pretty good. Irish clean. Or maybe that’s me. Following Operation Jet Stream, it took three shampoo rinses to get the vacuum soot out of my hair. Sid has lent me one of his pink polo shirts, which is two sizes too small, and I look ridiculous; I spent the entire car ride here playing peekaboo with my navel. This gut was a gift to myself six months ago for my twenty-ninth birthday.
Sid is dressed to impress. A trip to the city is a special occasion. He’s got on yellow polyester pants, brown leather slip-on dress shoes, a black-and-white-checkered short-sleeved button-down, and a blinding white linen newsboy cap.
We need to discuss important, pressing issues, but all Sid wants to talk about is the weather and the view.
“One-tenth of one percent,” he says, reminding me that of the 6.7 billion people on this planet, only one-tenth of one percent get the “privilege” of living in the Bay Area. Bay Area natives are prone to brag about things they have no control over, like its scenery and climate.
I go to speak but he shushes me again.
“Just soak it in,” he pleads.
The San Francisco skyline is spectacular.
“Look where we live”—that’s what Paige would gush if she were here right now. Television has taken her to markets all over the country, but like Sid, to Paige, nothing compares to the beauty of the Bay.
Halfway there, the temperature drops fifteen to twenty degrees, and the ferry itself vanishes as we float on thin air. The warm EastBay temperatures are mixing with the cold Pacific Ocean, creating the city’s trademark midafternoon fog.
“You need a story” Sid instructs me, frustrated by the low-hanging clouds. “My only goddaughter deserves a
legitimate
engagement story.”
“I know,” I say with a hint of indignation.
A quiet moment passes.
“I’m not an idiot, you know,” I tell him.
“Of course you’re not. You’re a resourceful, creative chap. So what’s your plan?” he asks.
There is nothing casual about Sid’s question. This is the guy who invented the big, showy, romantic engagement story nearly sixty years ago.
Sid’s story is the stuff of legends.
Sidney Brewster and Clarice “Cookie” Schwartz’s first date was blind and chaperoned. The two teens lived three city blocks apart and went to the same high school in Brooklyn, but had their mothers not played canasta together, different blocks may well have been different coasts in Flatbush.
Their second date was the Lincoln High School prom.
Three days later, Sid’s draft number came up. Six weeks in boot camp and he was shipped off to an American air base in North Africa. This is where Sid repaired aircraft, among them, the B-24 bombers used to invade and capture Sicily and force Italy out of World War II. For the next two years, Cookie and Sid were prolific and passionate pen pals.
Following the formal surrender of Japan in 1945, Sid telegraphed Cookie: “How about dinner Thursday? STOP. My treat. STOP.”
The reunion began with an elegant seven-course meal at the Pierre Hotel, followed by a horse-drawn carriage ride through New York’s Central Park. At the end of the evening, the young couple found themselves at the top of the world. “This is our third date in two years,” Sid told a stranger. “Can I trouble you to take our picture?” he asked, handing the man his box camera. Itwas there on the observation deck of the Empire State Building that Sid pulled out a dark jewelry box from his back pocket, knelt down, and popped the question.
Click!
The sepia-toned photo memorializing, no, immortalizing the two of them hangs over Cookie’s plastic slip-covered lime-green couch. For their fiftieth wedding anniversary, the Brewster grandchildren had the image made into a poster. The curls, the short fur, the flowing silk gown, standing there, one hand touching her face, Cookie is a dead ringer for Rita Hayworth. With her free hand she reaches out to her soon-to-be fiancé. Sid on one knee, in a military
Sid is dressed to impress. A trip to the city is a special occasion. He’s got on yellow polyester pants, brown leather slip-on dress shoes, a black-and-white-checkered short-sleeved button-down, and a blinding white linen newsboy cap.
We need to discuss important, pressing issues, but all Sid wants to talk about is the weather and the view.
“One-tenth of one percent,” he says, reminding me that of the 6.7 billion people on this planet, only one-tenth of one percent get the “privilege” of living in the Bay Area. Bay Area natives are prone to brag about things they have no control over, like its scenery and climate.
I go to speak but he shushes me again.
“Just soak it in,” he pleads.
The San Francisco skyline is spectacular.
“Look where we live”—that’s what Paige would gush if she were here right now. Television has taken her to markets all over the country, but like Sid, to Paige, nothing compares to the beauty of the Bay.
Halfway there, the temperature drops fifteen to twenty degrees, and the ferry itself vanishes as we float on thin air. The warm EastBay temperatures are mixing with the cold Pacific Ocean, creating the city’s trademark midafternoon fog.
“You need a story” Sid instructs me, frustrated by the low-hanging clouds. “My only goddaughter deserves a
legitimate
engagement story.”
“I know,” I say with a hint of indignation.
A quiet moment passes.
“I’m not an idiot, you know,” I tell him.
“Of course you’re not. You’re a resourceful, creative chap. So what’s your plan?” he asks.
There is nothing casual about Sid’s question. This is the guy who invented the big, showy, romantic engagement story nearly sixty years ago.
Sid’s story is the stuff of legends.
Sidney Brewster and Clarice “Cookie” Schwartz’s first date was blind and chaperoned. The two teens lived three city blocks apart and went to the same high school in Brooklyn, but had their mothers not played canasta together, different blocks may well have been different coasts in Flatbush.
Their second date was the Lincoln High School prom.
Three days later, Sid’s draft number came up. Six weeks in boot camp and he was shipped off to an American air base in North Africa. This is where Sid repaired aircraft, among them, the B-24 bombers used to invade and capture Sicily and force Italy out of World War II. For the next two years, Cookie and Sid were prolific and passionate pen pals.
Following the formal surrender of Japan in 1945, Sid telegraphed Cookie: “How about dinner Thursday? STOP. My treat. STOP.”
The reunion began with an elegant seven-course meal at the Pierre Hotel, followed by a horse-drawn carriage ride through New York’s Central Park. At the end of the evening, the young couple found themselves at the top of the world. “This is our third date in two years,” Sid told a stranger. “Can I trouble you to take our picture?” he asked, handing the man his box camera. Itwas there on the observation deck of the Empire State Building that Sid pulled out a dark jewelry box from his back pocket, knelt down, and popped the question.
Click!
The sepia-toned photo memorializing, no, immortalizing the two of them hangs over Cookie’s plastic slip-covered lime-green couch. For their fiftieth wedding anniversary, the Brewster grandchildren had the image made into a poster. The curls, the short fur, the flowing silk gown, standing there, one hand touching her face, Cookie is a dead ringer for Rita Hayworth. With her free hand she reaches out to her soon-to-be fiancé. Sid on one knee, in a military
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