The First Course was Lox and Bagels and the Rest was Memories

Old? You want to feel old? The amazing part about yesterday's 60th Anniversary Party for Mummy Plotnik's first cousin Bernie, who you see here dancing with his bride Miriam, isn't that Bernie and Miriam have been married 60 years, but that The Great Plotnik knew Bernie's father better than he knows Bernie.

Plotnik played for hundreds of parties like these, back when live musicians had yet to be replaced by d.j.s, and he always preferred working parties over attending them -- but that's because he didn't get a chance to dance with his mom.



Plottie and his brother Shmeckl got to make a big deal over Mummy P., out in public where she likes it, and that was well worth the drive to the country club at the end of the world.



Officially, nobody makes a big deal out of Mummy P. being able to not only fend for herself at her age but to keep a great sense of humor about it. She scoffed when it was announced that it was not only Bernie's Anniversary but his 85th birthday. "Phehhh," she said. "He's a big baby."

But between you and me, she's astonishing. Nobody knows how long she can keep this up, but Plot hopes he's got some of those genes. She wasn't well all the time Plot and Duck were down for Thanksgiving, but she made the most of her good time. She's a model to try and emulate, except for the part about the heat in her house, ai yai yai.



Plot remembers his Great-Uncle Jack -- Bernie's father -- very well. He was grouchy, in love with himself, considered himself the finest and sexiest man alive, and always showed up late to every family party. His wife, Aunt Seidel, was maybe 4 foot 6. She was the first older person Plotnik ever outgrew, and he did that when he was eight.

All these old country Russians and Rumanians grew up in one world and prospered and died in another. What Plotnik missed -- consciously -- yesterday, was the smell of cigars. And pipes. After dinner everyone would take out a smoke and cigars -- cheap White Owls like Grandpa Ben smoked and long Cubans like Uncle Jack always ceremoniously lit up -- dominated.

And the old women aren't as fat as they used to be -- there was no one at the party who could hug you and at the same time smother you into unconsciousness between their voluminous folds.

Grandmummy P. always wore a dress that crinkled. It sounded like there was tinfoil under there, but it would have had to have been a lot of tinfoil.

Grandpa Ben wore light colored boxy-cut suits with a handkerchief in the breast pocket. In his pants pocket was a dollar bill and sooner or later that dollar bill would get transfered to The Still Minor Plotnikito.

Grandmummy P.'s hair was -- well, you can't really describe the color. Think of a Vermont October, when all the trees are losing their leaves and now those leaves are lying on the ground decomposing, and they've been there awhile and their colors have kind of run together. Now add blue, not sky blue or sea blue but that strange blueing unknown to anybody but those hairdressers on Fairfax Avenue.

Grandpa Ben had no hair.

He smelled like cigars and shoeshine.

Plot is missing them all this morning.