My Life As a Muckracker As told to Dr. Freud (part six)

I want to talk about life in the 60’s, Doc. 

It was a very tough time for the country. It was a kind of hell for many Americans, and yet life went on. For me it was a mixed bag. There must be a part of our brain that helps survive times like this.

The good doctor nodded but said nothing.

The very real threat of a nuclear war over Cuba with Russia. (Or “Cuber” as President Kennedy pronounced it.) We came very close. And a few months later he was dead. Some say because of how he dealt with Cuba. Several years later his brother Robert, a candidate for president hoping to continue his brother’s legacy, was murdered in a California hotel. Killed allegedly because of his support of Israel.

The racial uprising in the South, the March on Washington, the assassination in Nashville of Martin Luther King after his great speech in Washington. The riots in the core many of our cities, including Cleveland, that many of us really didn’t really understand. Why would anybody want to burn down their own neighborhoods, Doc? Never quite figured that out.

All punctuated, as the decade closed, with the National Guard killing four protestors on the Kent State campus, marking the end of the riots that flared on campuses across the country.

We lived it, Doc. We lived history, each in our own way. A love affair in New York City, and then three years later, the arrival of our wonderful daughter. For me the 60’s was the best of times, and the worst of times. Yes I was a still a newlywed at the turn of the decade. 

You don’t mind, Doctor, if a go back a couple of years to 1957?
You might find it interesting.

Grace and I were married in a small hotel on Park Ave. We had a wonderful quartet for dancing. Grace’s parents did all the right things, although it must have cost them an arm and a leg. Her mom was a school teacher, her dad, a pharmacist. It was important to them to impress my friends and relatives, and I believe they succeeded, although they may have spent their life savings on the betrothal of their only daughter.

We spent our first night at the Plaza Hotel, a big deal for a working news guy from Cleveland. Didn’t know quite what to expect, particularly when a bellboy burst into our den of love at one in the morning, without knocking. He was carrying a bottle of champagne and a bouquet of flowers. As you might imagine, the room was in disarray, and we were in the process of getting to know one other a little better.

You of all people should understand how “it” was in those days, in the 1950’s, most people waiting until they got married before they did ‘it,"  right, Doc? 

As I recall, we may still have been in the process of figuring “it” all out when the bellboy burst in. May have been a foreshadowing of things to come…that can affect a marriage, right Doc? It was a really a big deal in those first days right?

Of course that it all changed. Now “it” has a different meaning to the kids. They don’t wait get married to do “it”.

In the morning we boarded a flight from LaGuardia to Ft. Lauderdale for our honeymoon, which I had planned, but not as carefully as I should have.

The winter before, I had stayed at little one story motel right on the ocean beach between Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood, in place called Dania. It was recommended to me by one of my colleagues at the Press. Granted, it was no Hilton, not even a Holiday Inn, but it was less expensive and owned by a lovely Greek family. They had offered to let me use their car for most of the two weeks of our stay. They called it something like Knishes by the Sea. Not the kind of knishes we of the Hebrew persuasion understand, but a Greek word that I didn’t understand. 

We drove there from the airport, and the moment Grace laid eyes on the place I could tell she would trade one night a Hilton, for two weeks at Knishes by the Sea.

What did I know about the tastes of New York girls? As I recall she swallowed hard as we got out the car with our luggage and checked in.  

“Welcome to Kinishish by the Sea,” our hostess said, as she took us to our room.

Two single beds! We were stunned. She quickly pushed the beds together and put a spread over them making look like a double.

”I will give some money back,” said our Greek hostess.

“Mrs. Kinish, don’t you know that we are on our honeymoon? “

“I’ll see what I can do tomorrow.”  

It got worse. A storm had been brewing out in the Atlantic, off Dania beach, as we were getting ready for bed. It was windy. Brilliant lightning lit up the room.

 “Don’t worry Grace, it will pass,” I muttered, as I saw water seeping in under the front door. She had already curled up in bed with the blanket over her head.

I cleared my throat and watched the weather report on the TV. The forecast looked ominous. By the end of the night, nine inches of rain had fallen in Dania, and I had seriously considered evacuating the place.

Needless to say, it was a setback in the adventure into holy matrimony for the Weidenthals, but as promised, Mrs. Kineshes showed up bright and early the next day with a smile on her face.

“I found a bigger room for you. It has a real double bed and a couch to sit on."

The rest of Florida adventure into matrimony went relatively well. Do you think, Doc that our dicey encounters would be meaningful to our future relationship, Doc? Done any research?

By the way, in preparation for this document, I did a Google search trying to find my favorite love palace. There was no Kinishes by the Sea. 

Not in Dania, Ft Lauderdale, not in Hollywood, not anywhere.

Good riddance.

See ya next week Doc. There’s a lot to discuss.