Looking for Hannah

Los Angeles, California

In a recent conversation with a good friend, we got onto the subject of Facebook. As often happens, this discussion of the pros which she presented, and the cons which are all I see about social networking sites, led me to pondering. And pondering often leads to writing. I am fortunate that my interactions with my friends can provide subjects for me to write about, relating those subjects through my own life. Writing is rewarding but it can also be challenging. I am not really creative. I am a wordsmith. So when subjects are handed to me, I am handy at writing about them. I plan to write a post regarding the Facebook conversation down the road apiece, because I think it is a worthy subject, but first...

My friend promoted Facebook for the recommendations and referrals that can be found there. She can put a question or request out there and strangers will come back with answers in the form of suggestions and/or names. I pointed out that you can do this without social media. The obvious is when you utilize your friends and family for this; people whose taste and standards closely match yours so you won't waste your time on subpar resources. But, for finding products, you can also follow a retail trail. When I used to look for out-of-print books, the fun was to start with a small bookstore and if they did not have it, I would ask them if they knew another store I could try. I would usually do my tracking by phone, and sometimes the conversations I had with bookstore owners or clerks were more satisfying than the final acquisition of the book. And the best of these stories, though not about a book, was in finding Hannah.

My parents were nearing their 50th wedding anniversary and the party was at our home. It was scheduled for a Sunday afternoon, with champagne and caviar, artichoke quarters filled with a pesto aioli, and a few good cheeses. Fruit, bread, crackers... I wish I could remember what else. Oh, a cake with a golden bride and groom topper that had been used for my grandparents' 50th celebration thirty-three years before. I still have it in my china cabinet. I had bought gold-rimmed champagne glasses for my parents to use at the party and to keep for remembrance, and had collected a marvelously-mismatched fleet of them for everyone else. And the terra cotta duck which greeted guests from my front porch had a gold wired ribbon around its neck. I had used a photo of my parents for the invitation, and they later told me that my mom was actually four months pregnant when the photo was taken the year after my dad returned from Pearl Harbor at the end of the war. They had married with my dad in uniform in 1942 and had been separated for the duration.

So the invitations were sent, the food and decorations were planned, and all that was left was to finalize the music. This was in the time of CD changers, and I needed five CDs of music from my parents' era to shuffle together. Their song was Gershwin's Embraceable You. I had CDs of Michael Feinstein and Andrea Marcovicci covering Gershwin standards. I also had big band music: Glenn Miller, Arte Shaw and Benny Goodman (honestly, I listen to that music and think: How did people not have sex constantly listening to that romantic, sexy music?!?). What I didn't have and desperately wanted was the soundtrack to the film Hannah and her Sisters. It is one of my favorite soundtracks and a perfect matching of music to film. I had a cassette tape of it, but needed the CD. After checking Tower Records, I discovered that the CD was no longer available. Hmmm. No problem, I thought. I'll check the stores around which carried used LPs and CDs. I phoned a few of them and ultimately ended up at Amoeba Music. I so wish I could remember the name of the guy who helped me there, but let's just say his name was Dean.

After telling Dean what I needed, he said that he had a few sources and would check them out and call me back. This was about two weeks before the party. And Dean did call back a few times, but he hadn't succeeded in finding the CD. A few days went by and when I didn't hear from him, I called him back. Still no luck, but he was hopeful and said he would try a few more sources. The party was on Sunday, and by mid-week before the party, I was going from desperate to resigned. I talked to Dean one more time and told him that the party was now a few days away. Dean was still hopeful.

On the Saturday afternoon before the party, my sister and I were finishing up some of the food prep and decorations. And in the middle of that, my husband called. Boy, are you lucky, he said. Dean had called our business looking for me and left a message that someone whom he had reached out to, who worked for one of the studios, owned that CD. She lived in close enough proximity for my husband to pick it up on his way home from work. She lived in a street level condo and would leave the CD on the patio table which, via her instructions, had fairly easy access. She was not home. The CD was picked up and the next day it became the fifth CD in the music shuffle for the party. Later that night, after all the guests left we, along with my mom and dad and my sister and brother-in-law, danced to Embraceable You. And my mother confessed that she had never really liked that song, it just happened to be what they first danced to at The Biltmore when they went dancing to celebrate their engagement.

 On Tuesday, when my husband returned to work, he dropped the CD off again on her patio table along with a bottle of wine, and my note thanking her and telling her about my parents' celebration. We never met her. Talk about generosity of spirit.

I suppose a story like that could be generated through social media. But for me, it somehow just wouldn't feel the same. I guess I'm just an old-fashioned girl, and though I now have my music stored in iTunes I still enjoy listening to the music from Hannah and her Sisters. Especially since it will always remind me of that experience, as well as my parents and their special April day.