It Was A Very Good Year

So, on a brutally cold winter night  in NYC,  I force myself out of my warm apartment and go to a party. The setting was humble, but the attendees were glamorous. The type you study in High School English.  I met one of my idols, a ground breaking, innovative writer – he wasn't very nice.  Disappointing. So maybe he was having a bad day, or maybe as my friend, Jean Caffeine says, never meet your idols.  Fortunately, things perked up from there.  

I have a basic guideline when I go to a party, which has served me well.  I’ll either talk to someone no one is talking to, or the oldest people in the room.  Often they are one and the same. 

I saw an older gentleman and his wife.  She was dressed in all white – white pants, white boots and the largest white fur hat in existence.  Fabulous.  So I go and introduce myself.  Ervin Drake and his wife Edith.  

They are charming, fun and clearly have a zest for life.  We make our chit chat and then ask the inevitable question – what do you do? Since it was a party of writers, the basic was a given, but not the particulars.  Playwright I tell them, and invite them to  a reading of my play the next weekend. 

Ervin’s a songwriter.  Popular songs and he also wrote musicals. His most successful song is - It Was A Very  Good Year recorded by Frank Sinatra.  Frank said, Ervin I’ll record anything you got. What Ervin didn’t tell me was that he also wrote one of my favorite songs, Good Morning Heartache sung by Billie Holiday, which was one of Billie’s favorite as well.

They ask if I know Stephen?  Of him, of course, but not personally, so they introduce me to Stephen Schwartz, who is kind and gracious, and so talented, as evidenced by his many Broadway hits.

Edith describes what it was like in the early 60s.  She was gorgeous now but must have been quite striking then.  Men were grabby and they chased her.  Literally.  At parties around a table. It seems Mad Men had it right.  

Edith and Ervin tell me they are going to a charity event, but they didn’t write down where it was.  Don’t worry, said I, someone with a smart phone can look it up.   “Smart phone?  What’s that?”   My phone at the time, wasn’t so smart.   So we found one.  Evidently, the charity event was the day before!   Phased, they were not.

We continued to have more laughs, and then they caught a cab to the train station for the ride home.  On a frigid cold night, they exuded great warmth.  What a great treat to have met them.

I was sorry to hear that Ervin passed away last year.  What a bright light.   He clearly had many Very Good Years.