Stacy Bogart Bohrer is warm, sensitive, talented, intelligent, caring and cunning. And yes, she can be demanding. “Is it wrong to want more time with you?”, she’ll ask. More than anything else though, she bubbles. This sprite of a child that once graced the windows of Tower City, still to this day, oozes enthusiasm.
Never would one envision her singing a slow song. Not Stacy. Upbeat, she is.
—And on the go … always. How often have I quoted John Wooden to her: “Never be so busy making a living,” he said, “That you forget to make a life”.
From all appearances, Stace and Jace are doing both.
“Should I pick you up?” she asked when I called from O’Hare. (Working from home she was, twenty minutes away).
“What do you have better to do?”
“OK, I’ll call when I’m five minutes away.”
“What color car do you have?”
Retrieving me on cue some half hour later, she studied me.
“You look better in person,” said The Little One.
“Huh?”
“It’s the angle, Dad. You look heavier in the videos and also: when you film yourself your nose looks even bigger”.
A compliment of sorts, I presumed, (yet it mattered not). En route we were to Moriah … to scoop up Lucy.
“YOU DON’T OWN ME!” glared my daughter on the freeway, over familiar music that blared from the dashboard. “I’M NOT JUST ONE OF YOUR MANY TOYS.”
— And on cue I chimed in:
“YOU DON’T OWN ME! DON’T SAY I CAN’T GO WITH OTHER BOYS!”
So sing we did. She: from “The First Wives Club”, and I the old Leslie Gore. Not once, but twice, and three times, and more.
“You sing this; I’ll sing that….we arranged and rearranged, and sang and laughed, and even ad libbed. (OK, just I ad libbed, throwing in lines about Adam the dog she stole from me).
A mellifluous thread it became, which ran through the guts of our weekend— the balance of which was gleefully predictable:
Lucy thrilled when she saw me. “Pappy”, she shried in her classroom …grabbing my hand … introducing me to her teacher … pointing to her picture on the wall.
And Ruby cried when SHE saw me. “Give her time,” Stacy urged, eerily reminiscent of my early-on visits with Lucy.
Adam, the precious bichon I’d rescued from Parma — even Adam rushed to my side, tail wagging!
And then there was Jason. As always, he greeted me with a hug, and a smile from the heart.
Ah, but there’s nothing — absolutely nothing — like Stacy in a zone.
Ordering in for dinner, the question arose. Who, pray tell, would go pick up the food. “I’ll get it!”, volunteered the young mother, “And my father will come with me.” (Of course I would; I’m no fool; we’d practice our song).
So we drove for the sushi … face-timed Rachel, and Amber, and ….
Our weekend flew by. Hip-hop classes with Lucy, a few naps, her birthday party at a gym, more sushi, and always … always … singing that one song. Nothing against Rooney’s voice, really, but clearly Leslie Gore (nee Goldstein) had to be spinning in her grave.
— And questions! Stace loves the game:
“Ask me things,” she requested, as she rested her voice. (Ed. Note– It is a game we play: posing unimportant, hypothetical, improbably scenarios to each other):
“Assuming no Jason, would it be Michael Linsker or Michael Groner”?
“One person on a desert island: Rita Mandel or Susan Lomaz”?
“Who was the one person in high school you had a crush on that didn’t notice you?”
Nonsense, of course, but she answered a few…and when candor didn’t suit her, it was … inevitably: “YOU DON”T OWN ME!”
(Ed Note 2: Not that there weren’t other riveting parts to my visit. I got to watch Bonesy stare at a car seat for hours, endeavoring to put it together. Where’s Dickie Lomaz when you need him? And Saturday, as we rested post-party, I spent ten solid minutes telling fam friend Donna about the wise counsel I got from Snyder lo those many single years I had.
And I got to sing with Stacy … and smile with Stacy … and laugh with Stacy—Endlessly.
Cross-country travels, I oft say, are to see grandkids. “If there weren’t grandchildren I’d slow down.” (Or so I say).
It’s not true; not really.
Last weekend was Stacy: the song in my heart. Mid-January ‘twill be Michael in Vegas. Side-by-side we’ll be sitting, for two days of football. We’ll talk of his boys, and of Meredith, and we’ll touch other bases.
We’ll bond, smile, laugh and love.
Now: if I can get him to sing!