Part II: Let The Games Continue

ENTERING A NEW SPORT: THEATER

        Many of us, including yours truly, were required to try the same drill the first two students experienced that very first day. Our teacher moved around the room randomly choosing who would have their turn on stage. For no discernible reason, I was last to get up to perform. There I was, center stage. I took a comfortable breath and began to talk to them as if they were a crowd sitting in the stands, watching me pitch.

        “This feels like I’m on a pitching mound, looking in at my catcher, just the way my dad showed me how to do it.” The students began to laugh. I shook off their laughter without anger. “No. He really did teach me. He taught me a lot of things.”

        “I can remember a long time ago. It was one of those Saturday summer days. My dad and I were at Ebbets Field, together, taking in a Dodger game, together. They played their games in Brooklyn in those days. I’m smiling now because that day with my father is one I will remember for the rest of my life.” The students became quiet, they seemed to lean in a little closer. “Tell us the rest of what happened next”, the teacher called out to me.

        I began again: “The Dodgers were up at bat. The game was on the line. My dad told me to stay awake. We were sitting pretty close to where many of the foul balls were often hit. Up to the plate came my favorite Dodger of all time: Pee Wee Reese. “Stay awake”, my dad said again.

        Then, Pee Wee hits one up in the air and it came quickly our way. We all instantly stood up. My dad raised up to his full height of five foot five inches, stuck his left arm up in the air, and lo and behold, made a bare-handed catch of that foul ball off the bat of my favorite dodger, Pee Wee Reese. God, I loved that guy, but I loved my father more.” The students applauded.

        During the course of the semester, our wonderful teacher often repeated the same drill as we all became aware she had, herself, learned as a working actress and student of the great Stanislavski.

INGREDIENTS: STUDY and DISCOVERY

        The word study may not occur to those in the earliest stages of discovery itself. "Study" is imperative as a driving force for anyone and everyone who is held captive by even a modicum of flowing creative juices so presented by nature's indelible will. An absolute necessity in the cultivation of lasting and prominent skills.

        Study and discovery are essentially the same providers, bringing forth both conscience and subconscious enlightenment; without which these two ingredients, creativity becomes nothing more than a burdensome and unrewarding task. That was then, and this is now. I never go a single day without both of those marvelous ingredients entering, and reentering, my treasury.

        When I returned home from Korea, neither study nor any human pertinence allowing for who I really was (at that moment in time) was anything I intended to share from my private thoughts. In other words, looking back, I was quite introspective. Two short years later, what I considered a fixation became a fact of life.

        I take a personal moment to acknowledge a few persons before me. Those who taught me the "how" and "why" systems work, for all or any who fall to the long and often fickle deceptions of creativity.

        Note: My acknowledgments are now complete. I chose to make them introspectively; often it's what I do as I prepare to write my next piece, or am in the process of delivering a verbal discourse in a most intimate flow of words.
        Often, during trying times—the likes of what we are now experiencing during this plague—I can easily conjure at my will the very image of my dad reaching up, catching that ball, then instantly handing it off to his adoring young son as the crowd cheered him on to new heights!

“Dear God, let the games continue!”

HK

Part I: Let The Games Continue

Meeting Stanislavski

        Dorsey High School, here in Los Angeles: At the time, my prime interest was playing baseball, and one day, signing a contract to play for a professional team. Studying and becoming a renowned scholar never entered my mind, at least not initially. My drive consisted of play, play, and more play.

        In the beginning, thoughts about anything other than baseball were nonexistent. I don’t recall ever using the word 'discovery' during those formative early high school years. I doubt if I ever opened a book during my first year of high school.

        So much of what they were teaching here, in the state of California, I had already learned during my grammar school days in New York City. Growing up in my family was a guarantee that we were all going to be good in math, or as my dad referred to it, arithmetic.

        Like many immigrant parents, both my mother and father had very little formal education, but it didn’t keep them from excelling at almost everything they attempted to accomplish. They craved learning, it was their driving force, along with making a living and providing for the upbringing of three children: two sisters and da harv.

        One sister is six years older, and the other is nine years younger than me. Not exactly a well-planned household. The big separation of years between us created an enormous family upheaval on many occasions, mainly between me and my older sister. I never thought about my gift with words. Vocabulary and writing skills just happened to be there. Years later, one of the actresses explained to me – in a past life I probably knew how to speak Latin. My mother claimed my vocabulary skills were derived because she began reading to me from the time she first became pregnant with me.

        Year two brought with it: discovery. I actually began planning what I intended to study. By the end of that year, I began to understand what our California teachers really had going for them, especially the women. Many of the female teachers had come to Los Angeles as aspiring actresses. The one I was lucky enough to have, this teacher, came equipped with degrees having to do with theater. Many of the production skills she picked up were derived from some of the most renowned fine-art-related universities in the country.

The song called out to me:

“Whatever will be, will be

The future’s not ours, to see

Que Sera, Sera”

Jay Livingston/Ray Evans

Note: My favorite version is sung by one of my most favorite ladies, Doris Day.

DRAMA 1

        Day number one, on my first day ever in a legitimately-taught drama (acting) class: Our teacher had been an aspiring actress who ventured out from the small town environment she had grown up in into the movie mecca of the world. At the time, Los Angeles had many young, beautiful, and extremely-gifted teenage girls, discovering (along with their moms) how overpoweringly competitive becoming a working actor would be.

        Her mother had enrolled her talented daughter at Los Angeles High, at age fourteen. She graduated at age seventeen and went on to earn her graduate and post-graduate master's degree, supporting herself by waiting on tables at a very well-known Beverly Hills restaurant. Her skills as an exponent of the great Stanislavski were far more than scholarly—this lady wasn’t pedestrian in any sense of the word. Concurrently, I was entering a period of my young life when my capacity and aptitude as a receptor began to show itself.

THE FIRST DRILL

Location: Alone on our high school stage, our very first beginning drill.

        Two students were picked randomly — the teacher had assigned us, each in our own way, to free form the recollection of an actual personal (true) experience encountered from any time period we chose from our past.

        The first two students had, in common, an incident they each chose to remember and bring forward during a drill in our first week's drama class. Their story could have been funny, but it wasn’t. It could have been deeply dramatic, but none of us got their gist.

Note: Without exception, none of the students had heard the name “Stanislavski”.

        Not many high school teachers had past exposure to the teaching of the most prominent exponent of the great Stanislavski's method, or system. Not until I began cutting classes and making it over to one of the many little neighborhood theaters, did I have any knowledge of who Stanislavski was. I was about to find out.

To be continued...

HK

Our Field of Dreams

Our Field of Dreams

        The USA has always been my "field of dreams". Yes, they made a great movie with that title, but for me, it’s a very personal thing. I’m not embarrassed to share that fact of my life with any and all who care to hear, see, and perhaps read details of our country’s glorious past.

        It was many years ago when this very active kid (me) thought it was a great deal of fun to be out there with his dad shoveling snow. The year was 1943, and the main New York airport of the time was LaGuardia Airport.

        For this guy (me), my recall of pleasant nostalgia serves far more beneficially than the recall of peoples' complaints about the ineptitudes of deceitful politicians. I have zero memory of my mom or dad discussing politics. My mother was a flag-waving patriotic zealot, while we never heard my father let on which party he favored.

        At age twenty-one, when I returned from military service, I became aware my dad was a lifelong Republican. The kid (me) had not yet decided regarding the road I would be taking during the course of my lifetime. The “no complaints department” was the driving non-political force in our family.

        At that time, it had been twenty-two years since my dad and I had shoveled snow together for our neighbors, who couldn’t handle the chore themselves. Now we talked, man to man, and I still remember what dad had said with a smile of accomplishment on his face: “Did you get anything out of the army experience, Harv?” he asked.

        “The unbelievable accomplishment of knowing I was part of this great team of young guys who were busting their asses together, helping people to regain their dignity”, I replied. And not since the day my dad had taken me to the train station on my way to basic training, had I seen my father become emotional. We agreed there was much more accomplishment in shoveling snow than complaining about it, regardless of what political party you voted for.

        I write this as a thank you to all the men and women who serve the people who have placed their confidence in those committed to the accomplishment of providing for the building and survival of each other’s dignity.

        And thank you, all, for the marvelous reviews you’ve been sending me about my song, “Vote Them Out. It’s what America's All About”! In the event you haven’t heard it as of yet, just give what follows a click, give a listen, and don’t be afraid to let me know what you think.

Harvey Kalmenson

Sports and Families

SPORTS AND FAMILIES

Did you know?
Children 3 and under can enter Dodger Stadium free provided they sit on a parent or guardian’s lap. Should the parent or guardian want a child age 3 and under to have their own seat, a ticket must be purchased.

        Way back to circa 1936, or 1937—long before Dodger’s Stadium or Chavez Ravine was even a gleam in the eyes of the O’Malley family and clan)—in the one and only Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, New York, I would often be located sitting on my father's lap, learning how to cheer for what was eloquently described as “Dem Bums”. By age five, my dad explained to anyone who was close enough to where we were sitting: “My kid knows all of their names and numbers.”
        Dad wasn’t completely accurate; I was able to rattle off almost everyone who had anything to do with the Dodgers—including a lady named Gladys Goodding, who was the team organist. And of course, the gal who sat way out in the left field named Hilda, ringing a large cow bell when before and after the Dodgers did something good. Hilda never missed a Dodgers game for as long as she lived.

        What my Father didn’t realize was that he was the one responsible for his kid's (little da harv's) ability—or as his brothers put it, “Hervey’s got a real gift”—to memorize. In actuality, and unknowingly, because my dad never stopped talking to me while I was there—me comfortably sitting on his lap at the ballpark—he was teaching me how to pay attention to what was going on around me.
        Long before I knew who Vin Scully was, I had my very own private and hands-on announcer for everything going on around us. He was also making comments about anyone we experienced together at the ballpark. Much of what he was saying is not suitable for me to repeat. In retrospect… I had a version of Vince Scully there with me at all times.

        As I grew older, in conjunction with my dad having to pay for my seat, I began really turning into his buddy. Often, dad would answer a question while doing a variety of dialects of the many immigrants seated around us who had also fallen into a deep love affair with our Dodgers.
        It was before television had arrived on the scene, and well before anything vaguely resembling instant replay. When the Dodgers were playing out of town, just about every father, son, and all of my friends were tuned in to the radio and listening to what we all felt to be a close friend named Red Barber.
If we weren’t at the ballpark, we were paying close attention to what Red had to say. I mean to tell you, Red was the gospel for all of us. In my lifetime to date, the only announcer better than Red was to become the greatest of all time and forever a Dodger. The one and only: Vince Scully. In addition, Vince is also known and recognized as having been one of the game's best teachers.

HISTORY NOTE: It was sometime around 1920 when the tradition of the fans being allowed to keep any baseballs that were hit into the stands began, but that wasn’t always the case. During World War II, everything hit into the stands had to be returned to the home team, who then in turn forwarded on to our armed service members to be used in their service games. When WW2 came to an end, the practice of spectators keeping a game ball that went foul, or was hit into a homerun area of the stadium, became the fans to keep. The fans were truly fanatical when it came to catching one of those balls, no matter how hard it was hit.

Ebbets Field 1947 World Series, Photograph by Albert Bolognese

        For what it’s worth, those early days at the games with my dad were all smiles. Even when “Dem Bums” lost, my dad began saying to me, “we’ll get 'em tomorrow, Harvey”. You know, he wasn’t kidding. He wasn’t doing a strange or funny voice. He, in effect, was preparing for being part of the business I’m in; we’ll get 'em tomorrow! Won’t we?

hk

        ...And yesterday [Tuesday, August 2, 2022], as I watched my Dodgers busily doing away with their archrival, the San Francisco Giants team, the outcome of the game became of secondary interest to me. It was announced by the Dodgers broadcast team: Vin Scully had passed away. For sixty-seven seasons, Vin had been the Dodgers announcer. There will never be another man like him. Vince Scully added to my life!

Vin Scully began his big league broadcasting career on April 18, 1950, for the Brooklyn Dodgers. (National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum)

Dodgers announcer Vin Scully, with wife Sandi, waves to the fans after the team’s 10th-inning victory over the Colorado Rockies on Sunday. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)