Last night
we had our first out-doors-grilled hamburgers of the season. Some years ago Donna bought an electric meat
grinder and now grinds her own hamburger.
That way we can be reasonably sure that it contains none of the
contaminants that make eating rare hamburger hazardous. And I like my hamburger rare.
I do make a
mean hamburger, but nothing like the ones I used to eat at a place called “Primeburger”
on New York’s Madison Avenue. I don’t
know what cut of meat they used or what they did to it, but it was wonderful
and, back in the 1960’s when I was in my 30’s and working in New York, I would
frequently have my lunch there.
There were
seats at the counter, and I can’t remember whether there were tables in back or
not, but at the front there were maybe twenty chairs set against the wall with
little attached trays like the ones they have on a high chairs. The tray would swing out for you to sit down,
then you could pull it closed and create a nice eating surface for yourself. And this was where I preferred to sit. Sometimes I’d have to wait for an empty
chair, but the wait was not long and well worth it.
One day,
when I came in, there was an empty chair beside two older ladies, one of whom was
very attractive and looked extremely familiar.
Immediately, sirens went off inside my head. Not recognizing people I should recognize and
being chided for it has been a life-long affliction of mine. Aunts and cousins have had a field day
embarrassing me publicly for this failing.
And this attractive, well dressed lady, I decided, must be one of my
mother’s New York friends. I commuted
from Connecticut, but my widowed mother had moved from Philadelphia to New York
a few years earlier and often held parties to which my then wife and I were
sometimes invited.
This woman,
however, was more familiar than just someone I was introduced to at a party. She was someone I saw repeatedly and, clearly,
I should know her and acknowledge her with
a hearty greeting and an embrace. If I
ignored her, she would certainly recognize me, have her feelings hurt, and I
would not hear the end of my social faux pas. I approached cautiously, thumbing through my
mental Rolodex of Mother’s acquaintances.
Were we on a first name basis? Should
I ask about her husband or would that get me into further complications?
The woman looked
up at me, recognition in her eyes, and I knew that I was, again, in trouble. Then, in a baritone voice that was surprising
but not unfamiliar she said, “Hello.”
I immediately
made the connection. She was the actress
Lauren Becall. I had met many
celebrities in Mother’s salon, but Ms. Becall hadn’t been one of them.
“Hello,” I
responded. “Wonderful burgers, aren’t
they?”
Ms. Becall
agreed that they were and turned back to her interrupted conversation with her
companion. I caught her saying, “So then
Bogey looks at me and….” before she lowered her voice out of my auditory range.