Years later my mother saw Jack and said she didn’t remember him being as handsome as he was. I met Eddie Sabreen at a USO dance. It turned out that he was a neighbor of mine. Eddie had a cousin, Bobby Publicker, whose family was in the liquor business. They were the rich- est people in Philadelphia. Eddie and Bobby’s families were close. I remember Bobby Publick- er’s mother having trouble putting on her gloves because her diamond rings were so big. Once, Eddie asked Bobby to send Bobby’s chauffeur to pick me up for a dinner at his house. I wore a pink dress with long black evening gloves. I must have looked ridiculous for a dinner at a neighborhood boy’s house. But I was young and didn’t know any better. Eddie’s mother hated to cook and she had a maid who wasn’t that good at cleaning. So they switched roles – the maid did all the cooking and Eddie’s mother did the cleaning. Eddie’s parents were very nice people – decent, cordial and polite. When I broke up with Eddie he didn’t just fade away. He became a good friend of my broth- er, Marvin. I remember Eddie sitting on my front steps waiting for me to come back from a date with another boy. I must have broken his heart. He was around so much that today he would be considered a stalker; back then he was just a boy in love who was persistent. What broke us up was silly but I saw his legs at a beach in Atlantic City. They were too thin in comparison to the rest of his body; it just killed any physical attraction I had for him – they didn’t match how strong his upper body looked. So it isn’t just men who like nice legs. I dated Izzy Dubin who was a dentist and a major in the Army. He was very nice looking, tall with curly black hair and blue eyes. I met Izzy through my cousin, Ruth; she lived near his office and he was her dentist. The night we met he said he had been on twelve blind dates and I was the first one he liked. I came close to marrying Izzy. One Saturday night Izzy and I were having cocktails at a hotel when a wisdom tooth I had been having trouble with, really began to hurt. Izzy gallantly drove about forty-five minutes to his office, pulled my tooth, and then took me to Ruthie’s house to recover. Then he carried me upstairs and put me to bed. How’s that for a romantic evening out? But he was a terrific dentist.
THE BLIND DATE DISASTER Izzy and I used to double-date with Al Pollack and his girlfriend, a pretty blonde girl named Bever- ly Doan. Eventually Al broke up with Bev. When it happened he asked Izzy to get him a date. I told Izzy I didn’t think it would be proper for me to get Al a date since Bev and I had become friends. Izzy didn’t think it was a problem. I decided to call Bev first. While we were talking we came up with what we thought was a clever conspiracy. Wouldn’t it be funny if Bev were his blind date? Bad idea. I told Izzy I had found a date for Al, a fictitious girl I named Ann. We were all to meet at my house. The house was what was called a “locomotive” house because it was straight enough from one end to the other to drive a train through. You came in the front door into a sun room, straight into a living room, a dining room, a breakfast room, and finally a kitchen.
Izzy Dubin
55
Made with FlippingBook interactive PDF creator