Nov. 4, 2009
Today my Great Aunt Ida Goldberg would have been 109. (O.K., yesterday - I wrote this at 11:30 p.m.) Don’t know why, but I enjoy clicking off birth dates in my head, and hers was a good one – November 4, 1900. She was such a talented woman – could design anything, from apparel to picture frames, hats and clothes dryers. She was known as “Ida of Hollywood” at one point in her career. She was a freelance pattern designer and sold patterns to firms like Butterick, McCall's, Simplicity and Vogue. I saw letters she wrote to the companies and the original patterns carefully cut out and stored in custom envelopes she made. I still have several of her “cloche” style hats, and a box of feathers she used to decorate women’s hats. She was clever in the most interesting, useful and delightful sense of the word – I still have coasters she made out of the round, flat, tin lids of cottage cheese containers covered with cartoons from the New Yorker magazine. She varnished the lids to make them waterproof, and I still use and enjoy them today. She folded colored cardboard from tissue boxes into tiny stands for postcards or photos, two of which adorn my dresser.
Ida was my father’s mother’s half-sister; they had different mothers but the same father. My grandmother used her mother’s last name, Lamport. Ida’s mother left her for several years in the Jewish orphanage in New Orleans where she learned to sew. Eventually she made her way to New York where she was part of the arts community, and I’m guessing worked in the garment district.
Her style reminds me of Chris Gardner, who Alan and I heard tonight at the Mondavi Center. Gardner’s autobiography, The Pursuit of Happyness, inspired a film of the same name. The book and film detail his rise from a childhood of poverty and abuse to a successful career on Wall Street, with a pivotal year when he trained as a stockbroker and took care of his 14-month old son while homeless. He’s a charming and interesting man, about my age, who urges people to be dogged about their dreams. Some of his fierce philosophy seemed simplistic, but I could feel his hard work and rough life just below the surface. His real life authenticated his message and I found myself inspired and energized. Tonight he reached out to a young woman whose voice broke as she asked what to say to her parents who are struggling. Gardner is also a funny and adept speaker and his personal style was captivating – he was wearing a blue-grey suit with a long jacket and a blue and white striped shirt open at the collar, with a handkerchief that matched in the jacket pocket; I could see the spring green jacket lining and wanted to reach out and feel it (and get one for Alan).
Yesterday I hosted two friends from the university, Pam Kan-Rice and Brenda Dawson, both writers and much more. Pam is the assistant director of news and information outreach for the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources and has worked with communication people like me up and down the state for the last few years; it’s hard to know how things will be organized as the system is forced to downsize. Brenda is the communications coordinator of the UC Small Farm Program and Center, and will be officially laid off January 1 because the Small Farm Program will be eliminated. (I am hopeful that the wonderful work of the Small Farm Program will be absorbed by other UC programs, perhaps even my former Agricultural Sustainability Institute at UC Davis.) These two women, in different ways, made my work enjoyable. They are both funny and talented and were happy to share their insights and skills with me.
Brenda is at the beginning of her career and can look in many directions; Pam recently earned an MBA degree – would you call that “armed and dangerous”? The combination of their great humor, good laughs and fine personal style make them, what, unbeatable? I never realized that Pam was short until I noticed how tall her shoe heels tend to be. She favors brilliant colors like hot pink and turquoise and is fun to just look at. Brenda’s twinkle comes through in her infectious laugh and the way she celebrates. Last Halloween she memorably dressed as Holly Golightly from “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” in a little black dress with full-length white gloves. Style raises the spirits and adds energy to our souls. Viva, baby!
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