Party Like It's 1950-Something

CIRO'S Hollywood, July 1956

My mother in her element, flanked by adoring,

rich males. Also at table: Dad and his father

My mother celebrated her eightieth birthday on Saturday. Perhaps I use the word celebrate in error. She was adamant that she was not in a celebratory mood. "Phyllis has made me physically ill with her insistence that I do something special that day," she complained to me in a phone call last week.

Even I was amazed that my mother, the ultimate social butterfly, would balk at having lunch with a few well-meaning friends. Then I remembered that she has recently entered a new phase of her life: Grieving Widow. Now I wonder, are her days of enjoying a good party really over?

11718 S. Cimarron Avenue, Fall 1954

My earliest memory of my parents' party days begin when we lived on Cimarron Avenue. In July, 1954, they put a $100 deposit on Lot 139 in the Grandview Hollypark subdivision of Los Angeles. It was a typical post WWII dream house---three bedrooms, two baths and an attached two car garage. A few years after we moved in, Dad poured a large concrete patio in the backyard and built a lattice cover to accommodate Mom's love of entertaining Southern-California style. Shortly before the guests arrived, I would watch my father carefully sprinkle a white powder on the patio, creating the ultimate outdoor dance floor.

My grandfather Dave Goodrich with my brother during construction of the patio, 1957. I never saw my grandfather without a drink in his hand.

My dad also installed a whole-house state of the art high fidelity system, which was a big hit with the cocktail set. Not only were there speakers in our small living room, but also outside and in the garage. There were always table tennis tournaments going on in the garage at the Goodrich parties. I'm certain Dad built the sturdy green ping pong table to satisfy the competitive nature of my parents and their friends.

It was a miracle I got any shut-eye at all when my parents entertained. I could almost fall asleep by concentrating on the melodic music syncopating with the tap-tap-tap of bouncing ping pong balls as it echoed off the wall my bedroom shared with the garage. But then there was the laughter. I found the laughing insanely annoying. Not only was I tired, but I was too young to comprehend and make sense of the party-goers' jokes. Even the laughter could not drown out my mother's disingenuous voice as she and others tried in haphazard unison to sing along loudly to a Mitch Miller record. Of course as the party dragged on, all the sounds only got louder and crazier.

Our kitchen was so small, Mom needed to use the table to prepare larger meals. Her father, Al Gould, is standing in the doorway of the laundry room. June 1956

In the morning, as my sister and I dutifully emptied overflowing ash trays and washed an endless parade of glasses, we would nibble on stale chips and shriveled bits of food stabbed through the end of sharp toothpicks.

Just as we were beginning to feel sick from noshing on wilted hors d'oeuvres tainted with cigarette smoke, my mother would suddenly walk through the front door. Somehow, while the kitchen faucet was running and the garbage disposal grinding, she had managed to silently slip out of bed and leave the house. She would return, just as quietly, clutching a small brown paper sack. As she reached inside the bag with her manicured hand, there was no expectation on our part. We knew she would pull out a very cold, very thick, freshly-made chocolate milkshake. By very thick, I mean that a metal spoon placed straight up in the middle of the glass would not tilt one degree. This was the standard remedy for one of my dad's hangovers.

My dad, during the crazy party days on Cimarron

As Mom disappeared down the hall, Becky and I continued our task of putting the house back in order while entertaining our little brother as quietly as we could. On mornings like this, my sister and I knew it was our job to be the responsible ones in the house. After all, our parents needed time to sleep off the effects of all that fun from the night before.

copyright 2008 by Kathleen Stewart Goodrich