I wanted her to put it in writing. I asked her, but she thought I was joking. I wasn't. She was remembering a me I no longer am. She was remembering a me my children have never even known.
"You made the best clothes in the class," she told me at the gym the other day. In my new incarnation, I work out. In my other life, I sewed.
"I was making a bathrobe and you were making a plaid jacket. I was impressed," she said.
Read MoreFor years, I would tuck her in every night and sing a little song I made up: "Stay little. Stay little. Little, little stay. Little stay. Little stay little." Even before she understood, I sang these words to her.
But long after there was any need to tuck her in, when she was quite capable of getting into bed herself, I continued with the ritual and the song. It was dumb, I know, but it was a tradition and it was all ours.
Read MoreIn pictures they're smiling. Check out the magazines. Notice the ads. Look at the pretty girl with the good-looking guy - no worry on her face, only a smile.
On TV it's the same, and in movies. Smiles, smiles everywhere. Everyone is grinning. Everyone is cheerful. Everyone is having a good time. This is what we are supposed to be doing - smiling, connecting, enjoying life.
Read MoreThursday morning, shortly before noon I dial the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. The phone rings once. A recording answers: "Thank you for calling the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce and the Artery Business Committee. For tourist information, dial 617-536-4100. If you know your party's extension dial it now. If you wish to reach your party by last name, enter pound, star, two."
I enter pound, star, two.
Read MoreI phoned her the other day to ask how her pregnancy is coming along. "I'll be glad when it's over," she said in a weary voice. "I'm a nervous wreck…
Read MoreYou sit and listen to kids talk today and it about breaks your heart because they're not kids anymore. They know too much. They've lived too much. They're only 6 or 8 or 12 or 14 and they have adult worries. Their parents are divorced or their mother's an alcoholic or their father's abusive or has a girlfriend or is never home or is always home because he lost his job two years ago and hasn't worked since.
They spend their days in front of TV watching people cheat and lie - on the news, on soap operas, on sitcoms.
Read MoreIn 30 years this country has gone from being a place where you could picnic in the woods, walk the streets at night, cut through an alley, sleep without locking your doors, drive without worrying about getting lost and ending up in a neighborhood where people will kill you, drive without worrying about a boulder crashing through your window, or a bullet smashing through your head, send your child to school without fear that someone will take a shot at him on the bus, or beat him up in the school yard, or knife him in class.
Read MoreAh, yes, the good old days. Dad worked 10, 12, 14 hours, came home, sat down, read the paper, ate dinner, took out the rubbish, shoveled snow in the winter, cut the grass in the summer, and gave the final word in all important decisions.
Your father will be home in 10 minutes. I want you to put your books away, now.
You better watch your step, young man. Don't let your father catch you talking like that.
How different things are now. The monarchy is dead. Democracy rules. Father is no longer a figurehead. Fathers father.
Read MoreIt has been a long time since I awakened to the sounds of cartoons in my house. Years ago there was always a child up before me, roosting in front of the TV when I came downstairs, watching the "Smurfs" or "Gummy Bears" or some other early morning show.
These days my children sleep as late as they can and the TV remains silent. I haven't seen a cartoon in years.
Read MoreThey wanted me to write about them.
I said no because I generally don't. Really, where's the story, I thought?
I go into schools now and then and talk about how I got started as a writer. I tell a couple dozen kids that if you do something long enough, if you try hard enough, you eventually get better at it.
Read MoreThe station is WWOR, Channel 9, from New York, now delivered to us through our cable system.
It's not an x-rated station. We don't subscribe to it. It comes free with our basic package, and like most every other TV station, it's packed full of news and talk shows and re-runs.
Last Thursday at 7 a.m. the station showed "James Bond Jr.," followed by "Widget," "Head of the Class," "It's a Living," "Jenny Jones" and "Nine Broadcast Live."
Nine Broadcast Live is the subject of this column.
Read MoreThe new Victoria's Secret catalog arrived sometime last week, but I haven't been able to get my hands on it until now. The men in my house love the thing. They must have a sixth sense, a kind of male E.S.P. Either that or they secretly phone ahead to find out when the catalog is being shipped, because they always know the moment it's in the mailbox, and grab it the second it arrives.
Read MoreThe ad has been running in newspapers for more than a month now. "Rediscover the Catholic Church." It isn't a bad ad. The words are all in the right places. The intent is clear.
But the message is strained, because the tone is formal and distancing. "More than anything, we can show you how to rekindle your relationship with God. We can show you an approachable God, a merciful God, a God who gladly welcomes those who come back to Him."
Read MoreLet's see if I have this straight. This is how we must live our lives: We must never talk to strangers, must in fact, walk with our eyes down as if we are deep in thought, while we stride purposefully on our way. Purposefully is the key. We want our body to give out the message: don't mess with us. That's what the experts say.
We must walk on brightly lighted streets in groups, never alone in the dark. We must constantly be on guard. Is there someone behind us? Is that someone too close? Quick, cross the street and walk more purposefully. We must walk alone through parks or alleys or even sparse woods.
Read More"All we do is argue," the woman tells me over a cup of coffee. Her 16-year-old daughter has just stormed out the front door ("I'm going for a walk.") because her mother suggested in front of "company" that she might want to shut off the TV and go upstairs and clean her room.
"I didn't yell at her," the mother says. "I was simply making a suggestion.
"My daughter and I are like oil and water these days. I tell myself to be calm and patient and understanding. I try to remember how I felt when I was her age. I know I was a slob, too. But it isn't just her room we fight about. It's everything. She looks at me like I'm a fly on her dinner plate. She sighs every time I try to talk to her. She shuts herself in her room and talks on the phone for hours, and I can hear her up there laughing and giggling and having a great time. Then she hangs up and comes downstairs and thumps around here like she's in prison and I'm the guard.
Read MoreThe contrast is everywhere. It's in the newspapers, in the ads for designer clothes and expensive skin creams laid out right next to reports of American children who go to school hungry.
It's in the landscape, in the sagging tenements that line the edge of American highways, where shiny new cars with deluxe audio systems and cruise control speed indifferently past.
It's in our cities and our towns, people in dress coats walking next to people in rags; the privileged hurrying to the theater and to symphony, the underprivileged going nowhere that isn't free.
Read MoreThe saddest story in the news last Friday had nothing to do with crime or politics or the economy. It had to do with the way we live our lives, and the way we treat our children. It was a heartbreaker, yet relegated to the back pages, as if it meant nothing at all.
Sesame Street announced that it was putting its new episode about divorce on hold because the preschool children who had previewed it had become upset and had found it too painful to watch. The Snuffleupaguses were splitting up and the kids didn't like it a bit.
Read MoreThe Boston Herald
February 28, 1992
BEVERLY BECKHAM
Newsweek's cover story this week is titled "America's Lost Dream" yet it isn't about a lost dream at all.
It's about a dream come true, about a country that grabbed for the gold ring and got it, that got everything it ever wanted, and then some, and now must decide what it wants next.
Since the end of World War II, life in America has improved in countless ways. Jet travel, air conditioning, interstate highways, direct long-distance dialing, television, automatic washers and dryers, antibiotics - all these things have made our lives more comfortable.
Read MoreI thought I had gotten past the body thing. I thought I had my priorities straight. Better to work on the mind than the thighs. Better to read a book than work out. Age is a natural part of life, after all. What sense is there in fighting the inevitable?
What's a little cellulite? What are a few sags? What's a dimple or two among friends?
Read MoreThey told me I wouldn't like the movie. Too corny, the 21-year-old said. Too predictable, the 15-year-old added.
They had been disappointed so I assumed I would be, too. But I wasn't. I loved "Forever Young." It was a trip into yesterday, a love story, not a sex story, corny and predictable, yes, but who cares? It was tender instead of lewd. Imagine that in the 1990s!
Prior to the movie, I'd overheard a conversation. A girl, no more than 20, home from college for Christmas, was telling some friends about a guy she'd picked up at a New Year's Eve party. They were strangers who met around 11 p.m. and were bed partners a few hours later.
Read More
ABOUT COLUMNS ARCHIVES WHAT’S ON MY MIND GALLERY IT’S NEVER TOO LATE BOOKS CONTACT
Copyright © 2020 Beverly Beckham
Web Design by: SKILLARA | Marketing + Media
