Sybil Bruncheon’s THANKSGIVINGS PAST.... Thérèse Farcie...

THANKSGIVINGS PAST......Thérèse Farcie had always been known as a respected arbiter of fashion, perfectly groomed, and accessorized, and always at the cutting edge of style and haute couture! Envied and ogled whenever she strutted about town hobnobbing with others of her class and tastes, she made quite a fuss when she would shop at Saks, Bergdorf's, and Bendel's... and oh, what a clucking there would be at Van Cleef, Cartier, or Tiffany when she'd drop in with girlfriends to choose a new brooch, necklace, ..or possibly an ankle bracelet. Who would have thought on that particular Thanksgiving when she'd been invited to the Harkinsons on Park Avenue for their Holiday dinner that things could go so terribly, terribly wrong?..... of course, silly creature that she was, she should have known something was strange when she was asked to go to the servants' entrance... leading directly to the kitchen…wrapped in brown paper and tied up with string.

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Sybil Bruncheon’s “OUR THANKSGIVING HERITAGE!!”.... TO BE? ..OR NOT TO BE?...

Facebook Friends!!... so many of you have heard about the Pilgrims who landed in Plymouth in 1620 and how somber, sober, and serious they were.... humorless, colorless, dour, judgemental. But what everyone forgets is that the Mayflower first landed on the tip of Cape Cod at what later became Provincetown. And the pilgrims who decided to stay THERE and NOT go on to Plymouth were a very different mindset! Fun, funny, capricious, stylish, lovers of fine food and fashion, music, dancing, parties, practical jokes, dirty limericks about candle-makers and farmers' daughters!...well, you get the idea. I mean, you HAVE heard about Provincetown, right?

Well, maybe you're a descendant of one of those two different Pilgrim groups?? ....at Thanksgiving time, ask yourself, which kind of person are YOU? Do you drown your sorrows at the dinner table in yam casserole with baby marshmallows while Uncle Fred tells his stupid knock-knock jokes for the umpteenth time? Do you nod politely and take Cousin Edith's hand over the Cheez-Whiz appetizers while she tearfully recalls being stood up for her junior prom 37 years ago? Do you fall asleep on the sofa with a bowl of stuffing sitting on your belly waiting for you to snack on later "aftah da game"?

...OR, Do you make your dinner guests play fun party games like spin the bottle, strip poker, and pin the tail on the donkey with Mrs. Ferguson from next door as "the Donkey"? Do the mince, and pumpkin pies end up being the ammo in a giant pie-fight with your boss and his wife... and your housepets? Do you fantasize about shopping on Black Friday at Van Cleef and Arpels for a diamond brooch shaped like a turkey, a teepee, or the state of Massachusetts??...

It's a choice folks... Are you a PILL and very GRIM??... or do you drop water balloons on Rihanna in the Macy's parade as it goes by your apartment building?? Guess which branch of the pilgrims Mummie is a descendant of, and why she calls herself a Pil-CHEERFUL!.... and why I love Provincetown so! YAHOO!!!!

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Sybil Bruncheon’s THANKSGIVINGS PAST.... BULLWINKLE THE MOOSE!...

THANKSGIVING PARADES Past!!... Bullwinkle the Moose was invited back into the parade line-up for the Macy's Annual Holiday Celebration. In an effort to rehabilitate the beloved creature, he was paroled from Cartoon Prison where he was to serve a 13-year sentence for impersonating a magician and attempting to saw Mr. Peabody in half... He was released on good behavior provided that he would continue to wear his prison stripes in all public appearances. Although still badly scarred from dog and squirrel bites (his left leg is notably shorter than his right!) he seems to be getting along just fine with his parole officers. All 43 of them are seen here escorting him down the avenue.

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My first words...

Apparently my first words as a baby were spoken to my nanny in the nursery. According to witnesses, I turned to her and the butler and said clearly, “Either that wallpaper goes or I do!”… I was sent to bed without supper for sassing! …but Yale offered me a special “Toddler’s Scholarship”…. 

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Remembering Jerry Orbach.... Oct. 20th, 1935....

Just remembering one of my favorite actors..and one of my favorite people in "show business"! Jerome Bernard "Jerry" Orbach (October 20, 1935 – December 28, 2004) I used to see him walking all through the city even when he WASN'T filming something or the other on every street corner!... He was always friendly, chatting with the cab driver, the hot dog seller, the mom with her baby stroller... And I saw him just a few months before he passed away, as friendly as ever. And then, when we all heard the news, I realized he must have known that last time that he was terribly ill, but was still as gracious, funny, dare I say "radiant" as ever.

What a career! One of those extraordinary people who "did it all"... like Angela Lansbury... dramas, musical comedies, television, film, stage, heroes, villains....instantly recognizable by millions and unlike anyone else. You could never get a "Jerry-Orbach-type". You either had him...or you went without. And now we all go without. Has it really been seventeen years??

If you ever want to hear the magic of Jerry Orbach, listen to him in THE FANTASTICKS (1960) singing the original "Try To Remember", CHICAGO (1975) singing the original "Razzle Dazzle", in the original 42ND STREET (1980) singing the title song, or (speaking of Lansbury!) in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1991) singing the original "Be Our Guest" as Lumière!... a candelabra!! Talk about casting!!

And what about his other appearances in PRINCE OF THE CITY (1981), DIRTY DANCING (1987), CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS (1989), or the other plays, films, and television shows that he did before he became an American icon on the LAW & ORDER franchises... Nominated and winner of awards, including a Tony for PROMISES, PROMISES (1968), he was memorialized on his street corner (West 53rd and 8th Avenue), and remembered throughout the city by the people he loved and who loved him right back.

...On Fall afternoons, I still see him idling down Broadway, chatting at a newspaper stand...stopping to pat a dog on the head... smiling and nodding to a well-wisher... To me, he'll always be the perfect "New Yorker"... Damon Runyon couldn't have written him better.

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Sybil's "TALES & TAILS!"... Tinky...

.....Tinky had always been fond of his humans, (well, as fond as cats ever are about the staff that maintains the house and provides food on command!) but then came the weekend when one of their relatives brought the guitar-thing. Tinky was shocked at all the shouted stories about kaftans, and love beads, and sandals, and folk music, or whatever that barking was that each of them did as they cradled the guitar-thing in its hands. They took out funny sticks made of weeds or stuff they they found on the lawn and set them on fire and put them in their mouths! "That's a stupid snack!" Tinky thought! "Why not find a mouse, or kill a sparrow? You're big fat idiots!" ...and the house started smelling like the burning leaf piles in the Fall, and the humans began eating lots of stuff and drinking water.

Then the humans got louder, and some even had water come out of their eyes while they showed their teeth in what had been described to him by neighbor-cats as a "smile". Some of the humans then made the yarns on the front of the funny-hole make noises which sounded like meowing....or growling. Tinky rather liked that, and he sort of danced around his living room while the humans made their laughing/barking sounds and pointed at him. Like most cats, Tinky was quite pleased that he had an audience, but of course, he would have danced around whether they watched or not. "Cats are uninterested in admiration from fools!!!", he huffed to himself, and did a clever little side-step followed by a caprice!...

Then the evening took a terrible turn! One of the humans who was plucking the yarns very loudly began to yowl! THAT'S RIGHT! YOU HEARD CORRECTLY!!! YOWL!!!...and then all the other humans joined in and YOWLED at the top of their lungs!! "Dear God!" Tinky thought. "They all sound like cats burning to death!! ...and doing it at the SAME TIME!" They swayed and clapped their hairless paws and began dancing around in his space!! ....and as Tinky scampered off to hide under his sofa while they hoo-hawed, and clod-pranced, and yee-yayed, and paw-clapped, and boo-hooed, and acted like dogs, Tinky remembered stories about humans who had been dressed in love beads and kaftans and sandals who had come into a house and KILLED other people!...It was a long time ago, but kitties liked to tell each other stories of bad stuff sometimes ...and snicker. Dogs always told each other stories about chasing round things and licking human faces and eating off the floor and rolling in dirt... then cats would saunter by and tell them they were idiots. Even big dogs would usually shut the Hell up...or even run off. Cowards and louts!

But kitties would tell darker stories with strange punchlines or morals at the end...and everyone would nod their heads and blink slowly. Big glowing eyes by candle light. And Tinky sat watching and thinking about the human family that had been very bad to other humans. He watched the yowl-dancing-banging-crashing-laughing-barking-drinking-stupids. Why can't the bad-family come here and do bad things in here? ....and make it quiet...and leave out some nice food for me? He blinked slowly ....and licked one of his handsome paws...with the razors hidden....for now.....

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Sybil Bruncheon's "Strange Tales: Hikey & Lester"...

... J. Jacob "Hikey" Throckmorton and his best pal Lester Baxter were inseparable. From the time they met at ten months of age, they had laughed, played, wrestled, explored, and even pirated together. Their imaginations inflamed each other's wild fantasies about distant kingdoms, mysterious islands, dangerous exploits, and beautiful maidens in need of rescuing. Their parents marveled at the elaborate castles they would build out of tables, discarded boxes, old blankets, and rubbish from the garage and attics that adoring grandparents would lavish on the boys. And no one was surprised when Lester began writing complicated three-act plays (of some substance!) for their backyard theatre productions, casting several classmates in highly exotic roles.

So when Hikey got the gleaming (and extremely rare!) Delahaye miniature convertible for his 11th birthday, the boys set out for a "round the world" tour of the neighborhood. They loudly bragged to passing neighbors about their plans; they told Edert Charmondely, the greengrocer with relatives in Khazakhistan that they would carry secret messages to his Aunt інжір пудинг, and bring back a decorated tin of her famous raspberry Бадам. (Apparently, they were so delicious that a hardened Crimean general had eaten one and burst into tears... for two weeks!)

The boys also told Miss Trebetta Gibbons that they were going to find a rare orchid for her when they drove through the remotest jungles of Brazil, and that they were convinced that both the Mayans and the Incans had built as yet undiscovered cities of fabulous wealth there. They would bring back a magnificent jade and gold jardiniere modeled after their leopard god, Tezcatlipoca to hold the orchid... maybe on her custom made "Très Petit" salon Steinway. Although Miss Gibbons was in her 70s, she was still very flirtatious and quite alluring, and she and the boys constantly tried to out-charm each other. On this particular afternoon, the boys had won the field, and Trebetta watched wistfully as they drove off down the sidewalk... a chuckling smile on her lips and her eyes beginning to twinkle with emotion as her "handsome swains" turned to wave over their shoulders and "Yahoo!!" around the corner... their hearty laughter echoed for a few more moments before they were gone. Gone.

...It was later, much later, when the police began to make their way around the town, checking on leads, following up half-heard guesses, looking for clues, that it was determined that Miss Gibbons might have been the last to see them. Or was it Janeela Sharpe, who had put a bright yellow boutonniere in Lester's lapel, "because he was the sunny one", and a bold scarlet one in Hikey's lapel "because he was the daring one"..? Or was it maybe old Vertrushen, the Russian emigre (possibly a once-wealthy count?) who had given the boys his ancient broken dueling pistols (awarded to him "by the Czar himself for bravery in the Crimea!") so that they could "defend themselves against villains, pirates, and Ponzi schemers"... which is how he claimed he had lost his formerly vast fortune in platinum, rubies,.... and exotic spices?? So many citizens came forward to the authorities to help find the popular pair, each one claiming a magical story of wonder, humor, and a deep affection for the boys...and perhaps for what they symbolized to each grown-up locked into the necessary drudgery of actually being a grown-up, day-to-day, year-after-year...

For many people, Hikey and Lester had always been, and might always BE, the golden image of youth, excitement, and a distant horizon of... what?... just waiting over the hill... never to grow stale... or predictable... or tired. Eyes that never dimmed. Limbs that never ached. And hearts that never ceased to pound... with joy! .....

… but... the boys were never found. The gleaming Delahaye was never found. There were no clues. No leads. Interestingly, none of the townsfolk, nor even the families (once the initial shock had worn away) grieved as one would expect. Outsiders; writers, journalists, and the curious always marveled at how, when the boys came up in conversation, local townsfolk would claim that they expected the boys to return at any moment. People, (quite intelligent ones too), would say that the boys might race into town with the next snowfall, or that Spring was sure to bring the pair back into the public square when the crab apple trees were all in bloom again. Perhaps they'd make their grand entrance down the main boulevard as the great cathedral clock struck midnight on this New Year's Eve... or wouldn't it be fun if they drove in fully costumed for the Halloween parade and pageant, unmasking in front of crowds of amazed and delighted revelers?… yes… anytime now…

...It was also interesting to note that as the years passed, and then the decades, and even the witnesses and neighbors aged and passed away as well, the remaining folks that remembered the stories of Hikey and Lester never gave up, nor even seemed to be trying not to give up... and somehow, the boys would still somehow be just boys. Although many, many years had passed the boys would return exactly as they had left. And finally, when Miss Trebetta Gibbons died, now at the great old age of 103, her family found in one of her diaries, something she had written in brilliant azure ink on one creamy parchment page. Yes, she might indeed have been the one who saw them last, and on that page she described the boys as "the golden image of youth, excitement, and a distant horizon of ....what?...just waiting over the hill.. ...just waiting.” And then, her last words as her family cradled her... her bright blue eyes sparkling and then dimming… “I'm quite sure they're just waiting... look! Just there… isn’t that them?... Hikey!... Lester!"

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Sybil Bruncheon's Stories From Folks Around The World: Welcoming Spring!!!

 ......and so boys and girls, in Scrubbed Knee, Iowa, a charming tradition was begun in the 1830s with the first settlers who trailed their way across the new American countryside. Parson Ebeneezer Brackle decided to welcome Spring to his community each year by staging musical recitals after Sunday prayer services in the Little Chapel Of Unfettered Cheer. His family was known for its musical virtuosity in several different instruments including the folksy-fie-fiddle, the rum-jug, the scrub board and thimble, the jews harp, the diddley-bow, the wash-tub bass, the flat metal cymbal-thingie, the teaspoons (both bent AND straight!), and the cornstalk blow-flute. Their improvised song-lettes, their charming little dances and caprices, and their limericks about farmers' daughters and assorted animals embellished with their uncanny knack at barnyard sounds always charmed and intrigued the worshipers...and even edified them about moral questions.

The traditions of those happy though Spartan times was passed from one generation of Brackles to the next, father to son, grandfather to nubile daughter, uncle to perky niece, touchy-feely Aunt to strapping young nephew, friendly cousin to a group of other eager cousins and perhaps a nice boy from next door, drooly step-brother to half-sister's 1st cousin twice remov....well, you get the idea. Each generation inherited the old musical instruments, the original songs and poems, and some costume pieces that hadn't been washed in several seasons.

Finally, in 1936, Cyrus Brackle Jr. and his daughters Enid and Farina were in the middle of "The Brackle Family Spring-Fling" when one of the gaslights accidentally ignited Cyrus' "fertility-clown pointy-hat"..... he was half-way through his deeply emotional rendition of the "Farmer In The Dell" where "the bull takes his wife".... or "the horse starts to moo", something like that. Enid and Farina were acting out each of the characters with appropriate barnyard sounds and dance steps when their father, the Holy parson, burst into flame. The parishioners continued to clap and sway respectfully thinking that "it was all a part of the show" as Mrs. Caralee Tubbins told the fire brigade later. No one thought the screaming or the sight of the parlor organ exploding was out of place. Sadly, it was only when the girls had torn off most of their pinafores and the Pastor had been reduced to a pile of smouldering ashes that the Refreshment Committee decided there had been some sort of problem.

On a positive note though, it was discovered that the Little Chapel Of Unfettered Cheer had been constructed entirely of asbestos based materials. Even the boldly patterned wallpaper had remained completely soot-free. And that was enough for everyone to give thanks for when the apricot sherbet was served at the Ice-Cream Sociable....

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Strange Tales: Prudence Wentworthy....

......Prudence Wentworthy was very popular, and had always been so. In the Blaine Academy For Young Ladies, she had been the captain of both the girls' rugby team and the polo league and graduated as the salutatorian. Later, she was the star at Barnard with gaggles of friends, gentlemen callers, and admirers from both Columbia and Cornell.... Interestingly, she never married, and was never really linked to any particular fiancé... but when she took up gardening at her remote estate in the Hamptons, the rumors began. At first it was her strange experiments with hybrid bulbs and perennials....crossing daffodils and chrysanthemums...during thunderstorms in a laboratory attached to her enormous greenhouse. And at society luncheons with other girls from the Iris Club, she would have two or three martinis, shaken and extra dry, with a splash of Miracle-Gro, and six olives! The final straw was the night her prize-winning phalaenopsis attacked the newspaper boy, wandered off the property, and went on a shoplifting rampage through town, targeting scented candle and high-end-soap shops. When the police closed in and shot her orchid and the fine Wedgwood jardiniere it was traveling in, Prudence became unhinged. She staggered off, inconsolable, and was discovered later pruning the entire inventory of the Hung Lo Silk Flower Palace in Amagansett......she was singing “A Tisket, A Tasket” in her pleasing alto. The police gazette referred to her forever after as "Prudence The Pruner".... 

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Strange Tales: Penelope Anne Jambeau...

Penelope Anne Jambeau had always loved the idea of tea parties, gardening clubs, ladies' luncheons, bridge games on the veranda....anything that hinted of society and refinement and lovely breeding and manners. There was just one problem!..... so after years of her best efforts, endless etiquette classes, French and Italian lessons, ballroom and ballet, and deportment, and posture and poise, and elocution, and dieting...and all the money for the right wardrobe and accessories from the finest couturiers, poor, poor Penelope finally had a breakdown. She was hospitalized for months during the Winter of 1915!!.... her prognosis was extremely grim. And then, one morning, very early... it was the 6th of May, she rose from her iron bed, went to the barred windows of her ward, and smiled....actually smiled!! When the doctors and nurses came to her room on morning rounds, they found her fully dressed in a charming ensemble, with gloves!...and a matching chapeau and parasol. She signed herself out of the hospital, and began a life free of envy, and remorse, and longing for the things that were not hers to have. But full of celebration, and joy, and gratitude for the things that were hers..and hers alone! She had learned the most wonderful lesson of all; that the hardest (and easiest) job one ever has is to be oneself. To be oneself...."because everyone else is taken"... That's what her Uncle Oscar had written to her.... and she knew it was true... It was perhaps the truest thing that anyone could ever teach ...or learn. 

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