THE KID’S STILL IN THE PICTURE

When I yanked myself out of Hollywood … both the place and the career … I was 58 years old. I migrated quickly to Florida … Miami Beach, to be specific … it was the only place in America where they still called me “kid.”

There was some truth in that quip; the friends I so quickly made in my adopted community … the men I gravitated to and whose company I so enjoyed … were an eclectic group. The conversations with them were animated, interesting, and much to my joy, never about show business.

It didn’t dawn on me at the time that these half-dozen guys, who within a matter of months dominated my contact list, were not only older, but much older; each was at least 12 to 15 years my senior. It didn’t matter then. I never noticed it … and I have no recollection of any of them ever making anything of my age or theirs.

It has been 30 years since that cross-country move. I am now 88, and all those great pals of mine have passed on. They are missed, but also missing is the energy I once had to make those friends in the first place.

Socialization still occurs … albeit infrequently. I am no longer a feature on the Fisher Island grass tennis courts, instead, my days are spent avoiding an inordinate number of spam phone calls and writing these notes from my warm Island. It could go without saying, but will not, that there is also the recently completed and soon-to-be released memoir number two … Before and After Cagney & Lacey … which, as you might imagine, follows the already out there memoir number one, Cagney & Lacey … and Me.

One of the oft-mentioned players in that second memoir is my great friend, Daniel C. Cassidy. We met in 1954 at an inter-league high school conference and became great pals a year later when we discovered we were both entering freshmen at the University of Southern California. By our senior year we were roommates.

It has been over 70 years since our college entrance, and I am now back in California to eulogize my college roommate of that other century. His widow has arranged a memorial service at our alma mater and I have been asked to speak. Not as easy as it sounds.

I have long known that I am not as warm and fuzzy as my erstwhile roomie. Everybody loved Danny, and I had the honor to be his best friend.

The reality is that most everyone who will be at that memorial service held on the USC campus believes that they were his best friend. That is how Danny made people feel.

So, me … the best friend? At best, a maybe. In truth, Danny and I could not have been more different.

Danny was generous, gregarious, outgoing, loving, and interested in pretty much everything and everyone. All qualities I admire but few, if any, that I truly possess.

And I have not gotten better at acquiring these positive attributes with age. I am, basically, a solitary man who revels in the bliss of solitude … who does not reach out … who, more often than not, is socially remiss, who doesn’t do Facebook or Instagram, one who forgets to return phone calls, and rarely responds to emails. Danny and I were very different.

The preparations for the memorial by Danny’s widow have spurred familial conversations closer to home as to what I might want when the time comes for my own eternal internment.

Incredulity is my initial response, for if it is true (as I sometimes imagine) that I have created my own reality … that I made up the entire thing … that nothing of this world will remain once I am gone … when that proverbial tree falls in the forest and I am not there, not only is there not a sound … I am none too sure there is even a tree, let alone the requisite greenery it takes to make up a forest.

Beyond that disconcerting thought, as far as anything like a memorial service is concerned, is the simple fact that, now with Danny gone, most anyone who would have anything nice to say about me has long ago gone on to their maker … which should more than justify why there is memoir #2.

Did I mention that book (Before and After Cagney & Lacey) is nicely complimented by memoir #1, Cagney & Lacey … and Me …? And that both can be ordered through Amazon or just about anywhere such things are sold?

Give this some thought. Consider the possibility that there is truth in the supposition that I have, indeed, “created this reality.”  Weigh the age factor of the author (88 and counting) ... perhaps, then, you will see the efficacy in moving quickly on to Amazon while that company … and my books …  still exists on this planet of mine.

 

Barney Rosenzweig