.

When Dorothy saw the father and the mother and the two young girls behind the counter, she was relieved. All in all they ordered meat pies, spinach and cheese croissants, lemon biscoitos, filhos, malacadas and finally-a loaf of sweet bread.

"This will be great in the morning with eggs and linguica," said Daniel.

Glenn kept referring to his diabetes and his blood sugar but he didn't stop eating. "You better be careful," Dorothy warned but he only grinned and took more bites.
______________________________________________________________________________

On the last evening of the trip, Glenn, Dorothy and John decamped to the Harbor Point. In a rare treat, David was allowed to come along. This would be the first time that Glenn and Dorothy had heard Daniel perform since he was in West Virginia and Daniel wasn't sure how they would react to the kind of music he played in New England. Adjustments are made regionally in the music business, sometimes in ways you would least expect.
At the extremes he had played a club in Nebraska where he alternated with a Polka Band. Even jazz varied between say, L.A. and New York and he had played jazz in both cities. New York musicians put down west coast jazz. According to them a west coast jazz player would not say, "Come and check out my gig." He would say, "Come and check out my act."

But Daniel didn't fit into categories. In the late sixties he had formed a Rock Band built around four jazz musicians who had seen the "writing on the wall". Jazz gigs were drying up so Daniel took to the Dessert Circuit-Palm Springs, Indio, El Central, Yuma, Blythe and Havasu City with musicians that formerly paid attention to Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Coletrain and Thelonius Monk.

They were now playing Born to be Wild, Proud Mary, Who's Making Love to Your Old Lady, Sunshine of Your Love, a Beatles tune or two, Hooked on a Feeling and other hits of the day. They played them with more polish and clarity than rock musicians did. And no rock musician could touch their solos or even come close. They did lack the raw energy of most rock groups but they were working and that's what mattered.

This is how Daniel was thinking when he set up at the Harbor Point. This job was the hardest job of all and very few musicians knew how to do it. The supper club turn around-an evening that started with soft jazz and standards-dinner music in other words-which later turned into Top Forty and eventually Rock. The turn around was a very dicey thing. You had to know how to read the audience just right. If you weren't careful how you did it, if you rushed it or were late, you would see people walking out on you. Most musicians never learn how to read an audience, to know what they want at any given time; and even the few who did read an audience well, never took it as far as Daniel. He knew there were exceptions to every rule and he played them. Society crowds still dance to Crazy, the song Willie Nelson sold to Patsy Cline and her producer, Owen Bradley, for twenty-five dollars. He played jazz sometimes during the rock sets. If you did it just right it would work, but you had to know when to stop, you couldn't play two jazz tunes in a row-one jazz tune gave everybody a chance to rest, to sit down and work on their drinks. It appealed to their sense of class, their sense of coolness. Night in Tunisia with good solos would always get applause. Money for Nothing, in a supper club setting on the other hand, never worked before midnight; but at 12:30 with the distortion pedals turned all the way up to ten, it brought the house down. There were floaters of course, tunes like New York, New York, that worked any time of the night. Early on they were done lightly, late at night they were an excuse for a high-kicking line dance. There were more than one of these in Daniel's repertoire. One, the song from Chorus Line, was another. It was just the highly eclectic nature of his gig that drew in the crowds; and the crowds were highly eclectic ranging from kids to eighty year olds. One dentist and his wife in his late seventies always requested Soul Train and on some special nights there was even a place for Pavane by Ravel or a Pavarotti version of Nesun Dorma.

Anything could happen at the Harbor Point so for all these reasons, Daniel worried about Glenn and Dorothy's reaction to what he would play. His Uncle John had never been a Country fan and he had dug up John's favorite song out of his ancient archives-the Mills Brothers version of Paper Doll. But everything turned out ok. He sang The Dance by Garth Brooks, he sang Almost like a Song by Ronnie Millsap, he sang I Love a Rainy Night by Eddie Rabbit and Caroline sang You Needed Me by Ann Murray. They were playing too much Country and he knew it and then he played Spain by Chick Corea for some people who often requested Spain. His version had a trumpet solo and a flute solo and he was amazed when he saw Glenn and Dorothy applauding vigorously. From that point on he played the repertoire he would usually play and at the end of the night received only compliments from his uncle and his parents.

On the way home David said, "Wow, dad, you were really blowing the trumpet tonight."

That's all it took to make Daniel happy.

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Chapter 60 WATCHING NINEVA BURN

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"Off to Spain in the coming week," thought Lewis. The very idea of the long flight across the Atlantic worried him and he thought to himself, "If I go to Schul (Synagogue), perhaps it will calm me. This evening is the beginning of Yom Kippur," he thought.

At sunset the Cantor will sing Kol Nidre, an ancient melody based upon a medieval Spanish folk song. The text is much older than the melody. It is in Aramaic, the root language of Hebrew, and it always works its magic on Lewis. Even bad Cantors (and there are many of them) can't wreck the Kol Nidre.

But the Cantor at Beth Emanuel was one of the best. He sang in the tradition of Koussevitzky and so after the Service, Lewis walked to his Manhattan apartment under a clear starlit sky. He did stop on the way for coffee and scones. As a Jew he was not allowed this break in the Yom Kippur fast; but he was not that religious, he told himself as he supped the coffee down.

In the morning he was back in Schul without Betty again, listening to the annual recitation of the Book of Jonah.

And as the Rabbi says:

"The Lord tells Jonah to go to the City of Nineveh and warn its people that if they do not stop their evil ways the Lord will destroy the City by fire. But Jonah does not do what the Lord commands him; instead he goes to the Port of Yenbo and hires himself out as a merchant seaman. As soon as the vessel puts out to sea, a great storm comes up and the crew is frightened and prays unto the Lord for protection; but Jonah does not join them, he is down in the hold sound asleep on a hammock. The crew realizes that they are being punished for Jonah's sin and they toss him overboard.

Now we have a man in the sea who is guilty of disobedience to God and a lack of responsibility to his fellow men. Along comes a great shark, probably a basking shark, and it swallows Jonah. "I know, I know," said the Rabbi, "the popular version refers to a whale but in the Hebrew version Jonah is swallowed by dag gadol (a big fish)."
"Inside dag gadol, Jonah prays one of the Bible's most beautiful prayers of repentance:

2:3 "And You threw46 me deep48 into the heart47 of the seas where the currents turned around me and the breakers and waves49 passed over50 upon me.
2:4 "I said that I was banished51 from before Your eyes - yet I will again look with regard towards Your holy Temple.
2:5 "The waters engulfed my soul35; the abyss52 surrounded me; seaweed bound up my head53.
2:6 "I went down9 to the roots54 of the mountains where the bar of the gate55 of the earth confined me forever56. But You caused my life57 to ascend up6 from the pit58, Yahweh, my God17

And he is promptly coughed up on shore. Having learned his lesson he goes to Nineveh and warns the Ninevites and to his amazement they promptly change their ways. The King of Nineveh even removes his royal garments and covers himself with sackcloth and ashes whereupon Jonah decamps to the edge of town and rests under a shady vine that the Lord provideth; but he is not happy and he says to the Lord, "I want to die." When asked "Why?" he replies, " I have been hoping to watch Nineveh burn." Or words to that effect.

Isn't that so much like human nature? Even when the evildoers repent we still want to see them punished, we want to see them punished for our own satisfaction. There is no justice in this. Many young men in our own community are serving long sentences in prison for selling small quantities of marijuana. This is not about rehabilitation or education, this is not about helping the community, this is about revenge and the pleasure we take from it.

I, myself, am guilty of wanting to watch Nineveh burn. With me, it's the Germans. How can hatred be more complete than that which I have felt for the Germans, for the war and the suffering they caused and for what they did to my people; in this, I am like Jonah.

Modern Germans, as a people, have repented and changed their ways-only a few remain from the Nazi era. And I know from my own conversations with Germans that the burden of guilt they carry is a heavy burden; but still I want to see Nineveh (Germany) burn. And yet during the last Yom Kippur I realized that, unlike Jonah, I had to let my hatred go. My hatred wasn't killing Germans, my hatred was killing me.

You know there was once a place in Germany called Weimar where Goethe and Schiller wrote great works of humanitarian literature; Beethoven was around in those days writing symphonies that embraced us all. There's a great lesson in this, it is easy to forget the good and dwell on the bad. It is possible for a great nation with great gifts to mankind to be ruined by an arrogant, deceitful, lying malevolent government. But as for me and the Germans, I believe it is time for forgiveness and reconciliation; I no longer need to WATCH NINEVEH BURN."

Lewis took the Rabbi's words to heart, he felt cleansed; he felt like it was time for
                                                TIKIM OLAM. *

*Repair the world

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Chapter 59 VEGAS

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Chapter 59                         VEGAS

Family Reunions come in all forms. In the case of the Reeves' family, family members travel hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of miles to congregate as they did in Sterling around the hot air balloon. On the other hand, the Peretz family lived in and around Huntington in large numbers. When they got together, it was not so much a reunion as a neighborhood party.

After two years on Cape Cod, Caroline persuaded Daniel to close the restaurant for "remodelling" and drive her home. Of course, if he went to West Virginia, he would have to go to Sterling.

He had just parked on the tarmac beside his parents' home when Glenn wheeled up beside him and motioned for him to get into his Blazer. When they pulled out of the driveway, Glenn asked, "Did you see your mother yet?"

"No," Daniel answered.

"Well, that's good because I'm gonna tell you right now, she's on the warpath."

"What's wrong?" Daniel asked.

"Well, I just came back from Vegas yesterday, I flew up with a group of investors on Thursday and we spent the weekend; but the problem is I took Mimi with me. No one said anything about it and everything would have gone ok except when I got off the return flight in Metro City, Mimi and I ran right into her husband and there was a big scene. Mimi was crying and all the rest of it and I came on home and I still didn't think there was anything to be concerned about; but that son-of-a-bitch called your mom. I can't believe he did that after everything I've done for him-helped set him up in business and everything."

Glenn's expression was grim and then his face broke into a wide smile, "Of course, I was fuckin' his wife all the time," he said as he roared with laughter, "I don't know what he's so mad about, she said he can't get the job done so I was helping him out, keeping a smile on Mimi's face, what more can the man ask than that."
But then Glenn grew somber again, "You mom doesn't think it's funny. I think she's darn near calling a lawyer and that wouldn't be funny at all."

Daniel didn't know what to say and they drove on in silence for a few minutes then Glenn coughed and cleared his throat.

Tears welled up in his eyes. "I love her," he bellowed in between sobs and snorts and gurgling sounds. "I love her," he repeated in a whisper. Suddenly recovered he said, "Reach in the glove compartment there and get me that box of Kleenex."

He wiped his eyes and blew his big nose and then he said, "When I'm with her I'm as happy as I can be; I feel like a king on a throne. You should have seen her in Vegas; just walking down the street everyone checking her out made me feel just like a king. She's so pretty, Daniel, you should have seen her on that gigantic bed in our suite at Caesars' lying there like a playmate of the month her blond hair, her blond pussy. You know, Daniel, some women have naked skin, you know what I mean by naked skin, there's just something about the texture of their skin that makes them look more naked than other women. You mom can take all her clothes off and she doesn't look naked at all. Of course now a days what you really want is for her to put her clothes back on; but Mimi, when she gets naked, she looks really really naked. It gets me as hard a rock; I don't have to use my pump or anything.

Glenn was referring to the pump that he had had implanted the previous year, a sort of testicle hydraulic system that made the penis erect when it was squeezed. Daniel could not foresee his own future with diabetes and impotence and so he laughed at Glenn's reference to his pump.

"Hey," don't laugh," Glenn said, "there's been lots of times that I got my nut, went in the head, had a pee and pumped him right back up again."

"And how much did this cost?" Daniel asked.

"Fifteen thousand," Glenn answered, "and it was worth every penny of it."

Suddenly Daniel realized that in some cases it was only the rich that could afford good sex. He also realized for the first time that Glenn had no love for his mother-her nagging and complaining and spoiled, attitude had put an end to affection.

It was about this time that he spied his mother and her maid, Matty, crossing Main Street in front of them. Glenn immediately pulled right into a parking space and waited while the old woman that was his wife limped to her destination, The Beauty Queen Beauty Parlor.

Derrick saved the day by showing up soon after Dorothy returned home; but even so, throughout dinner she dripped with sarcasm. Daniel had no sympathy for her. In a very real way she had been wronged and he could see the anger in her eyes; but at the same time he saw clearly, and perhaps for the first time, that she had become an old woman while Glenn remained a vital, youngish looking man. Her hair and her skin were both grey as ash, her every gesture and movement was decrepit, her hypochondria and inactivity had caught up with her. She had not taken care of herself. Half of the garage was full of exercise equipment she never used. The swimming pool sat vacant and unused, as did the quarter mile road around what had been the trailer park.

Years before Derrick and Daniel had bought a bench to place at the far end of the circle. "You can walk out there, rest on the bench and walk back," they said to their mother but the bench was never used and a year later it was gone and so as they say, "the chickens had come home to roost". All of the decades of taking tranquilizers and sleeping in the afternoons and directing maids and housekeepers to do every bit of work had crippled Dorothy and as Daniel sat eating a meal that the maid had cooked he could not believe that Glenn and Dorothy were marriage partners.
There was not a trace of sexuality in her face. He could not blame Glenn for anything, certainly not for the beautiful Mimi.

As for Mimi, the incident at the airport brought her, in her husband's words, "damn near divorce." And a divorce would have been ok with her if she had been able to count on Glenn. But when it came down to it, the millions of dollars involved in his estate put a brake on any such outcome.

Mimi was contrite and stayed home and baked and cooked Gerald's favorite dishes. She did herself up every night before bedtime in lingerie and perfume. Gerald did not touch her, so deep was the hurt that he felt. But after a month, testosterone won out and Mimi gave it up for him, gave it up good, while she thought about Glenn. Gerald's ego became as erect as his penis and he felt as if he had "won his wife back."

But ‘as sure as rain' the day came when she and Glenn closed a motel door behind them. They were both laughing and hugging and touching and soon Glenn was atop her laying in his heavy artillery. Mimi writhed with joy and pleasure, "What could be better than this," they both thought.

Read this Book before you Vote

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INDEX OF REMAINING CHAPTERS

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INDEX OF REMAINING CHAPTERS

Chapter -- Location -- Subject

59 Vegas-- West Virginia-- Sex
60 Newport and All That-- New England-- Visit
61 Espanol-- New York-- Business
62 Vaya Con Vida-- Spain-- Anguish
63 Cashman-- West Virginia-- Raiding
64 Lewis Descending-- Boston-- Malignancy
65 El Male Rachamim-- Brooklyn-- Death
66 The Chateau-- West Virginia-- Status
67 Kidnapping-- Ft. Lauderdale-- Power
68 Greenbrier-- West Virginia-- Impotence
69 The Verdict-- Manhattan-- Patronizing
70 Republicans-- West Virginia-- Republicans
71 The Gun West-- Virginia-- Murder
72 Photos-- West Virginia-- Evidence
73 S.A.D.-- Florida-- Depression
74 Nashville Saturday Night-- Nashville-- Yearning
75 Route 127 --Alabama --Bargains
76 Millennium-- West Virginia-- Assembly
77 Renaissance Man-- West Virginia-- Envy
78 Brandi-- West Virginia-- Disappointment
79 Oil Tanker --Cape Cod-- Interview
80 The Grand Tour --Midwest --Farewells
81 Barry O'Bama-- Illinois-- Ego
82 911-- Pennsylvania-- Wreckage
83 A Red State Hero-- West Virginia --Death
84 Key West-- Florida-Summation

TOMORROW GLENN AND MIMI RETURN FROM VEGAS

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Chapter 58 INTERLUDE

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Chapter 58               INTERLUDE

There are times in people's lives, that is to say most people's lives, when things calm down. This usually happens after they've worked things out, after they've come into 'their own' so to speak. Of the characters in our story, such a time came simultaneously for Glenn and Lewis and Daniel.

Glenn got up early every morning. He once told Daniel, "If I lay in bed in the mornings I'll die." So he got up and went about his daily chores, which were interspersed with eating Mexican food and barbeque and elaborate home-style pies. There was sex also of mainly three kinds: As a product of influence and importance, as a product of luck and as a product of commerce.

Glenn preferred the lucky kind-hitting it off with someone and ending up in bed. His importance around West Virginia got him laid also; but truth be told, most of his sex was paid for-at the massage parlors and go-go clubs or in one of West Virginia's many straight-out whore houses.

Of course, eating and fornicating required some balance. That's why he was usually in church with Dorothy on Sunday mornings. He never missed a lodge meeting at the Masons and he was most often present at the Town Council or the State Legislature. Thus, his life became an interlude of peace.

Blueridge Gas ran so smoothly that Glenn had time to concentrate on his home. The ranch was built up considerably with the addition of several impressive brick structures. Blackboard fencing surrounded the plateau and the hills and the pasture was full of thoroughbreds.
________________________________________________________________________
In Lewis' case, Geoffery Bradfield was never hired to redecorate his Fifth Avenue apartment. Instead, he and Betty bought a home in Westchester County near Briarcliff Manor. This purchase had a profound effect upon Lewis and Betty. She shopped less in Manhattan and spent a great deal of her time gardening. It's as if she chose gladiolas over shopping for shoes. And most unusual of all, Betty backed into a drive for the homeless in White Plains as a media coordinator. To her complete surprise, the issue of homelessness became a passion.

They were comfortable with the Westchester crowd for two reasons; it was more easy-going than what they had been used to and they were as intelligent as anyone they met. No more Manhattan cocktail parties with glassy eyed "intellectuals".

Lewis now felt free to return to his interest in art and although he spent less time in his Manhattan Gallery, he could feel a level of appreciation and excitement returning.
________________________________________________________________________
And last, we have Daniel; back on Cape Cod with his new wife, Caroline. Their restaurant, the Courtyard which sat in the middle of Hyannis' Main Street, was as successful as any of Daniel's previous enterprises (and they had all been successful in the sense of their popularity). He played music on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights. It was all more relaxed than when he had been on the road with Terry doing six nights a week.

Perhaps the end of this phase had come about in West Virginia when he played the Plaza Lounge six nights a week, five hours per night. This incredible amount of singing nearly ruined his voice. He had gotten to a point where he no longer enjoyed playing music, so the three nights a week in Hyannis suited him perfectly.

Caroline, after an initial bout as restaurant manager, found a position with a law firm; and so everything worked out nicely.

Daniel had more time during the day, which he often spent on long walks with his son, David. This precocious young lad asked him millions of questions during these times together, often questions that he could not answer.

"Dad, when the human species developed consciousness, was it the first time that the universe could see itself?"
He also wrote, in a barely legible scribble, "Comedy can be found in every day life, even when it is no joke."

Watch David Rojay on the Dan and Dad Show, Saturday nights at 9:30 on Channel 17. Find David Rojay on Youtube, Find David Rojay on Google.

To Contact David Rojay: therojays@verizon.net

To read previous chapters from A RED STATE HERO, go to Cape Cod Today's HOME page, scan down to The View From Cape Cod, Click on Oil, Money, Sex & Republicans and work your way back to the first chapter by clicking on Older Posts to go backwards or Newer Posts to go forward.

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