Betty and I were sitting in a half-circular booth in the Bistro, beneath a soft skylight, Saturday, at lunchtime. Archtypes of our school years were moving all around us. Out of nowhere, Cam Talley materialized in our booth, sitting next to Betty. We exchanged stories...
My mother drove me to my first day of school. I didn't like it one bit. I let Miss McCord know about it. Miss McCord took me to one side and said, "Look at Cam Talley, over there. It's her first day of school, too. But she's having fun, coloring, and getting to know everyone."
And, now, Cam Talley was sitting in my booth. We talked about Alan Cohen.
I said, "Alan told me that you were a cafe singer in Boston."
She said, "I was."
2 comments:
What I never thought I would get to do is verify, from Cam herself, that what Alan told me, and what I remembered forty years later, is true. My aging memory is fallible, after all, so it is reassuring to find out that I got something right.
Of course, that is not to say that everything I write is the unvarnished truth - some of it, I have deliberately varnished to improve the story. As a blog writer, I may have literary pretensions, but I don't claim to be a historian.
Hi Larry,
I remember that first day of school. I was crying too, before I got in the car that was taking me to school along with other kids. My mother told me not to cry - that there would be a lot of things about school I would like. So I stopped - and that's why I wasn't crying when you saw me. I also remember being very impressed by Miss McCord.
However, Alan's information that I was cafe singer in Boston was close but not exactly right. I wasn't - I was a singer in a coffee house in New York - minor detail but important if you understand that at that time Boston was more upscale than New York. I would have never gotten to sing in Boston!
So nice to talk with you and Betty. Best to you guys - Cam
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