One of the best things about my recent trip to NYC is that it afforded me the chance to rendezvous with my brother Steve, his partner Scott, and their son Henry – who are living and thriving in the great city of Philadelphia… a neat place for them to be but nearly as faraway from Racine as Seattle! Groan! It turns out that they love taking the train into Manhattan and were happy to do so again in order to meet Kathy and me… and that’s what we did on Saturday the 29th, with supper at the Time’s Square Bubba Gumps, the performance of “Lucky Guy” which I blogged about a couple of days ago, and then some spectacular pizza afterwards. The visit was short and sweet and great fun.
I was every bit as grateful that this trip to NYC also gave me the chance to sit across the table from my cousin Sara for the first time in 12 or 13 years. She is the oldest of the five children of my Uncle Paul (who died quite a few years ago) – my dad’s older brother, and my Aunt Marcia. . . which makes her the oldest of the so-called Northern Bergs, and the cousin I feel like I have known the least and wanted to know so much better.
One of my most potent childhood memories of getting together with the northern Bergs is of the programs which we would create and perform, typically under the assured direction of Cousin Sara, who even then was a budding mixture of Barbara Streisand and Susan Sarandon, a woman of the stage! Those little programs would happen in the basement of the church which my Uncle Paul served- and I remember them being clever and spirited variety shows, although the mists of memory are a bit vague on the specifics. But we had a ball, and our parents seemed to be impressed with our efforts. Eventually Sara studied theater at Northwestern University and then moved to New York City, where she went on to do some tremendously exciting theatre before branching out into teaching and coaching. (I’m sorry to say that I never managed to see my cousin onstage in anything. But at least I saw the national commercial she did for Heinz ketchup!)
I remember an interesting chat I had with Sara during my time in Chicago with the Lyric Opera. By that point (1985- 86) Sara had moved to NYC but was back in Chicago to visit some of her friends there – and she called to arrange for us to get together as well. Eventually we worked out that I would rendezvous with her and some of her friends for supper, and as she told me about each of her theater friends who would be joining us, she finished up each summary with “you’ll love him. He’s crazy.” I remember thinking to myself, “I would never describe any of my friends as ‘crazy’ “ and gulped as I wondered what night of craziness awaited me. But it didn’t matter if it meant having a couple of precious hours with cousin Sara. Then as it turns out, I got my wires crossed and went to the wrong train stop and we completely missed connections. (That was back in the stone age, before cell phones.) But many times since, I’ve thought about the excitement with Sara that I missed out on that night and of how intriguing it was to be wired so differently from my own cousin.
And that’s part of the fun of cousins- and especially the fun of the Northern and Southern Bergs- that there is this cord of connection between us as blood relatives. . . and at the same time there are all kinds of intriguing differences between us since we grew up in completely different households. What felt like the most drastic difference of all was that the Northern Bergs basically grew up with no television. They actually had a TV but kept it hidden behind a painting and only took it out to watch on special occasions (I suspect for occasions like the Moon Landing and the like.) My cousin Sigri mentioned in her blog about how they went without soda pop except at each other’s birthday parties. And it was clear that they listened to different records and read different books than we did. There are more such differences than one could possibly count- and when our two families got together, that was one of the most intriguing things for us to see. “What do you mean, you don’t watch TV?” “What do you mean, you don’t drink coke?” “Nope, I’ve never heard of them. Who the heck are Cheech and Chong?”
(Here’s a memory of the Northern Bergs which I haven’t thought of in years. We spent one Thanksgiving together with them at our family farm in Kenyon. One of my most vivid memories from that time together was one evening when I overheard boisterous laughter coming from upstairs. . . and it turned out to be Uncle Paul, Aunt Marcia, and all five of the kids, in one bedroom, laughing their heads off at something they were either watching on TV or listening to on the stereo together. I remember standing outside their room for the longest time, feeling so jealous that they were having such a good time- and I came so close to knocking on the door to find out what the heck was so funny. And then, as I almost always did back then, I drew back, not wanting to intrude, not wanting to get into trouble. But if I stop and close my eyes, it’s very easy to transport myself back into that hallway of the Berg farm house.)
And then, at some point, the lives of the Northern Bergs were turned upside down with the divorce of their parents, and yet again when their dad (my Uncle Paul) died quite unexpectedly and much too soon. That was a lot of pain for my cousins to absorb, although if anything it seemed to deepen the bonds between them. And if the lives of the Southern Bergs were remarkably untouched by sorrows and upheaval early on, we eventually tasted at least our fair share of them as well. And by now, I feel like our lives have actually converged a bit in terms of the kind of people we are, what matters most to us, and how we see the world and each other. And thanks to Facebook, we are actually more connected now than we ever were, for which I am tremendously thankful.
Because the Northern Bergs are scattered between Grand Rapids, MN and Atlanta, GA and Pittsburgh, PA and New York City, the chances we have to see each other are almost absurdly nil. So I am grateful that Sara made time in her busy schedule to rendezvous with me in New York City- and she even waited . . . and waited . . . and waited. . . when our arrival was terribly delayed by a wrong turn which our bus driver took plus horrendous bumper-to-bumper traffic leading into the Lincoln Tunnel. Sara waited at least an hour for me to arrive, and her smiling face in the lobby of my hotel was one of the best sights I saw on the whole trip! We paid a quick visit to her apartment so I could exchange a few pleasantries with her husband Cliff and their son Malcolm, and then she and I dined at a Caribbean restaurant in their neighborhood. And the delicious dish I enjoyed – Chicken in Mango Sauce – was a perfect metaphor for who Sara and her siblings are for me. There’s something so familiar about them – like that chicken breast . . . and yet something exciting and uncommon – like that Mango Sauce. It’s a combination I dearly love and always will.
pictured above: Cousin Sara and I at the Caribbean Restaurant where we partook of an absolutely delicious meal which was also, remarkably enough, reasonably priced!