SCHOOL DAYS

Birren Guided Autobiography April 17, 2009

School Days, School Days

Dear old Golden Rule days.

Reading, and writing and 'rithmetic,

Taught to the tune of a hickory stick.

I have always felt that I was extremely lucky in my education.

We lived on Princeton Drive in Toledo, Ohio, about a short block from Harvard School which had opened only a few years before. The school was built on the edge of a ravine with a brook running through it flowing into the Maumee River and many classrooms had a wonderful view of that little wilderness. The school remains to this day as a spectacular example of school architecture.

The fact that all the members of the Toledo Board of Education lived in our district probably accounted for its prominence, as well as for a faculty which was

certainly outstanding.

I first attended kindergarten at the age of four in the Fall of 1931. Although I was expected to go to kindergarten for two years (first year in the

afternoon, and second year in the morning), at the end of the first year the teacher contacted my parents suggesting that I go into the first grade the

following September. My parents actually consulted me as to my idea on the

subject, and it sounded great to me; so I became the youngest pupil in my

class, and remained so through graduate school at Northwestern.

My first grade teacher was Mrs. Rowe, and I must assume she was a good teacher; but the most important thing in skipping a grade was that I met Nancy Lee Boyer (and I married her twenty-one years later).

Ms. Leonard was my 2nd grade teacher, and I must admit I found her a bore, but

learning by rote at that stage was the accepted thing to do.

Dad had a heart attack, and the doctor suggested that he take it easy for a while, so in November of 1934 (when I was in the third grade) we took off for

Florida for five months. My teacher at South Broward School in Dania, Florida,

was Mrs. Roper, and her son, George Preston Roper was a classmate. Sorry to say, he was a rival, and I must admit I dearly hated him. (there is class picture in my album, and it is obvious that at some time or other I tried to erase his likeness). Leaving class in Toledo after two months, and then returning for the

final two months of the school year was far from easy, but I doted on the

special attention I was given.

In the fourth grade we were all in love with Mrs. Fitzgerald. Although Harvard was quite spacious, it was decided that the class sizes for the fifth and sixth grades

were too large, and that a mixed fifth-sixth grade would relieve the strain, and

the best students would be put in that group under the supervision of Miss

Wallington who was certainly Harvard School's Glamour Girl.

It was decided we would go to Florida again that year, so Mom and Dad (actually

my maternal grandparents) and my great-grandfather packed us up for the trip

to the South. My Mother drove us as far as Chattanooga, Tennessee, and we

went on from there.

I went into the fifth grade in Florida (that pain-in-the-neck, George Preston Roper was still a classmate), but for my 10th birthday in January I was able to invite two very special girlfriends, Bettylou and Jimmie. On April second we received a wire from my step-father that my mother had died in childbirth when my sister Judy was born, and we drove fourteen hundred miles in three days to get back to

Toledo. So after the funeral I was once again back in that mixed fifth and sixth

grade.

We were quite surprised when we returned that fall to find that Miss Wallington was now Mrs. Meyers, and once again we were going to Florida for the winter

season. By now I was an old hand at the transition.

For the seventh and eighth grades we were joined at Harvard by a smaller grade school, Beverly, and had four teachers to teach their subjects. The two I

remember best were our English teacher , Velma Desmond (Yes, that was her name, and in that fuzzy pink sweater she was quite a dish), and our History teacher, Glenn Sloane, the first male teacher I ever had.

We also had a weekly two hours of manual training for the boys, and domestic

science for the girls. The classes were given reading tests, and broken up

for three hours a week for reading improvement; and it was decided that

the best reading skills group did not need that much training, and so we were

given an hour a week for the girls to take manual training, and the boys would

take cooking and domestic science.

We had a wonderful time. We all bought chef's toques and I remember that our first receipt was for gingerbread. Our teacher was Miss Daisy Semple, and since most of us attended the dance class which she ran with her sister, Miss Margret,

it was a ball. At the end of the school year we gave a luncheon for our teachers

(I was a waiter).

I really loved going to school (except in Florida). I had planned to continue this essay through Edward Drummond Libbey Highschool, but it best wait for another time.

rwtf

PS: The song ends with:

You were my queen in calico,

I was your bashful barefoot beau.

Then you wrote on my slate "I love you so"

When we were a couple of kids.

LIFE WORK

Birren #4

June 3, 2006

Theatre.

The assignment for Guided Autobiography was for life work or career: I would really have liked to turn in a paper with one word: Theatre.

I have been at various times an actor, director, producer, student, professor,

coach, stage manager, lighting designer, box office manager, "etcetera, etcetera, etcetera," to quote Yul Brenner in "The King and I."

One thing is certain, my timing was excellent: I lived and worked through what

is now called The Golden Age of Theatre: Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Loerner and Lowe, Mary Martin and Alfred Drake.

I saw Eugene O'Neill on the opening night of his penultimate play, "A Moon for

the Misbegotten", Judith Anderson on the opening night of "Medea" when Robinson Jeffers was in the audience and curtain calls lasted almost half an hour,

John Gielgud and Peggy Ashcroft at the opening of "King Lear" at Stratford-upon-Avon, Ingrid Bergman in "Jeanne au Bucher" (Joan of Arc at the Stake) in Paris.

After graduating from Northwestern with a Master's Degree in 1949 I went to Drury College in Springfield, Missouri, where I was the Speech and Theatre Department. I studied Shakespeare at Stratford-Upon-Avon during the summer of 1950, and returned to Drury that fall. When Mom became ill, I resigned at Drury and returned to Toledo where I was hired by WSPD-TV as a director and producer. Television was just getting started, and the old pros of radio simply did not understand the workings of this new medium.

But like far too many in the theatre, I've had to support myself all too often with

jobs that are quite varied. When in college I spent summers working in war plants and coming home covered in hot oil.

When I had my own Summer Stock company, I had perforce to learn bookkeeping, and in Los Angeles I became Comptroller of a company called Contemporary Entertainment which converted a B27 into a luxury airplane (The Starship) to fly rock stars on tours (Elton John, the Allman Brothers, John Denver, etc.), and also produced films for television. (My secretary was a former Copacabana girl who was living in Rome with Richard Burton when he first met Elizabeth Taylor.) We later had a plane to fly high rollers to Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas (Caesar's Chariot) and I had to fly to Vegas monthly where I had a suite at the hotel. On our first trip we picked up 11 men in Pittsburgh and flew them to Vegas for 4 days. The "drop" at the table was said to be 7 million dollars. Incidentally we were sworn to secrecy about the identity of our passengers, and to this day I still would not tell.

Our head flight attendant at Contemporary Entertainment, Sandra Cronin, a Miss California, and I later went into a catering business, "Party Planners".

One party we threw for Intel's Tenth Anniversary at the Cow Palace in San Francisco featured a revue with stars from Laugh-In, a discotheque with alternating DJ's and live bands, a gambling Casino, and food from all over the world. It was almost a disaster since we were expecting 7,200 people and

8,400 showed up; but we raided local fast food restaurants and supermarkets and no one was the wiser.

And for a while I was a jewelry salesman: pearls, diamonds and gold pieces. I traveled the entire country with appointments at some of the finest stores (Marshall Fields, Shreve, Crump & Lowe, Gucci), and I will never forget one trip

where I had 40 flights in 50 days. Since I had sample cases with almost a million dollars of jewelry, if anyone asked, I was a "button salesman."

Although for the past ten years or so I am retired, last Thursday I had an audition with some producers on Wilshire Blvd. for a caper movie called "Brilliant". The script was e-mailed to me the night before (all 112 pages of it) and though I

read one of the major roles (they will need some big names), I might just get

some smaller role if lucky. I'm also working with a friend who is in the Actor's Gang in Culver City (Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon's group) to produce a film for festival showing.

And, oh yes, I am vice-president of a corporation which is working on a huge fire-fighting airplane called "The Rainmaker".

rwtf

FAMILY REDUX

February 6, 2009

Birren Guided Autobiography

Family Redux

My earlier days with the immediate family were covered in my previous report, so I will try to bring things a little more up to date.

When I returned to this country in 1955, after several years in Paris and London,

I decide not to return to Toledo where all my family lived in the area. A friend and I sublet an apartment on Gramercy Park in New York, and after spending the summer in Rhode Island as General Manager of The Theatre-by-the-Sea, I moved

to New York's Westside just off Riverside Drive.

The following fall, my sister Judy came to visit me before returning to school (she went to Denison, my alma mater) and I did my best to show her New York, but

I realized that I was not feeling well, and it was a real strain to hide it from her.

The day after she left town, I saw my doctor, and he diagnosed a severe case of

hepatitis.

There was no medication available, just bed rest and a very restricted diet, so

I called my step-father at Eagle Point in Toledo, and he and his wife, Jean, whom

I did not really know very well, said that I could come to recuperate.

They put me in an upstairs bedroom, and I asked that they tell no one; so

for the next month or so I slept 16 hours a day, and while they entertained

downstairs at various times, nobody even knew I was in town. It was then that I got to know Jean, and Mary, her daughter (Mary and I call each other step-brother and step- sister, though I am not sure this is correct). Jean was quite wonderful to her husband's stepson. and I am eternally grateful.

After a month or so I called a dear friend, Terry Roloff, who happened to be the

Society Editor of the Toledo Blade, and after she put a note in her column, I suddenly had tons of visitors.

I really was not feeling well enough to return to New York, so when a friend said that he was driving to California and invited me to join him, I accepted. Sarah

Churchill was appearing at the Pasadena Playhouse. and I stayed with her in

West Hollywood until I got a place of my own.

My family, of course, remained in Ohio, and I tried to get back to visit whenever

I could which was about once every two years. When Judy was engaged, she

brought her fiance' out to meet me (Tom Moore, a Kenyon man like her father).

Judy and Tom had three children (Thomas William Moore, III; Elisabeth Smith Moore: and Peter Russell Moore) and I usually stayed at Eagle Point, or with

them in later years in Perrysburg in a house built in 1840, overlooking the Maumee River.

One Spring, in the late 60's, Judy and I were driving down to Granville to visit

Denison, when she announced that she was coming to visit me - for a month -

and bringing her three children. Since I had a small one bedroom apartment, I

was not sure how we would manage; but the kids brought sleeping bags, and

I did have a dining room, so we managed, and the month was just great.

Judy's husband, Tom, died of leukemia in the late 80's, and sad to say, Judy

became an alcoholic. She alienated her two older children though by that time

they were no longer at home. One evening she fell down the steep back staircase and lay there for many hours until found, and certainly had some brain damage.

When Peter, Judy's youngest son, married, I flew to back to Toledo where we

picked up a station wagon, and I drove Judy and her nurse to Chicago for the

nuptials - in February. Judy in a wheelchair seemed to be handling it well.

but when we got back to Perrysburg, she swore she would never again use

the God Damn wheelchair again. And to this day remains bedridden.

Incidentally, I could not think of a wedding present for Peter and Shaw until

I remembered a small ruby glass pitcher inscribed "Dora - Chicago World's Fair -

1893". It was exactly 100 years old, since this was Chicago 1993. Dora

was my grandmother and Peter's great grandmother.

Last October we had a family reunion at Eagle Point. Judy and her children were

at last reconciled; she now has a granddaughter named Winslow.

And I, without children, am the family patriarch.

rwtf

CAREER IN THEATRE

February 20, 2009

Birren #2

Career

My Brilliant Career in Theatre

My brilliant career in theatre began in the first grade when I was cast as a robin in

the usual first grade production. Mom spent weeks making my costume with

a bright red breast, mostly of crepe paper, which a single spark would probably

have sent up in flames. but I loved it. Came the day of the performance and I was SICK. Now Mom had been a nurse and i don't believe she would have allowed

a fake illness, but I am sure that it was truly psycho-somatic because I felt fine that evening. But I never appeared on stage as a robin. The robin costume remained on a back shelf in the closet for many years.

My next appearance before an audience was in church. On Christmas Eve all the

children had to stand up and "speak their piece" to the entire congregation. All

went well and when I started to "speak my piece", there were a few giggles, and by the time I finished the church was laughing. It seems that I was rocking back and forth on my toes and heels, like a modern day rapper, in tune with every line.

In the 5th grade I was in competition with a little boy I who was my rival, George Preston Roper, and we both wrote plays. They were much the same. five or six pages long, but just to be sure, I threw in the plague and a ship-wreck. The class thought mine was the much most exciting.

In high school I was cast in the Junior Class Play as "Spud", the comic in an opus called "June Moon". I wore bright red suspenders which got a big laugh when I took off my jacket. My friend Earl, the leading man, and I had a scene with Anne who played his mother (later they were married), and all went well until she froze and could not say another word; Earl and I managed to ad lib a funny conversation until she was able to come back in. That gave me the confidence to know I could talk if I had to, on stage without a script.

My first role in college was as "Fritz", the butler, in a play called "Claudia". The leads. Claudia and David. were played beautifully by a young married couple - who never seemed to have learned their lines. Patty Pratt, who played my wife,

Bertha, and I had to hope that they would finally get around to something like

a cue so we could continue the play

It was in my sophomore year that I was the prop manager for a play called "Ladies in Retirement", a murder mystery set in the 19th century. Much of the plot revolved about a telescope, and one night when the Second Act opened I realized the the telescope was still on stage though they were about to have a

big scene searching for the missing telescope. When the leading lady, Marge King, went to open a Dutch door in the fireplace where she kept her money. I was standing there and whispered, "Get the telescope off!" She hesitated only a moment, walked back down stage, hid the telescope in her large skirt, walked off stage, handed it to me, walked back on stage and continued the play. The director, who was sitting in the audience, wondered what in Hell she was doing,

but nobody else knew.

At the end of my Senior year in college we opened the first year of the Denison

Summer Theatre in a large tent in Granville, and things seemed ripe to go wrong.

We were doing "Three Men on a Horse", and Hal Holbrook was playing Patsy. In

a scene set in a barroom, there was a telephone on one end of the bar around which much of the action centered; when the curtain went up, we realized that the phone was at the wrong end of the bar. Hal, the lead, had to redo all the

blocking as the scene went along, and we all had to hope we were in the wrong place at the right time.

We did "Our Town". At the end of the second act, a wedding, the bride and groom make their exit running up the center aisle. As I said, we were playing in a tent, and there was a tent pole in the middle of the aisle. As the sweet young bride, Emily, played by Alma Nellis, ran down the aisle, she was blinded by a spotlight in her eyes, and ran straight into the pole and let out with a resounding "God Dammit To Hell" and kept on going. Alma, incidentally, had no recollection of having said a word; we had a hard time getting her to go back for Act Three.

My trials and tribulations with props were not ended. In "You Can't Take it

with You" i had a bit as the Income Tax Man. I made my entrance in the Second

Act and had to carry three props: a business card, a brief case, and a hat which I

Ieave behind as it is used in the action for the rest of the play. Standing in the

wings, I checked the briefcase and the hat, but realized I did not have the card.

I put down the hat, picked up the card, and made my entrance. I am greeted by

Penny, played by my dear friend Connie Palmer, with "May I take your hat?"

which came out as "May I take your - oh. you don't have a hat". I kept wondering all through the scene what was going to happen but as I was exiting someone

dropped the hat at the door; Connie picked it up, went on with the scene, and

I hope no one noticed.

The worst moment was yet to come. For the Toledo Repertory Theatre I was

playing Nicky, a warlock in contemporary New York, in "Bell. Book and Candle".

In the second scene of the Second Act I open the scene alone in my sister Gillian's apartment waiting for my Aunt Queenie to arrive. I try to open her

liquor cabinet, but it is locked; since I am a warlock, I snap my fingers and the

doors fly open. and I pour myself a drink. The doorbell rings and I go to the intercom where Aunt Queenie says she has arrived. I buzz her in, then go back to the liquor cabinet, close the doors, snap my fingers and check to be sure it is locked, then go to the door to let Queenie in.

One night in the second week of the run, I open the liquor cabinet, pour myself a drink - and the doorbell does NOT RING. I take a sip of the drink (actually flat

ginger ale): I take a second drink. NO RING. (I am cursing Norma Richards who

plays Aunt Queenie - I know she has a quick change, but this is ridiculous) I

look around. There is a coffee table with a cigarette box, so I go over and light

a cigarette. NO RING I pick up a magazine and stretch out on the couch. NO

RING I just about decide to drop my pants and scratch my ass when - THE DOORBELL RINGS. I go to answer it and we go on with the scene.

Later of course I realized that it is not Norma who rings the doorbell, but the stage manager. After she pushed open the cabinet doors. she was distracted by

someone asking a question, and it was not until she saw me lying on the couch - where she has never seen me before, that the stage manager realized she

had missed a cue.

My Brilliant Career in the Theatre continues, and I hope that there will be

many more exciting adventures ahead.

rwtf

MONEY

February 13, 2009

Birren #2

Money

Friday the 13th, and the subject is money!

When I was a young man an incredibly wealthy older woman said to me: "Bob,

you'll never have money, but you'll always know people who do."

Alas and alack, she was quite correct.

When I graduated from high school in three years at the age of 16 during World

War II, I really had a choice of colleges. I did not want to stay at home, nor

did I want to go too far away, so I chose Denison which was one of the most expensive schools in Ohio. I did get a small scholarship, but it was said that a year at Denison was about what a new Oldsmobile would cost, and it seems to be still true today. A new Olds in 1943 cost about one thousand dollars, and a comparable car today would be close to forty thousand dollars. We once figured that my four years in college cost a total of just over five thousand dollars.

I later went to Northwestern because it was one of the best theatre schools in

the country, but it is also probably the most expensive school in the Big Ten.

I went to teach theatre and speech at Drury College in Springfield, Missouri,

and my first year's salary was less that four thousand dollars. Still, at Christmas vacation I flew to New York (where I stayed with friends) and the following

summer I went to England on the Queen Mary and stayed in London with friends from Northwestern before going on to Stratford-upon-Avon to study Shakespeare. I then went to Paris for ten days where I met eight people I knew, (including one married couple from Denison who had an apartment on the

Ile-de-la-Cite and only three servants) and I returned on the Queen Elizabeth

In 1951 when Mom became ill I returned to Toledo and got a job as studio manager at WSPD-TV when television was just starting (my first TV set was

of course black-and-white and the screen was seven inches). I later became

a director and local live TV was exciting, but hardly lucrative.

While still at WSPD, I started a summer stock company which lost money the

first season (1952), but was slightly in the black the following year.

Later in France I taught Writing and Speech for the University of Maryland at

Fontainebleau which really did pay well, and when I went to England I was offered a job as television director at Lime Grove Studios, but was unable to get a

working permit. Still. I stayed with a friend in Onslow Gardens who was a premier danceur with The Royal Ballet, and got to know many of the theatre elite.

I ended up in Los Angeles, and though I have never made BIG MONEY, I have

indeed associated with many who did.

I am the poor boy in my family. My sister married a guy from a Texas oil family

and her three children (my niece and two nephews) each have trust funds from

their paternal grandmother which allows them to live pretty much as they please.

My niece of course has worked steadily and now lives in New Haven, Connecticut,

where she is the head of a state agency for preservation of farmland.

My current income is limited, but I can live reasonably well. I do miss going

to the theatre and opera as much as I wish, and although "Two Buck Chuck"

is an acceptable house wine, I would like to splurge on Gevrey-Chambertin a

little more often.

rwtf

DEATH

January 30. 2009

Birren Guided Autobiography

Death

I do not fear death; I do fear dying.

Reared in the traditions and rituals of the Lutheran Church. I was familiar

with the forms of death and funerals from a very early age. The funeral

wreath on the front door of a house meant that the deceased was laid out

in the parlor for viewing; and the extended family and friends, including the

children. were expected to visit. The funeral was of course in the church,

and the long drive to the cemetery with a graveside service was always

well attended. Sunday visits to the family cemetery plot were customary.

My first close encounter with death came when I was ten years old. I was wintering in Florida with my maternal grandparents (Mom and Dad) and my

great-grandfather (Grampa Henry) when a telegram arrived to tell us that

my mother had died in childbirth when my sister was born. I was called out

of my fifth grade class (I have often wondered what the teacher told the class)

and within hours we were on our way back to Toledo, driving fifteen

hundred miles in less than three days.

But it was not until at Mother's funeral when I was sitting in the pew next to my step-father and I saw the tears on his face that I realized the import of what had happened.

During that year nine members of my family died; Mother was the first

and my great-grandfather the last. Among others, an older cousin dropped

dead at his work, and when they told his wife, she died within four hours, leaving three teen=age children.

As was the custom, children wore white for mourning, and I was in white

for a year.

Dad had a stroke and died at home my last year in high school, and Mom had

cancer and died in the hospital after a long illness when I was 25.

Although I had become an agnostic when in college, I had, and still do have,

a strong emotional connection to the church. While living in Paris I even

joined the American Episcopal Church, but now realize that it was more for my wife's sake, and the beauty of the ritual, than any true faith.

Over the years I have dealt with several suicides (my lover of thirteen years hanged himself), and my sister who has been bed-ridden since 1992 continues to threaten to kill herself though she really has no means of doing so. Although

I do believe in self-determination, this is not an option I have considered for

myself.

I have few close long-time friends who are my contemporaries; one of the last was a woman in San Francisco whose first husband sat next to me in Latin class in high school. I recently visited one of my college friends (we were freshmen at Denison in 1943) who is now living with dementia because his wishes that no heroic measures be taken to resuscitate him were ignored when he had a seizure.

I have contacted the friend who has my Power of Attorney for Health to

emphasize my own wishes.

Since I have finally acknowledged to myself that I am a true atheist (and really

have been all my life), I have no fear of death. It is simply an end.

But arriving at that end is something I cannot anticipate without fear.

Robert W. T. Feindt

FINANCES

Birren #3

May 26, 2006

Roaring Twenties! Flaming Youth! Too Much Money! Mother took flying lessons, and Father drove a Duesenburg!

These are the stories I grew up with. But I was born in 1927, and the Crash of '29 changed all of that, and I grew up in the Great Depression. So money was always a topic of conversation - though never personal.

My grandfather, William C. Feindt, was a bricklayer, and worked steadily. He and his wife, Minnie, owned the home on South Street where my mother was born and grew up. A brick building, there were two small apartments on the second floor which were rented out. Minnie's brother, Henry Frisch, a police sergeant assigned to the mayor's office, lived just across the street with his family including his son, Harry, and daughter, Dora, who became Will's second wife. Many years later I found that the property was in Minnie's name, and after her death Will had a lifetime interest in the estate, and after his death, the "children of her daughter's body" had an interest for ten years, after which the property was to be sold and the proceeds divided between them and the Red Cross. Obviously someone had to have a certain knowledge of the law to produce a document so detailed.

After Minnie's death in 1924, Will married Dora, and in 1927 they built a large duplex in a new subdivision (Harvard Terrace), again with the idea of an income resulting from this new property. Will, who was a brickmason, built a frame house because brick would have cost an additional $1,000, a large sum at the time, and he regretted it for the rest of his life. But I never heard of a mortgage, and when the Crash came in 1929, the family home was secure.

Will was the oldest of ten children (nine boys and the youngest, a girl), so there were loads of aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. Although definitely middle class, Will was

the patriarch of the family and certainly the most financially secure. During the Depression, the old home on South Street was rented out: the large ground floor apartment was $25 per month, and the two upstairs apartments went for $11 and $9 each. Tenants were mostly members of St. Lucas Lutheran Church, and if the rent was not paid, no action was usually taken. For a while, the wife of the ground floor tenant did our family laundry in part payment.

When Mother became a Social Service worker she occasionally took me on her rounds so I became very aware of large families living in garages, rooms with no heat or plumbing, and the general malaise of the time. Her income, though not

large to begin with, was steady, and increased as she was promoted; her second

husband was a successful salesman, and provided the ability to have some of the luxuries such as vacations and antique collecting.

The apartment on Princeton provided a good income, and I remember tenants like Mrs. Altar, sister of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Toledo, and the writer, James Warner Bellah, among them.

Dad was one of the few in the family who had an automobile, and usually bought a new Dodge every other year. When the big dinners, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.

came along they were almost always held in our house which could seat 15 or more (very crowded) in the dining room.

When I went to summer camp, Dad paid to have an older cousin go to camp as well to look out for me (though I was unaware of the arrangement at the time). When Dad had a heart attack, and was advised to go to Florida for the winter, we sublet our flat and took off without concern.

In Florida one year Dad and a man from Saginaw, Michigan, whom we had met on our first winter in Dania (The Tomato Center of Florida), decided that they would rent an acre of land and grow tomatoes. Dad was a bricklayer, and Mr. Kerr was a retail grocer, but their lack of experience did not deter them. Twice someone came in and cleaned out the tomatoes the night before they were to be picked, so at the end of the season each of the men had lost about fifty dollars; their wives considered it a good investment since it kept them busy and out of the house.

Thus, while my classmates at Harvard Grade School were generally from more up-scale social backgrounds (business and professional men) I never felt that I would be unable to keep up.

The Great Depression dominated American Life for more than a decade of my early childhood, yet my family was able to give me a sense of security for which I am truly grateful.

rwtf

FAMILY

Birren #2

May 22, 2006

I have two baby books.

That in itself is unusual. Mother filled in both of them; the facts are certainly the same. But there the similarity ends; for while one has all the happy platitudes one might expect, the other is written by a new mother whose husband has deserted her. Many years later I learned that my father had another child on the way by a woman who was then two months pregnant. I do not know if my mother was aware of this, but my parents were divorced when I was less than a year old. And so my father disappears from my family history for many years, and it is only his children who later appear in my story.

I was christened for my two grandfathers, Robert and William, and since my father's surname was Thomas, I began life as Bobby Thomas. At a very early age I was cared for by my maternal grandparents, or rather my grandfather and his second wife, Dora Frisch Feindt, who was the niece of his first wife, Minnie Frisch Feindt. Minnie had been very active in the church, and the pipe organ in St. Lucas

Lutheran Church is dedicated to her as first president of the Ladies Aid Society.

She died in the early 20's, and Will married Dora, who was of course my mother's first cousin (and my first cousin, once removed). Dora and Will built a

large duplex in a new subdivision, Harvard Terrace, and it was there that I was

reared on Princeton Drive (streets were named Yale, Amhurst, Vassar, Kenyon, Dartmouth, etc.)

Mother was working and had her own apartment with her dog, a German Shepherd, "Speed", and I spent week-ends with her, as well as several early evenings during

the week. Now I called Dora and Will, "Mom" and "Dad", and my mother was always "Mother", and though I found nothing strange in this arrangement, others thought it rather bizarre.

Mother had started seeing Russell Fishack, and my very earliest memory is being held by "Fuzz" while sitting on his mother's upstairs porch during a thunderstorm and having him assure me that it couldn't hurt me. We later figured out that I was less than three years old at the time.

In 1930 Mother and Fuzz were married at St. Andrews Episcopal Church, and I attended the wedding (Mother wore blue). Fuzz, a graduate of Kenyon College, had grown up in Port Clinton on Lake Erie, and loved sailing, so when his old family house at Eagle Point on the Maumee River became available, he and Mother decided to move in there so we could have our own dock and eight acres of land. The house had been built around the turn of the century and was in total disrepair so that the first time I saw it, I lamented, "We're not going to move in here?" But the view down the river was magnificent, Mother's taste was impeccable, and I still go back there with joy. Dad, who was a brick mason, built a wonderful fireplace complete with a Dutch oven.

I stayed with Mom and Dad during the school time and with Mother and Fuzz on

week-ends and holidays. In winter the river would freeze solid and Dad would walk me on the ice to the middle of the river, where Fuzz would meet us to walk me back to Eagle Point.

The Great Depression was on, and Mother became a social worker. Dad had a heart attack, and the doctor advised him to get away from the severe winters, so beginning in the third grade, I went to Florida with Mom and Dad. We usually went in November (after the hurricane season) and stayed until April in a small town called Dania just south of Fort Lauderdale, and I went to South Broward School.

Mother became head of the PWA in Toledo, and met Eleanor Roosevelt at the time, but turned down the job of heading the WPA in Ohio, since it meant moving to Columbus. But Franklin Roosevelt called her, and "you just don't turn down the President of the United States". So a new chapter in my life began: Mom and

Dad would take me to the station in Toledo and put me on the train under care of

the conductor, and Mother would pick me up in Columbus (or send her secretary).

I was so proud to be traveling "on my own" at age 8. I doubt very much if this would be permitted today.

In early autumn of 1936, Mother took me away for a week-end on Catawba Island, and looking back, it was the last time we were to spend together. I went to Florida with Mom and Dad in November, this time taking along Mom's father, Grampa Henry Frisch, a police sergeant recently retired after 40 years in the mayor's office. Mother wrote to me that I was to have a new baby brother or sister in the Spring.

On April 2nd Dad received a wire from Fuzz saying Mother had delivered a baby girl, but passed away shortly after midnight. I was in school when they came to

get me and we started driving back to Toledo that afternoon. We made it in

three days (almost a thousand miles), and it was only at the funeral when I was sitting next to Fuzz that I realized the import of what had happened.

Fuzz's mother, Lillian, moved in at Eagle Point to take care of my new half-sister,

Judith, and I remained with Mom and Dad. It was decided that they would adopt me legally, and it was at that time I saw my father for the one and only time - or

so I am told - because I have no recollection of it whatsoever. My father had to give his consent, and he had little choice. Years later I found out that his second wife died the same month as my mother.

A strange year. According to the adoption papers my name was to be Robert William Feindt; at the age of 10 I absolutely refused to drop the name Thomas.

I was willing to add the Feindt, but I was Robert William Thomas Feindt, and have been such ever since. During that year nine members of my family died: my mother was the first, and Grampa Frisch the last. Since the custom was for children to wear white as mourning, I was in white for almost the entire year.

My sister Judy and I saw each other only a few times a year. Since I was 10 years older than she, we had very little in common other than knowing we were related.

When Judy was 6 years old, Fuzz married again (Jean), and a year or so later they

had a daughter, Mary. So now my half-sister had a half-sister who was not related to me. Over the years Mary and I have become close, and we have decided to call each other step-brother and step-sister (her father was my step-father).

No, my friends, we are not through yet.

Dad died my last year in high school, and I went to college, and grad school. Mom died several years later, and I was married. Moved to Paris, and divorced.

I was back in Toledo for a visit when an old friend who was the Society Editor for the Toledo Blade, sent a photographer to snap a picture of me by the fireplace at Eagle Point for the paper.

I returned to New York where I received a letter that began, "Dear Mr. Feindt, I hope that next time I write I can say "Dear Bob". I think I am your sister." Of course, she was. Her name was Lois, and her aunt had seen my picture and told

Lois, "That's your brother." We began to correspond, and I learned that she was the second of three children by my father's second wife, and that he had married for a third time and had a daughter by that marriage. So suddenly at age 30 I had four more siblings.

When birthdays were sorted out we discovered that Katie, my father's eldest child by his second wife, was just seven months younger than I. Even more remarkable was that Katie and I had actually attended Libbey High School at the same time, with no idea that each other existed. Of course, Libbey had 3,000 students, and

I was a Junior when she was a Freshman, so our paths never crossed. I met Lois,

and she made an attempt to get our father and me together, but it never happened.

I moved to Los Angeles and several years later was visited by my ex-wife's Aunt Helen who said that she was sorry to hear about my father. When I inquired "What about my father?" Helen informed me that he had died the previous year. No one

had told me.

Finally, last year I met the youngest of my siblings who now lives in South Carolina; she was 57, and I was 78.

A friend has described my family as "something out of Faulkner". Accurate, I'm afraid, though a thousand miles further north.

rwtf

Turning Point

Birren #1a

June 2006

Although it set my life on a totally different path, I was not at all aware of the importance of a decision made when I was five years old.

When I began kindergarten in Toledo, Ohio, in 1931 it was expected that I would attend for two years: the first year was in the afternoon, and the second year was in the morning. The cut-off date for attendance was a fourth birthday by

December 31, and since my birthday is January 20, I correctly began in September of 1931.

I remember kindergarten with a great deal of affection, with the exception of a nap (we each had our own little rug) which I thought was a bore, though it was for only 10 or 15 minutes. Someone brought in a branch with a cocoon on it, and I was enchanted when a beautiful butterfly emerged.

It seems that at sometime in that year I was given an intelligence test (though I

have no recollection of it) and at the end of the year the teacher recommended that I skip the second year of kindergarten, and go into the first grade the following September. My parents asked if I wanted to move up, and it seemed like a great idea to me. (A playmate in the neighborhood, Jimmy Forester, had a birthday the same month, but was not asked to go ahead, and his mother was quite upset. Jimmy and I were never as good friends after that.)

So instead of being one of the oldest members of my class, I became the youngest in my class, and remained so throughout my entire education.

Probably the most important occurrence in the first grade was my meeting Nancy Lee Boyer with whom I fell in love and married twenty-one years later. (Nancy was three months older than I.)

When I went to high school, I picked up extra credits along the way, and with World War II dragging on, I graduated in three years, shortly after my 16th birthday.

Years later I learned that I had been chosen to be the editor of my high school yearbook my senior year, but was never informed; I wish I had been given a choice, though I am not sure what I would have done.

When I went away to college I was still the youngest in my class though most

of the freshman men were indeed younger than many high school graduates;

but, like me, they were trying to get as much education as possible before being drafted into the army. Since most freshman women were older, and socially far more sophisticated, we really were not easily accepted as part of a normal social milieu, especially since we had Air Corps, Navy, and Marine units on campus.

Incidentally, the war ended after my sophomore year, and i was never drafted.

At Denison, once again I picked up extra credits, and could have graduated at 19, but finally waited until I was an old man of 20; by then almost all my study was individual work with a professor. (My senior year I signed up for a course in Modern Drama given by an old friend in the English department, Professor Ellenor Shannon, and since I had already read most of the plays in the text, she made out a special reading list for me and made me promise NOT to come to class.)

I took a year off in New York, and then attended Northwestern where I received

a Master of Arts degree when I was 22 years old. I then went to teach at Drury College in Springfield, Missouri, as head of the theatre program, where many

of my students were my age, or even older.

* * * * *

And now, with few exceptions, I am the oldest member of my social group.

rwtf

Penzance

Birren #1

May 11, 2006

I just ordered two books on the internet from Amazon : "Dawn in Lyonesse" by Mary Ellen Chase, and "Tristram" by Edwin Arlington Robinson. I read both of these books in college over fifty years ago, but hadn't thought of them for years. Why now?

A new tenant in our complex, a recent graduate of Oxford University, now an understudy in the Geffen Theatre production of Arthur Miller's "All My Sons", and I have been discussing Stephen Sondheim, one of my favorite composers. She was unaware that in 1990 Sondheim had been the first Visiting Professor in Contemporary Theatre at Oxford. Since I have an extensive collection of musical theatre video tapes, I have been showing her some of Sonheim's work with which she was not familiar; I asked if there was any musical tape which she might like to see, and she mentioned Gilbert and Sullivan's "Pirates of Penzance" in which she had appeared in a student production.

I do have "Pirates" with Kevin Kline, and was reminded that I was actually in Penzance - though many many years ago.

In 1950 I had been teaching theatre at Drury College in Springfield, Missouri, and

decide to enroll in a symposium on Shakespeare given by the University of Birmingham's noted Shakespearean scholar, Allardyce Nicholl, at Stratford-upon-Avon in England. I sailed on the Queen Mary in mid-June and arrived in London to stay with two friends from Northwestern who were there on Fulbright Scholarships at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

I spent several weeks attending the theartre (including The Windmill) and doing all the usual tourist things, and still had about two weeks before I was due in Stratford; so I decided to tour England. At Denison a beloved English professor, Ellenor Shannon, started me reading about the Tristan and Isolde legend (see above) and Land's End in Cornwall became my prime destination. I caught the train at Victoria Station and went to Penzance where I knew I'd have to get local transportation to get to Land's End.

Now "Penzance" to most Americans seems almost an exotic locale, but it is

probably similar to Rockaway or Atlantic City (before the gambling) to the English. The title "Pirates of Penzance" is really a non sequitor.

So I found a cab, and told the driver I wanted to go to Land's End, and he said "Sure", and started to ask about my wanderings. I had no reservations, and when I told him that, he asked if I wanted a private or a public house; it was then I learned that a private house served no booze, but a pub did. He then suggested that an old inn had newly re-opened in Sennen Cove, a pirate cove (Yep, PIRATE) just north of Land's End, and might be to my liking. What the hell - why not?

So I arrived at the Old Sucess Inn (built in 1492) which had just re-opened and was welcomed by the hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Chatham. Dinner was being served, and by the time I had been to my room, freshened up, and returned downstairs, it

seems that everybody in the place knew I was the first American to stay at the Old Success since the war. Since at that latitude daylight lasts quite late, I decided to go for walk after dinner along the high cliffs, when a car driven by one of the guests stopped and offered me a lift to Land's End.

The sign as we approached the pub announced "The Last Pub in England" and

beyond that one had to cross the Atlantic to find the next. And it was here that I played darts in an English pub for the first time.

When closing was announced (and they were very strict about pub hours in those days), we drove back to the inn where I discovered to my delight that registered guests could order drinks 24 hours a day (very civilized); so I settled down with the Chathams and a few other guests for a nightcap.

The captain of a Dutch cable ship which had laid a cable from America, had been a guest at The Old Success, and had come back to visit with the Chathams, as well as the local "squire"; a honeymoon couple and I were invited to tea the following afternoon by the squire at his estate where he was planning to have a million daffodils ready for the London market by Christmas time. There are no trees along that part of the coast, but warm winds from the Gulf Stream make it ideal for horticulture.

My one night stay had already been extended, so when the Dutch captain invited us to dinner the evening after that aboard his ship which was docked down the coast at Mousehole (pronounced "Muzl") I was delighted.

Sennen Cove proved fascinating. I visited the pub below the inn which seemed to be carved from solid rock, and many of the older denizens were speaking Cornish which has just about disappeared. As for the "pirates", they were now mostly smugglers; French perfumes and many other continental goodies were not available in this country which was still recovering from World War II, but locals

could find them "for a price".

So my one night stay turned into three. I would no longer think of traveling without reservations, but if I had been on a timetable then, I would have missed so much. I went on to Tintagel, the Lake District, Edinborough, and St. Andrews (with adventures all along the way) before arriving at Stratford where I spent six weeks - but all that's another story.

So "The Pirarates of Penzance" brought so much to mind I had to go back to my original source - and order the two books that started it all.

rwtf