Page 51 - MN

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One of the bunnies was named Nancy and she was a registered nurse from Philadelphia. She was quite beautiful. Well, we got together. This was a bit of a shock to the club's sports director who thought he had the inside track, and one night on the beach we saw him stalking us. Weird.
Our affair was wildly romantic--swimming at night, hanging out in Jamaica- -and at the end of our gig I gave her money for a plane ticket to Atlantic City, our next club. I have to admit I didn't know if she'd actually take me up on it, but she did. She quit her job and joined me in Atlantic City and we traveled together for about six months.
Ah! But here's the life lesson. In those days, to my mom, Playboy Magazine was the work of the devil and the Playboy Clubs were scandalous places. She seemed to vacillate between being a liberated woman and a religious fanatic. The lesson is, if mom's in her righteous phase, don't bring a Playboy bunny home to meet the folks. Silly me, I thought the visit went well and Nancy was a great, intelligent person and a nurse, and things seemed okay.
My super power is obliviousness.
My dad told me later that mom went off like Mount Vesuvius. As soon as we were gone, she exploded and he caught the brunt of it.
Boom!
Nancy the nurse-bunny? A friend of mind saw her a couple of years later at a tailgate party at a Lakers game in L.A. She'd married a doctor and seemed very happy. Good for her.
So there you have it. I guess we were a dysfunctional family, whatever that is. But I love my brother and sister, and they are a great part of my life. I also loved my mom and dad. They did so much for us, and I also now realize how hard it is to be a parent. I think mom went off the deep end, and wine might've been involved, or menopause, but those days are gone now.
I wish Tim and Nan would write books because they'd probably enlighten me on what really went on. As I say, obliviousness is my super power.
Ah! One last story about mom. She and I fought constantly, mostly about what a disappointment I was and how I'd let them down and how could I go sing in bars, and how I was ungrateful, and so on. One day, while I was out on the road, I wrote her a letter saying that we were just making each other really sad and maybe we should take some time off. Maybe not communicate for a year or two until we could be calm and civilized with each other. I thought it was a well-reasoned compromise, and mailed it off.
Okay, I'm not good at some things. One of them is dates--anniversaries, holidays, birthdays, and so on. I swear I had no idea Mother's Day was coming up. Really. Well, that's when the letter arrived. Again, Vesuvius. My poor father.