Monday, July 26, 2004
Happy Birthday Edie
Edie Eustice is 75 years old on July 28, this Wednesday. I've known Edie for nearly 25 years, meeting her first through Poetswednesday at Barron Arts Center in Woodbridge when Bruce Longstreet, Jim Ruggia & myself read there. I cheekily moved the podium to another wall & made a semicircular setup of chairs, a room arrangement I still consider superior to the standard ten short rows with center aisle that was done before & ever since. The success of Edie's reading series has come from its predictability of form, & especially from Edie herself; not being a poet, Edie has never competed with poets. Hundreds of poets have read at Poetswednesday, as featured performers & in the open. I have always recommended the open reading at poetswednesday to poets who have never read in public. In 1981, Susan "Sofran" Crotty (now McBride) helped Edie run Poetswednesday. It was great fun. After readings, we went back to Edie's house for snacks & chat, occasionally to the Rio Diner or Riffy's Tavern down the block, or across the street to the big funky house where Sofran lived with her then-husband.
Edie describes my personality as being "brusque" at the time. & so it was. I was ambitious, really believed myself the hot new writer on the scene. Edie quickly discerned - in part from my poems, which were good - that I was also very insecure & shy.
I got to know Edie really well after a long, somewhat insular relationhip ended in 1990, & Edie's guy, the great jazz guitarist Harry Leahey, died. Then I drifted off with another girlfriend for a few years. When we split, I was back on Edie's couch several nights a week, talking & watching Seinfeld reruns. Edie has been that kind of faithful friend to many people, & she gives even more of herself if one is going through an especially tough period. Just last night we were on the phone until after midnight. I was feeling low when Edie called. I felt "1000 times better" at the end of a typically wide ranging chat covering politics, religion, her family, my family, her childhood, my childhood, literature, music, plus some gossip.
Edie was over sixty years old when she graduated from Kean University with a B.A. She had been going to school for 18 years, first getting her GED, then associates degree. She loves learning. Her home is filled with books, the walls with art, fine jazz on the CD player or a good movie waiting to be seen, the kitchen table piled with newspaper clippings & letters. Edie is a reknowned hostess & excellent cook. But her kitchen is small, sometimes all the guests hardly fit at the table with leaves open, & all the preparation done in the same space. Now, having determined to regain use of her dining room (which was sealed off some years ago by a large bookcase & filled up with stuff), Edie's actually attempting to reorganize her home & get rid of things. I don't know where all this stuff came from. It seems to me that Edie once had her dining room plus a guest room on the cramped second floor. Guitarist John Conte was living up there for awhile.
During the decades I've known her, Edie's mother & sister died, as did my parents. I've watched Edie's grandchildren grow up & become good people. I've always admired her daughter, Cindy, a lovely, resilient woman.
A sad sign of time passing: when Edie had her house exterior repainted last year, it covered up a fading sprawl of flowers & greenery Sofran McBride had painted on the back outside wall, on which a group of Edie's younger friends had signed our names in Egyptian hieroglyphics. I remember that late afternoon over a decade ago, when Sofran was just establishing herself as a designer/painter of taste & talent. But we were so much older then, we're younger than that now.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
Edie describes my personality as being "brusque" at the time. & so it was. I was ambitious, really believed myself the hot new writer on the scene. Edie quickly discerned - in part from my poems, which were good - that I was also very insecure & shy.
I got to know Edie really well after a long, somewhat insular relationhip ended in 1990, & Edie's guy, the great jazz guitarist Harry Leahey, died. Then I drifted off with another girlfriend for a few years. When we split, I was back on Edie's couch several nights a week, talking & watching Seinfeld reruns. Edie has been that kind of faithful friend to many people, & she gives even more of herself if one is going through an especially tough period. Just last night we were on the phone until after midnight. I was feeling low when Edie called. I felt "1000 times better" at the end of a typically wide ranging chat covering politics, religion, her family, my family, her childhood, my childhood, literature, music, plus some gossip.
Edie was over sixty years old when she graduated from Kean University with a B.A. She had been going to school for 18 years, first getting her GED, then associates degree. She loves learning. Her home is filled with books, the walls with art, fine jazz on the CD player or a good movie waiting to be seen, the kitchen table piled with newspaper clippings & letters. Edie is a reknowned hostess & excellent cook. But her kitchen is small, sometimes all the guests hardly fit at the table with leaves open, & all the preparation done in the same space. Now, having determined to regain use of her dining room (which was sealed off some years ago by a large bookcase & filled up with stuff), Edie's actually attempting to reorganize her home & get rid of things. I don't know where all this stuff came from. It seems to me that Edie once had her dining room plus a guest room on the cramped second floor. Guitarist John Conte was living up there for awhile.
During the decades I've known her, Edie's mother & sister died, as did my parents. I've watched Edie's grandchildren grow up & become good people. I've always admired her daughter, Cindy, a lovely, resilient woman.
A sad sign of time passing: when Edie had her house exterior repainted last year, it covered up a fading sprawl of flowers & greenery Sofran McBride had painted on the back outside wall, on which a group of Edie's younger friends had signed our names in Egyptian hieroglyphics. I remember that late afternoon over a decade ago, when Sofran was just establishing herself as a designer/painter of taste & talent. But we were so much older then, we're younger than that now.
Labels: about writing, Mahalo
