The Dance Card

What do you do when everyone you've loved is now dead?

My father called and asked me to take his photo the next time I visited. This was about fifteen years ago when he was in his late 70s. I told him I could take his photo with my phone and text or email it to wherever he needed it sent. He said, no, he needed to hand out prints of the photo. I laughed and asked if he was running for mayor. At first he was coy about it, but he finally admitted that he wanted to give out photos of himself to some of the ladies at the senior citizen center.

He was a widower. My mom, his partner in life for 42 years, had died a few years prior.  He recently sold his house in Toms River and moved in with my oldest sister in Red Bank, NJ. Between seeing his new doctors, going to physical therapy to recover from a recent fall and napping a few times a day, it was amazing he had the time and energy to socialize, much less date anyone. Apparently, he was an exciting new addition to the seniors community in Red Bank, where the women outnumbered the men by about 5 to 1. My father was also a fantastic piano player. The highlight of their meetings was when he played. No wonder they wanted his photo.

He said a number of gals, as he called them, were very pleasant company. One of the women didn’t have many organs left, but there were plenty of others in better health. It sounded like he wanted to date all of them, at once, with an eye towards finding the best match for marrying again. I reminded my father, with his aortic stent and occasional mini-strokes, he could barely take care of himself. Maybe that was the point; he wanted someone nice to take care of him. I asked him if shacking up with a woman without any organs was a good idea. After some thought he said it probably wasn’t.

I understood one reason why my dad was exploring his options. Living with my older sister wasn’t a picnic. Ever been around someone whose normal speaking voice is shouting? That’s her. She made a great show of taking him into her house. It was clear to the rest of us, including my father, she was conniving to get her hands on his money; which wasn’t going to happen. I would take Dad out for long lunches at Bahrs, an old school joint in Atlantic Highlands. It was a way to give us both a break from being in that house.

I asked him what the deal was with dating all the women in the seniors group. He casually mentioned that before he met my mother he would date 4 or 5 gals at a time. I couldn’t believe it. ‘Dad you were a player then and still are now!’ He brushed it aside, saying it was just going on dates. I asked him to elaborate and tell me what his life was like then. I knew he was discharged from the Army in June, 1953, when he was 25; then married my mom on January 21, 1961 at 33. I didn’t know anything about his prime-time bachelor years. Usually, in response to a personal question, you had to pry information out of my father. This was different. He launched into detailed descriptions of the women he dated, how they met and where they went. He got animated and seemed to lose himself in time; reliving the moments as he recounted them.

‘Dorothy Abernathy was an attractive redhead with a husky voice, kind of like Rosemary Clooney’s. Dottie lived on Clark Road in Hillside and worked as a clerk at PSE&G in Linden. We met through mutual friends at Pal’s Cabin in West Orange. I took her dancing at the Meadowbrook Ballroom in Cedar Grove. We saw Kay Kyser, Artie Shaw; the Dorsey Brothers and Benny Goodman, among many others. Afterwards we’d often sit at the counter at the Park Street Diner in Montclair and have coffee and pie. She wanted to settle down, but I wasn’t ready yet, so we parted amicably.’ He continued with stories about three other women, each with the same level of specificity. We barely got through half his 1953-54 girlfriends before I had to catch a train back to the city.

The next weekend Dad didn’t ask me about taking his photo. He was more interested in continuing to talk about his old girlfriends. I brought my laptop and started a spreadsheet to try and keep track of them all. I also opened a browser tab with a map of New Jersey. He and his dates zig-zagged across Bergen, Essex and Union counties chasing the twilight of the big band era. Growing up, I heard him say he spent some time as a young man at the shore. What I didn’t know is that he would get a room in a beach house in Belmar for the whole summer. No wonder he stayed single until he was 33; he was too busy dancing and romancing down the shore! I couldn’t believe he was the same guy who took us on measly one-week vacations to Lavallette in August.

Let me say now that he was completely faithful to my mother. They had a fantastic life together. My dad worked his tail off as a salesman for 37 years. My mom worked just as hard raising my sisters and I. They put my younger sister and I through college. They spoiled their grandchildren. They retired well and spent a few months in Florida every winter. It was an American post-WW2 success story, like so many others in their generation.

As a kid I had a recurring dream where one night a week my Dad had this other, more carefree and fun life. In my dream he had a girlfriend who worked in a tavern and lived in an apartment above it. He’d spend Thursday nights with her (instead of visiting his widowed mother in Rumson) drinking martinis, smoking cigars and listening to Bossa Nova. All the things he gave up to be our strait-laced father. I didn’t think of this woman as a threat, rather she was a good thing. I don’t know why I dreamed this. I know I wished my tightly-wound father would relax a little. Now I find out he had all this fun in his twenties and early thirties. I guess he got it out of his system.  

As my father’s story hit the late 1950s there were a few women he described as close-calls; gals he considered marrying. On a whim, I did some googling. One had passed away. The other, Rosie Shriver, was alive and kicking. She had a Facebook page full of photos with her and her grandchildren. When I told him I found Rosie he seemed upset, like I was spying on her life. I explained to him how Facebook worked and that it was okay to look at people’s photos, unless their profile was set to private. He still seemed skeptical, but couldn’t resist squinting at her photo on my laptop. ‘Oh, yes, that’s her. I’d recognize her anywhere.’

When I told him we could send her a message he was taken aback, again. I said it was just a friendly gesture. I would message her from my own account and explain my father was reminiscing about the 1950s and wanted to send her well-wishes. He agreed, as long as it was something I was doing independently from him. I wrote a courteous note to Rosie explaining the situation. A few days later, she wrote a glowing response, saying how much she enjoyed those days with ‘Arnie’; how they would go dancing and walking along the boardwalk all summer. It was really sweet. I showed my dad. He teared up while reading it. He didn’t want to respond to her directly. Knowing she was doing well was enough for him. My father’s not shy, but he can be oddly formal and respectful at times. I guess it’s a generational thing. I wrote her back to say he was so happy she remembered him and was doing well.

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The next time I visited Dad he said Bert from the seniors group wanted to meet with me. He told Bert about how he reconnected with Rosie Shriver and now Bert has a gal he wants to find. Funny how Dad said ‘he’ reconnected with Rosie. I let that slide. He said Bertie offered to pay me. It sounded like a hassle. It’s one thing to help your father, but some other old guy? Dad seemed so excited that I’d help Bert. I didn’t want to disappoint him.

Bert Donaldson was fast-talking and totally hilarious retired account executive. It was impossible not to love the guy right off the bat. He spent his career working at a big Madison Avenue ad agency. He loved his life as a swinging bachelor and dated girls from all over the world. There was one in particular, Flora Villena. She was from Miami. Her family left Cuba in 1959 when Fidel Castro took control. Bert wanted to marry her, but his parents were against it. He broke off the engagement and soon after married a girl from Wyckoff, NJ. They raised a family together. After his wife passed away he thought about looking Flora up, but didn’t know how. He felt too guilty to ask his own children for help. He didn’t want to hurt their feelings for their mother.

As I listened to Bert I googled Flora Villena. It took a little digging, but I found her. She was living in Tarrytown, NY. She didn’t have a Facebook page, but it seemed like a few of her grown children did. I wrote Flora’s daughter, on behalf of Bert. She responded immediately, saying her mom would love to reconnect with Bertie, as she called him. Bert was thrilled. A few weeks later I got a note from him in the mail with a check for $500. He said he and Flora, also a widower, met, rekindled and are going to spend a week together in Miami. Bert said he recommended ‘my services’ to the guys in his pickleball group. Bert told them ‘the kid will help you rejuvenate your Dance Card’. Dance cards were an old-fashioned thing; a little book where young women wrote down the names of their dance-partners. Saying ‘my dance card is full’ meant you weren’t looking to date anyone because you were committed to one person - or you were too busy juggling multiple liaisons.

What started as a few calls a week grew to ten and then twenty. Turns out there’s a lot of male widowers with an interest in looking back on their premarital romancing days. Like my father, they’re not internet, social media or even computer savvy, but they are young enough to still have a flame in their hearts. They’d call and leave a 3-minute-long voice message, as if they were actually talking to me. Then they’d repeat their phone number twice, not realizing it was unnecessary to say it at all.

There was even a Catholic priest, Father Mario. He asked me if I could find a woman in Italy. She was the teenage daughter of a family he stayed with in the 1960s. She and he developed an spiritually intense, but platonic relationship over a long hot summer in her rural village in Apulia. It was really exciting when I found her. I imagined their story would resolve in a melodramatic crescendo. I was wrong. Father Mario did not confess his love, leave the priesthood and move to Italy. All he wanted was to check-in with her and revive a long-lost connection. It’s amazing how powerful and universal that feeling is.

For a while I held group meetings at the Red Bank seniors center. It made things go faster, since they all hung out there. I didn’t charge any money, but they’d heard from Bert that the going rate was $500, so they’d send me checks in the mail. It was a rare time, in my freelance working life, when the checks actually were in the mail. For any dorks who are worried I was enabling old men to become online trolls, let me enlighten you about how it worked. Once I found her, I would write a gentle introduction note to the woman (or man – there have been a few closeted gay men). If they were receptive to being in touch with an old paramour, I would connect them. If they weren’t, I didn’t pass on their information. I respected people’s privacy.

Trouble started when The NY Times did a big write-up of Bert and Flora’s wedding in their Vows section. I had no idea old Bertie was such a legend in the advertising world. In the story he raved about me and The Dance Card. He made it seem like I was some kind of ‘love detective for seniors’. Bert still had a knack for writing great copy. The day the story ran my phone blew up. I had to set all my socials to private. The New Yorker wanted to do a Talk of the Town piece. I turned them down, but they wrote the story anyway by interviewing Bert and his friends. It became this ‘thing’ for a few months. Copycat services appeared on Facebook. I was relieved. It was never my intention to turn TDC into anything. I wasn’t going to hire a staff, start an Instagram account or sell the film rights. I genuinely enjoyed helping this community of oldsters.

The funny thing is, all I’m doing is basic internet searches. These guys could’ve done it for themselves, but they were accustomed to being waited on and catered to their whole lives. Hiring me became this weird prestige thing, too. Once Bert did it, they all wanted in on the action. After successful careers they were still competitive in their old age. Whether it’s going to the top urologist, taking the hot new blood thinner or hiring a girlfriend-finder; they all demanded the best. It gave them bragging rights when they had very little else to brag about in life.

Most of them, like my dad, didn’t even act on the information; Bert was the rare exception. For the rest, regaling me with their stories was enough. It was like therapy. They are lonely old men now. I think what they really wanted was to commune with their younger and more vibrant selves. Each one of them still loves their wife; none thought they would outlive her. It’s hard when everyone you knew and loved is dead: your spouse, siblings, in-laws and friends. Then, your new friends are dying, moving to assisted living or to staying in Florida year-round. Being around your children and grandchildren is great, but it’s not the same. We all imagine the life we want to lead. Some get closer to it than others. No one imagines that they’ll outlive everyone. Who wants to comtemplate that? It’s better to keep moving and make new friends, whatever your age may be.

Bert said ‘no young person wants to hear about seeing Sinatra at the Copa in ‘52’. The funny thing is, I did. I love those kinds of stories. That might be what made this whole unintentional enterprise work. These guys became my friends. They asked my dad about me and gave me a hard time if I was away for too long. When I’m with them my first name changes to ‘hey kid’. I doubt Find-Yr-Gal, (one of my cheesy competitors) provides the same level of empathy. Not to be churlish about it; I’m just proud of my work.

The Dance Card experience really made me appreciate my dad. Learning about the carefree young Arnie made him more relatable to me now, as a friend. I stopped giving him a hard time about things. I offered to take his photo and have prints made, but he said he was no longer interested. I put together a swing band playlist on my iPhone. We would blast it in the car with the windows rolled down as we drove up Ocean Avenue from Sea Bright to Bahrs. He loved it. I did, too.

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There was an unexpected footnote to The Dance Card. An old girlfriend of mine heard about it and reached out to me on Facebook. She said I did a nice thing and asked me how I was doing. It was our first communication since we broke up years earlier. We were about to go on a trip to the Bahamas when she disappeared. There was no phone call, email or anything. That whole week I was worried sick that she was in an accident, abducted or murdered. Nowadays, people call it ghosting. It’s one thing when you don’t reply to someone’s text message; it’s another when you disappear on your boyfriend who’s holding plane tickets to Nassau and thinks you’re about to meet him to catch a taxi to JFK airport. Break-ups are never easy, but this was brutal. When she finally reappeared from her cowardly exile I unleashed a lot of anger. I wasn’t being self-righteous; I was hurt and wanted her to know it. Standing up for myself was not an easy thing at that time in my life. It took a while to get over the hurt, but I did. I moved on, found my one true love and married her. My dance card is full.

While I was on the train going to visit my father, I reread her note on Facebook and looked at her profile. She was married and had a 7-year-old kid. I was happy for her. I mentioned it to my dad during our lunch. He vaguely remembered the circumstances. He said when he ended a dating relationship he tried to do it gently. Most of the gals were understanding; many already sensed his heart wasn’t in it. It seemed like people had more courtesy back then; at least my father did. Well, it’s probably best not to compare different eras. There’s always been love and heartbreak, no matter the year. I thought about asking Dad to respond to her note, but that would have been silly. He looked at me and said ‘She wrote to you; write back. Maybe she’s in a rough patch. Be merciful.’

Be merciful. That’s exactly what my mom would have said. On the ride back to the city I wrote to her. ‘Nice to hear from you. The Dance Card thing was nuts. Looking back, it seems like it was ending just as it was getting started. It was fun while it lasted.’

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