Date: Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:38:19 -0600 (CST)
From: Charles Taylor <cecetaylor-AT-verizon.net>
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Subject: [Puptcrit] My Great Irony:
HTML VERSION:
Dear Charles,
Thank you for your touching reminiscences. But why was knowing the Yale Puppeteers the great irony of your life?
Robert Rogers
My Great Irony:
Thank you Robert for your kind remarks. My letters are long and my last statement must be confusing to others. What I should have said was that the irony lay in the fact the Bob Bromley and the Yale Puppeteers were extremely important to one another=E2=80=99s career yet because of their falling out they had great distaste for one another. More than five decades elapsed and I was in the middle enjoying the friendship of both the =E2=80=9CThree =E2=80=98B=E2=80=99s=E2=80=9D and Bob Bromley. Here=E2=80=99s my lengthy explanation:
One very impressionable memory occurred while walking down a street in Laguna Beach toward the Laguna Little Theater. Harry Burnett and I had a booking for Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, a hand puppet show that Harry and I created together. We wanted to check out the theater.
I was only nineteen at the time. Harry had a habit of introducing me to everyone he knew and he knew many celebrities, movie stars, journalist, poets etc. Often, in public, women would scream, =E2=80=9CHarry Burnett=E2=80=9D and running toward him would ask for his autograph. It was most disconcerting to a very naive young teenager. I was constantly being reminded that he himself was a celebrity, at least in Los Angeles.
Harry would also take me and =E2=80=9Cdrop in=E2=80=9D on people. It was a little embarrassing since I was raised to never =E2=80=9Cdrop in=E2=80=9D without an invitation or call ahead. We =E2=80=9Cdropped in=E2=80=9D on Elsa Lanchester and Charles Laughton a few times, once while Elsa was giving a dinner party. We =E2=80=9Cdropped in=E2=80=9D on Lottie Goslar and so many others.
The point is, I was becoming accustomed to introductions to everyone Harry met or knew. I was also being trained to respond appropriately. I was gawky, stammered and had facial ticks that Harry helped me overcome. Then this one sunny day as we walk down the street in Laguna, a tall burly gruff man walked toward us. There ensued an awkward moment of recognition and very taciturn exchange of acknowledgement between the two men.
Harry did NOT introduce us. My curiosity was piqued. After the man walked away in the direction from whence we came, I asked, =E2=80=9CWho was that man and why didn=E2=80=99t you introduce me?=E2=80=9D I was cheeky. And one of those strange moments took place in my brain, like a premonition, that somehow that stranger would have some importance in my life. That has happened to me three or four times that remarkably came true. Once when a young repair man worked on my house heater I was angry at his seemingly inabilities. A thought popped into my head, =E2=80=9CI better be nice to this kid because he might have a sister that I=E2=80=99ll marry.=E2=80=9D Ten years later my future wife introduced me to her brother, he was the repairman. I met Elaine through the Orange County Puppetry Guild of which she was president. It had no connection to my heater.
Harry sternly warned me, =E2=80=9CYou don=E2=80=99t want to know HIM, (Bob Bromley). He is a very bad man. No more was said. It was several years later that I became acquainted with Bob Bromley at Los Angeles Guild of Puppetry meetings. I remembered Harry=E2=80=99s warnings and tread lightly, not being overtly friendly nor rude. But that was a mechanism I had learned over the years to avoid many =E2=80=9Ccrazies=E2=80=9D that we came in contact through the puppet guild. (My wife of many years later told me her impressions were that I was stuck up and too full of myself because of my aloofness. Once she spun on her heels walking away from me swearing to never speak to me again. )
A few years went by and there was a board meeting at Bob=E2=80=99s apartment. I began to realize that he had a very sharp mind and different way of seeing things than other guild members. For some reason I invited him to my home for dinner one evening. We set a date on the calendar and then a most unforgivable action occurred. That particular day, in planning to sell my home, I had gone to Long Beach to look for an apartment to rent. I found a beautiful Spanish two story house just four houses from the beach. I feel in love with it and bought it. I was so excited and the realtor invited me to dinner which I accepted.
Another year went by and I happened to see Bob at a guild meeting and invited him to dinner. He flatly refused. I was shocked at his abruptness which I hadn=E2=80=99t seen an indication before and asked why. Then he told me firmly that the last time I had invited him to dinner, he sat in his car in front of my house for two hours and I hadn=E2=80=99t the courtesy to even come home. I was stunned and realized that I must have forgotten. I apologized profusely and begged forgiveness with a promise that if he gave me another chance I would be sure to be there. He reluctantly accepted.
The dinner came, we had good laughs and became friends. About this time Bob had been laid off from work as a security guard and started touring with California School Assemblies. Because he was touring all winter long and wasn=E2=80=99t home until summer, I suggested he give up his apartment and stay in my large home during the summer months. He could help me build my touring shows. I didn=E2=80=99t charge him rent and the comradeship was great.
That=E2=80=99s how it came to our platonic friendship and sipping wine sangrias in the summer on my back patio. Bob told me he didn=E2=80=99t like to live in the past but I discovered as the glass emptied, he relaxed and then told fantastic stories. All I had to do was prompt him with a question. Those lazy days resulted in a collaboration of writing his book. We wrote thirteen chapters altogether. Bob also house sat for me when I would go on vacations to Europe, Mexico, Hawaii, and cruises. He was very gentle with my Westy (dog) and showed great kindness to me.
In 1975 I moved to my current home which was twice the size of my Spanish house. Bob Bromley fell off a stage in Goodwill, Oklahoma. That was the same year that Marlena Dietrich and Ann Margaret had their bad falls. Bob could no longer perform because of a broken clavicle. He came to my home to recover and I sent him to my doctor.
I was building a patio on front of my house. One upright post stood sixteen feet in the air. I had to get a beam attached to that post. Bob, with his right arm in a sling, used his left arm to pull a rope that went over a pulley to help me raise the beam as I on a ladder slipped a bolt through both the beam and the upright post. Now very few friends would help a person while their arm is in a sling.
Bob was able to find an very nice apartment in downtown Long Beach on Magnolia. We talked on the phone nearly daily and went to each other=E2=80=99s house for dinner perhaps twice a week. I had been teaching a puppetry class at the university and arranged for Bob to take it so he would have a modest income to supplement his Social Security. We often would discuss how he would teach the class. Which brings to mind that Bob and I could have strong =E2=80=9Ccollegiate=E2=80=9D disagreements that NEVER breached our friendship or respect for one another. I respected and enjoyed that part of our relationship.
I noticed Bob started shuffling his feet and using his hands as a wedge to pick up things. I thought he was being a little lazy. But one day at my regular doctor=E2=80=99s visit, I was asked how Bob was dealing with his Parkinson=E2=80=99s. I must have looked very shocked because the doctor realized he had betrayed a confidence and asked me not to let Bob know that I knew. And so a long period of decline took place in Bob. His speech slurred and we spoke less on the phone.
It was a strange experience to go through a mourning process for a friend that hadn=E2=80=99t passed away. Then one day, Bob called and insisted that he come over to discuss something with me. He showed me a newspaper clipping about Parkinson's. He was afraid that I would reject his friendship because I might think that Parkinson's was contagious as if it were some kind of flue virus. My heart sank as I assured him that we would remain friends even though he didn=E2=80=99t know I was aware all along.
Once when I returned from a cruise through the Panama canal, Bob had bought some very nice steaks for me as a welcome home gesture. In September of 1982, I wanted to get some steaks and take to Bob=E2=80=99s apartment. I received a telephone call that Bob had died during the night. I couldn=E2=80=99t give him those steaks or do anything more for him. I had promised him to help his book be published and it was no where to be found. His brother had come in and taken it. When he learned I was the executor of Bob=E2=80=99s estate and wanted the book back, less than half of the chapters were mailed to me. I sensed that his brother didn=E2=80=99t like some of the more vivid details of his brother=E2=80=99s life told. That was sad for the way things turned out and not as Bob had wanted.
And so the irony was that my friends who wouldn=E2=80=99t associate with each other were very close friends of mine. I observed the dignity in which they each met the end of their lives as they dealt with loneliness and declining health yet somehow they remained very positive. The =E2=80=9CThree B=E2=80=99s=E2=80=9D and Bob Bromley were most unusual humans that enriched my life greatly. But we just couldn=E2=80=99t all play in the same sandbox at the same time.