GOODBYE DALI Part 4: Say Goodbye (#87B): After business with Carlos Alemany was concluded, Linda and I went to dinner, then on to watch our friend Vince Giordano and his 12-piece big band, “The Nighthawks”. If you like big band music you should see his 2016 documentary, “There’s a Future in the Past.”
Saturday was one of the best days ever. When I found out that we were going to New York, I checked to see if the Yankees were playing a home game. They were. I had two Museum posters of “The Hallucinogenic Toreador” signed by the staff and framed. I called George Steinbrenner’s office at the New York Yankees, and told his secretary when I was going to be in New York on business for the Dali Museum. Adding, that since the Yankees held spring training in Tampa, I wanted to present a token of our appreciation to both Steinbrenner and Yankee manager, Lou Pinella.
Steinbrenner was going to be in Tampa at that time, so his secretary suggested I take his to his Tampa office and she would set up a meeting with Lou Pinella before the Saturday night game. Steinbrenner appreciated the poster, said he would hang it in the Tampa offices, and offered me 4 tickets in his private box for the game. I love it when a plan comes together! With 4 tickets, I asked Dali’s new York attorney, Michael Ward Stout and his partner if they would like to join us. Turns out they were Yankee fans, not Met fans, so they were delighted.
Saturday, we had brunch at Katz’s Deli, then hurried to the Museum of Modern Art to see Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory”, painted in 1931. I always made it a point to visit Vincent van Gogh’s, “The Starry Night”. I find it hard to believe it is not protected behind glass. Each visit, I am warned by a guard not to get so close as a I marvel at van Gogh’s technique. Until I saw the painting in person, I had assumed the entire canvas was all very heavily textured. Upon close examination, I was surprised to see so much canvas showing between brush strokes.
Whenever we were in New York we tried to see a Broadway play, and I was able to get tickets to the Saturday matinee of “Les Liaisons Dangereuses.” I still have Playbills from the 24 plays I’ve seen on Broadway, and I enjoyed everyone. This play about cruel games of seduction and manipulation was one of my favorites.
After the play, Michael and his partner picked us up outside the theater in a hired limo for the ride to the Bronx. They had the framed poster of “The Hallucinogenic Toreador” that I had dropped off at Michael’s office on Friday, before I had gone to the St. Regis to meet Carlos Alemany.
This was the first time I had been to Yankee Stadium and I was in awe. I could feel the history, see all of my baseball card collection as clearly as if they were in front of me. The House that Ruth built, and the house where Ruth stayed during Spring Training. It was a white Mediterranean one story house near Stetson Law School, just off Gulfport Blvd., near my parents house.
Once we found Steinbrenner’s box and Michael and his partner were seated, Linda and I, with our gift, were escorted to the Yankees’ locker room. In a few minutes Pinella came out. No gray hair, he looked big enough and strong enough to still be playing. He had a big smile, didn’t seem to be in a hurry, and was very friendly. No wonder he was called “Sweet Lou” during his playing days.
Pinella seemed to genuinely appreciate “The Hallucinogenic Toreador”, and said he would be sure to come to the Museum during Spring Training. He signed the baseball cards I had brought and our escort snapped a few pictures of the three of us. The baseball cards were from Topps sets Linda had started giving me for Christmas.
The Yankees were playing a four game homestead against the Boston Red Sox. They won 3 out of 4 games, but lost our Saturday night game 2 runs to 6. The loss didn’t take away from the fun of being at the most famous ball park ever built. After the game, the four of us caught a subway back to the City.
We flew home on Sunday. On the way to our house from the airport we stopped at my parents house to fill them in on the trip. My parents thought the world of Linda. We were both sporting fake men’s Rolex watches we had bought on the street in New York for $20 each. The huckster didn’t have any lady’s watches, but had taken enough links out of Linda’s so that it didn’t slip of her wrist. My Dad looked at Linda’s, chuckled, and said, “Just a minute.” He came back with a lady’s real gold Rolex that had been his Mother’s and my Mom never wore.
It seemed like the perfect ending to a perfect trip. Damn, if only I had paid more attention. Monday morning, as I was leaving for work, I mentioned the I was going to work a little late and then just stop by a planning meeting for our BCHS 20th year reunion. I’d be home by 8:30.
At the 15 year reunion for our Junior College fraternity, ADE, which I had organized, Robbie Hawk pointed that we hadn’t had a 15 year reunion for our high school. “Scott, you need to help plan the 20th!” The ADE Reunion had been a blast. We had a Friday night banquet at a restaurant on the beach, then a Saturday night toga party at our house. The next weekend, Linda and I were walking on the beach and she told me, “If you get involved with your high school reunion I will leave you!”
I could understand where she was coming from, but I didn’t think she was actually serious. Looking back, I had always worked long hours. I was active with the Chamber of Commerce Board and the Community Alliance, the Discover Florida’s Suncoast Board, the Suncoasters and the Sam Robinson Music Festival (which I started), The Suncoast Children’s Dream Fund (which I helped start) Advisory Board, The Sunshine City Jaycees (which I helped start), the Bayfront Medical Center Advanced Gift Committee, the Bayfront Center Advisory Board, the St. Petersburg Bar Association, the Suncoast Tiger Bay Club, the Museum of Fine Arts Marley Group, and the University Cub. In all, I had 18 regularly scheduled civic meetings a month, plus extra meetings called as needed.
We were at a civic function one night. Linda saw me looking over her shoulder and said “I know what you are doing. You are checking out the big shots here, and prioritizing the order in which you should approach them to try to raise money for the Dali.” Darn, she had me nailed, most guys would just be scoping out the pretty women.
Linda had enough stress of her own. She had lost her job and been embarrassed by the Park Bank Valentine’s Day Massacre (See #52) and had serious surgery 6 months earlier. She’d started a new job as an advertising sales rep with The St. Petersburg Times, at a substantial cut in pay. When I started writing “101 Stories”, I went through all of the old files I brought with me. There is another file box in my sister’s attic.
I found Linda’s file, and in it an autobiography she had written for an Eckerd College class in 1984. I really didn’t remember it. She wrote about an extremely hard home life, didn’t even mention she was the Homecoming Queen. She married her high school sweetheart to get away from home.
At age 22, she moved to St. Petersburg, where she knew no one, just to get away from it all. She worked very hard to advance her career. Now she had a husband and a home at the beach. She wanted our life to be enough, not play third fiddle to Ren and the Dali Museum, or whatever else I was doing in any given month.
I stopped by the BCHS reunion planning meeting on the way home. I remember Tom Masterson asking if I wanted to chair the committee. I said my wife threatened to leave me if I did. Tom jokingly replied, “Then you’d have more time to work on the committee.” I always thought I’d have a chance to tell him what happened when I got home. I still can’t believe he’s dead. I am so sorry Denise.
When I got home, Linda was finishing packing her suitcase. I told her I wasn’t going to be in charge of planning the reunion. “I don’t care. I can’t take it am more.” She asked me to help her close her suitcase on the bed in the guest room. “I’m not going to help you pack your suitcase to leave me.” Linda knelt on the suitcase to close it, and we both laughed a little as she rocked on the bed. That was the last photo on the roll of film from our New York trip.
I put our parrot, Dylan, on my shoulder and followed her out the door. I was standing on the porch when she opened her car door. “I can’t believe you are really leaving us!” It honestly never occurred to me to sincerely apologize, say I got it, and beg her not to leave, I told you, there would be times you’d think I was a real jerk.
Counseling didn’t go well. I was under more pressure than ever. Ren told me, “A good woman doesn’t leave a good man”, implying I must have been a bad husband. He was right.
We handled our own divorce and Property Settlement Agreement. Linda was more than fair. Lance Andrews drew up the paperwork. By the fall we were both seeing other people.
Now, I am going to give Cathy a big hug.
Last week, when I was writing about that POS Wittner, she came to my office. She was very upset, “If you aren’t taking a walk, you spent all of your time up here. You are driving us both crazy with these stories.” I came downstairs in a few minutes and told her I would stop if she wanted me to stop.
“What would you do then?” My website and re-edit the “Gulfport Years” and “Racism in America.” She said, “You’ll be working just as hard. I don’t mind if it makes you happy and you don’t talk about it all the time. It isn’t all about you!”
Cathy is cooking Pad Thai for dinner. She’s not mad anymore.
Good thing, if it wasn’t for her, I would be a lonely old man. “Old too soon, smart too late.” Not this time!
