my father would drive me to Neiman Marcus in Beverly Hills
where on Saturdays, they offered free samples in their gourmet food section.
We gorged on caramel corn and rumaki.
He’d peel the bacon off.
We bonded over food.
We argued about religion.
He’d say, “Eating is a sacred act.”
He’d add, “God will start to matter as you get older and lose people.”
He’d ask, “Are you going to finish that?”
He was Santa Claus crossed with Nachman of Breslov.
All my girlfriends had crushes on him.
—from Now You Are a Missing Person by Susan Hayden (Moon Tide Press, 2023)
To purchase: https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781957799100
Clockwise: me and my father, Sherwin Goldstein (1931-1995), Encino, CA 1971; my father in 1986 outside the Royal Poinciana Playhouse, Palm Beach, Florida, where he produced Heaven Sent, starring Jo Anne Worley and Roger Perry; his signature fedora; my father, President of the Frohman Foundation, in 1988 with a group of Russian exchange students and American students from Frohman Academy of Performing Arts, Carmel, CA where he produced the play Peacechild, the premise being “Peace begins with the children.”
I love this post! And surprisingly for me, this proved to be true: “God will start to matter as you get older and lose people.”