Posts Tagged ‘Susie Lohn’

Thank God it’s Friday

Monday, March 3rd, 2014

culottes

In the chill air at 7:30 in the morning, I would head out.   Heavy books that I never opened were piled high in my arms.  They weighed me down, but I was used to it.  These were pre-backpack years.  Teachers required you to cover books then, and mine wore clumsy jackets of recycled brown Safeway grocery store bags.  The covers barely hung on, despite the many pieces of Scotch tape randomly applied in all directions.

My bare, skinny legs descended from short, orange and yellow culottes as I crisscrossed the sidewalk, crunching hard on those fall leaves.  Never stepping on cracks for two blocks — from Roxbury to pick up my best friend Susie on Peck Drive.  She was freckled like me, but taller and more mature.  Now I could be distracted, not having to concentrate on my steps.  Instead, we’d talk about our plan for the weekend.  Compromising and strategizing.  Your best friend in school is really your first important relationship, almost a rehearsal for a some day marriage. (more…)

Jews on Motorcycles

Friday, November 23rd, 2012

My dad, the over-protective Jew, had a couple of mantras.  One was never ride on the back of a motorcycle.  Another, never go for a ride in a small plane.

Uh-oh.  I did both.  Behind his back.

By the way, I can say Jew, because I am one.  You can’t.  I mean, if you’re not.  Just saying.

The girlfriends I made growing up were the ones who went to school on Jewish holidays, along with the other six kids in Beverly Hills who weren’t Jewish.   I don’t know why, but I was drawn to gentiles.  I’ll be making a point in a second.  I often went with these friends and their families to church, and never once, including with my own family, did I enter a temple. I wasn’t a religious churchgoer; I just sort of tagged along on a Sunday morning if it followed a sleepover the night before.  Trust me; even then, I never wanted to wake up before noon.

On many weekends, I was the guest of my best friend Susie at the Gun Club.  Yeah, that’s right, Gun Club.  A Jew at a gun club is an oxymoron.  Susie and I made an odd couple – she, the athletic tomboy, and me, the undersized neurotic Jew.  Here’s how different we were.  For her 13th birthday, Susie’s parents gave her a rifle, a Browning 22, along with deodorant, an ironing board and an iron.  She remembers walking to Kerr’s Sporting Goods, at the corner of Peck & Wilshire, across from Saks Fifth Avenue, with her rifle wrapped in brown paper, so that she could get it fitted to her size.   On my thirteenth birthday, the doorbell rang and a bouquet of red roses was delivered with a note from my dad telling me how beautiful I was.  If you want to see just how beautiful, check out the photo below! (more…)

Tripping with Susie

Friday, August 10th, 2012

me looking out at the lights of Las Vegas, age 16

Today I had lunch with my childhood BFF Susie.  Her birthday was last week, a day ingrained in my mind for life.  We often check in with each other at birthday times.  October will be the next time we might see each other, my birthday.

Her parents have both now died and just last week on the actual day of her birthday, like a gift, escrow closed on her parents’ house.  Susie told me she had a box of memories saved for me.  She brought them to lunch.  There were pictures and letters and other souvenirs.  She claims she has no use for any of this memorabilia.  No kids to hand it down to.  I’m family, it now belongs to me.  With these photos I can create all new blogs.   With other photos, I can fill in for blogs I didn’t have just the right photo for.  But, it is this one small eighth grade class photo of me,  I had given to her– that was just stunning.  I wrote these words on the back (look below)

And here we are all these years later, doing just that, talking about our memories.  Not to mention, that is the whole purpose of my blog — now celebrating it’s third anniversary — memories.

the 8th grade pic with my note written to Susie you read above

 

Here is a story about Susie and me at age 16, at least I was 16, and she had turned 17.  It was the same time of year as our recent lunch.  We were tripping.  Kidding.  We took a trip.  First to Vegas.  My brother was working that summer for a man named Morrie Stevens at his TV station in Henderson, Nevada — KHBV. (more…)

You’re all Invited….I Swear!!!!

Friday, July 15th, 2011


When I have a party, I try to invite everyone. I really do. And if my best friend has another best friend, I invite the other best friend. I include the world. If I happen to run in to you (random person reading this) a week before said party, I will invite you even if we’re not the best of friends. I even like it when people crash my parties or when someone calls me and says boldly “Do you mind? I hear you’re having a party and I’d really like to go.” What I LOVE about that is that the person who makes that kind of call, does know me. They know, I’m so happy to include everyone.

I believe I got this from my mother who would say, “You have to invite the whole class, not just some.” Or my dad, who carried his entourage around with him, leaving no one out. Both my parents never let anyone’s feelings get hurt.

One day, in maybe the 5th or 6th grade, a girl named Debby had a party and it seemed like she invited just about everyone. Except me. And maybe the worst part was that she included my best friend Susie. It felt like a real slight. On that particular weekend of Debby’s party, I remember feeling very alone on Saturday night. Susie and I were pretty inseparable. (more…)

Fear of Bees

Friday, May 13th, 2011

It’s a lifelong fear. If a therapist were to ask what is my level of discomfort when near a bee, I might have to say a hundred, or a gazillion- whatever the highest level might be.

It started when I was less then two, could have even been one and totally pre-verbal. But, I do remember being a witness to the moment. If not the exact moment, then the repurcussions. I was living with my mom and dad in this very glamorous place called the Garden of Allah. It was famous for housing the most intellectual, interesting avant -garde people of the day. People like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker and Greta Garbo. It was a hotel with bungalows that some people took permanent residence in. The social center was the pool. The pool where my mother got stung on her back as she swam in it. It’s sort of contradictory that what I love so much, pools….is where the danger often lies.

Bees. I have been known to stay under the water for unsafe periods of time when I see a bee flying overhead. I even switched my swimming time to night to avoid the stress. (more…)

Where the Boys Are

Saturday, February 26th, 2011

from left, me, Bettsie, me with Diana, right, me thinking about Sol

What a motley group of misfits we were. Putzing around, morning till night, each new day a Groundhog Day repeat of the one before. There was Sol, my soul mate, though he didn’t know it. Skinny kid, a year older than me; a little boy who wouldn’t reach puberty till late, like me. Tons of freckles, also like me. A bit of a trouble maker (me? not so much). There was Doug, way into puberty, hairy and all, and at a young age. Man-like, deep voice, with a bark bigger than his bite. Other kids feared him. Danny, very scary, very hairy, already a bit of a perv at 11 or 12. Dave and Bill were older, or seemed so much older that I didn’t really know why they were hanging around with us. And they sure didn’t seem like they were from Beverly Hills — but I’m not sure any of us did. Many of us were from the “the slums of Beverly Hills,” where our parents moved us for a better education. Some education: playing poker in Roxbury Park.

Most of us were free floaters; lost kids. Kids with parents who didn’t know or didn’t care where their children were. And if they cared, they thought we were at the Teen Center and under some sort of supervision. That could not be farther from the truth. There was gambling, sex and eventually drugs. Again, not me. Not me… yet.

It was an alpha male group and we girls were mainly considered a nuisance. The boys played cards all day, placing big, Vegas-style bets in public. This was a serious pastime and girls were not really allowed. We would foist ourselves on them, standing behind one or another and praying for our guy to win. That’s when we would momentarily be noticed and the boy might say, “Stay there Fredde, you’re good luck for me today.” Ah, the power of that. I was needed and important. I was 12 years old. Stolen moments in the Boys Club.

my brother Alan in hat, Sol looking at camera, Doug to right

My best friend Susie had a pool table so I spent hours practicing my game. Then, I would show up at the Teen Center and strut my new shots. In order to play with the boys, you needed the skill and I was beginning to hold my own. This is also where I became fiercely competitive and not bad at all at ping-pong. The boys were sometimes brutal on Diana, a devoted friend since age 5. She wasn’t quite as skillful at dodging their abuse as I was. And she taunted them more than I did. We were both teased mercilessly for being flat-chested.

Susie was the eternal tomboy, who didn’t quite “get” my fascination with the boys. She had some great toys in her house. Besides the pool table, there were also slot machines. Her dad was friends with all the famous race car drivers because he made parts for their cars. I used these masculine toys as bait to get the gang over to Susie’s house. That was always a real accomplishment, one that went totally unnoticed by Susie, who often feigned disinterest. And to be truthful, the boys weren’t there for me either. They came just to play with the toys. But, the excitement of it all made me dream of more boy-filled nights. (more…)