Dancing With My Father transcript
00:04 [Gentle music]
00:06 [Marcia] I had just turned 50, I was recently divorced, and decided it was time to take a good look at myself. I started with my body, my face. Should I change the color of my hair? Then I decided to look at the relationships in my life and began with my relationship with my ex-husband. For 18 years I thought I was happy, I thought we were happy. We never talked about what really went wrong, so I decided it was time to ask.
00:48 [Terry] Is this an ambush interview? You gonna, huh?
00:54 [Marcia] Well, I don't know many men who would agree to do this.
00:57 [Terry] Yeah, well, I don't know any myself. I don't know why I did.
01:01 [Marcia] Why do you think you agreed to do this?
01:03 [Terry] I think because you asked.
01:06 [Cameraperson] Aw.
01:08 [Marcia] I never saw the end coming and was determined to find out why. You felt I didn't need you?
01:15 [Terry] That's correct. That is correct. I did feel that you did not need me, that I was useful, but you didn't really need me. I had a role to perform in your life, but I wasn't essential to your life, and you would not sacrifice anything for me.
01:31 [Marcia] I sort of felt the same way. That you were so independent, you could cook, you could clean, you had all your friends that I didn't know really what role I played in your life.
01:44 [Terry and friends in flashback video] Last about two seconds (group laughing).
01:48 [Terry] You withheld part of yourself, that you never could just fully give of yourself and enjoy yourself, even.
01:55 [Marcia] Do you think I sort of withdrew from you for other reasons as well?
02:01 [Terry] I don't know.
02:03 [Somber music]
02:05 [Marcia] I think I did hold back. I was afraid if I gave him everything, I'd have nothing left for me. I'd have no protection if he hurt me. I'd have nothing in reserve in case he left. But how could I think that when I was with the man I loved? And how did we miss each other's basic needs? For me, I think the answers are hidden deeper than my marriage. I think it has something to do with learning how to give and get in a relationship. So I decided to go back to the longest relationship I ever had with a man:
02:43 [Upbeat music]
02:45 [Marcia] My relationship with my father. When I think about my father, I think about him dancing. Dancing is the one passion he shared with me. It was the time I felt close to him.
02:48 [Upbeat music continues]
02:51 [Group singing in foreign language]
03:01 [Upbeat disco music]
03:10 ♪ Somebody kiss me ♪ ♪ Dance with me ♪
03:14 [Group singing in foreign language]
03:20 [Marcia] Keep going.
03:21 [Manny] Come on.
03:21 [Marcia] Keep going. Keep going.
03:23 [Manny] Come on.
03:23 [Marcia] Okay. Hold on.
03:27 [Singer singing in foreign language]
03:31 [Marcia] We'd never talked about our relationship before, and I wasn't sure where to start, how to do it. So I just went for the jugular. I mean, did you come home and we ran into your arms?
03:48 [Manny] I don't, I don't recall that. No, I guess not.
03:54 [Marcia] Didn't you ever wonder who we were when we were growing up?
03:57 [Manny] What?
03:58 [Marcia] Didn't you ever wonder who we were when we were growing up?
04:03 [Manny] You were the children that I fathered. Why would I wonder about that?
04:12 [Marcia] Maybe he was just a typical '50s dad. His priority was making a living.
04:18 [Manny] Like most men, I think, of my times, we were trying to strike out and establish a means of livelihood.
04:29 [Newsreel Narrator] Business set the stage for this scene of the Harrison family at breakfast. Business built their comfortable home, provided Father with the clothes-
04:38 [Marcia] Of course in the '50s, dads were supposed to be providers. The middle class just opened up, money was flowing, and providing for your family was very important. My father was a child of immigrants. He was fulfilling the American dream.
04:52 [Upbeat music]
04:53 [Marcia] But I knew we weren't the typical '50s family. When my parents went out at night, they came back with trophies. They started the Mambo Club. My father spent hours making dance tapes from his record collection. My mother brought in live bands for their big events. There was dancing in our house all day and night. And we were different from the families I'd see in the movies or on TV or in my health class.
05:20 [Upbeat music continues]
05:27 [Newsreel Narrator] Father, too, looks forward to this date with the family.
05:31 [Marcia] When my father came home at night, he didn't ask us about our day or help us with our homework. At dinner, he would read the newspaper or talk on the phone. We never dared interrupt him. What was it about Daddy that made us so scared of him?
05:51 [Howard] I don't know. That's a very hard question. He didn't yell, he didn't hit, but his voice was very harsh at times, and it had a certain ring to it. "Did you leave the keys? Did you lose my keys? Did you..." You were always wrong. There was a strong feeling of having, a tremendous feeling of having done something terrible, and he was finding you out. Tone of voice has a lot to say, even more than words. I think tone of voice can hurt you sometimes even more than words.
06:29 [Marcia] So we turned to my mother to take care of us physically, emotionally, spiritually. And in the '50s, that was normal.
06:39 [Manny] I thought that Mother was supplying you with all that emotional support. What training did I have in that field? It never occurred to me that you needed something like that from me, or that I had something special to offer in that regard.
06:57 [Gentle music]
06:59 [Marcia] The special thing I wanted was you. I wanted you to be excited when you saw me, to be proud of what I was doing. To pick me up in your arms, to show me that you cared.
07:19 [Manny] I feel I'm lacking in all respects.
07:21 [Marcia] I think it's all there. I just think it's so buried.
07:26 [Manny] Well, whatever it is, I don't feel that I have it.
07:29 [Marcia] You have it. You do have it, Dad.
07:29 [Manny] No, no.
07:33 [Marcia] I say he has it because I want him to have it. How do you learn how to give love? How far back does it go? He looks great from the outside, but inside, maybe there is something missing. And I found out I was missing something, too. I had nothing in reserve. When I got divorced, I just fell apart.
08:03 [Manny] Of all my kids, you were the one that seemed to be the most self-assured.
08:08 [Elaine] I would always tell my husband, "I wish I had this confidence my sister had."
08:13 [Manny] Of all my kids, you're the one that I felt needed my attention the least.
08:17 [Elaine] You not only fooled yourself, you fooled the entire family.
08:22 [Marcia] My masquerade ended when the security of marriage was gone. I was left bewildered, hopeless. Sure that no one would ever love me again. I was drowning in a well of self-pity and couldn't get out. Why was I so frightened? Where was my belief in myself? Could it have something to do with what a father gives a daughter? And if so, why didn't he have that to give to me?
08:59 [Manny] I like the looks of my father in this picture.
09:03 [Marcia] Why?
09:04 [Manny] I don't know, he just, he looks to me like a movie actor.
09:08 [Marcia] My grandfather, Harry, was the one person who bounced me on his knee while singing a little Yiddish song.
09:15 [Manny singing in foreign language] It means this girl that I've got.
09:18 [Marcia] Those are the words...
09:20 [Manny] There isn't anybody like her in the world.
09:21 [Marcia] I always wanted to hear. I know he loved my father because he bought him-
09:25 [Marcia and Manny] a pair of boxing gloves.
09:27 [Manny] So I could go around challenging everybody on my street. But I decided after coming home with all these black and blue or brown spots on my arms, that it wasn't such a great idea after all.
09:44 [Marcia] Grandma, how did she show her love for you?
09:47 [Manny] She bought all my clothes until I was of age, and she just seemed to be there when I needed her.
09:58 [Marcia] If this is true that my father had a good relationship with his mother and father, why didn't he want one with us? Why'd you leave that to Mother?
10:09 [Manny] I wanted to have a relationship. Apparently, I just thought I was having it. I thought they were being provided for and getting their education, and they had no complaints to voice with me.
10:23 [Marcia] We were scared of you.
10:25 [Manny] What was I ever doing to cause 'em to be scared of me? Not like my mother was doing the hitting. I didn't hit anybody.
10:32 [Marcia] Were you afraid of being hurt?
10:35 [Manny] No. I felt hurt when I saw my sister was being abused, you know. When she wouldn't pay attention to what my mother wanted her to do, my mother would hit her and yell at her.
10:50 [Cousin Rose] She used to slap her, and kick her, and violent. I mean, today she would, you know, she would be reported. Physically abused Evelyn.
11:06 [Marcia] Cousin Rose, her mother, and brother moved in with my father's family when Rose was 10.
11:12 [Cousin Rose] I remember when we lived upstairs, she used to come running up the stairs... [Rose speaking in foreign language] "My mother's gonna kill me."
11:23 [Marcia] That must have frightened you.
11:25 [Manny] Yeah, it did. I just couldn't see my mother doing that.
11:37 [Marcia] Could this be the woman I'd known all my life? The business woman who played poker with bank managers, who had a laugh from the old world?
11:46 [Grandmother Rose] Oh, yeah, yeah.
11:48 [Marcia] Who cooked dinner for us every Friday night and never sat down till we'd finished? Who coveted her time alone with my father? Who would show me the photograph of her daughter Evelyn, and start to cry? Who was she? What was in her history that made her so angry she'd beat her child? And could her legacy affect me? I didn't even know where my grandmother grew up.
12:16 [Dogs barking]
12:17 [Gentle music]
12:20 [Marcia] I found out she was born in 1892 in Krize, Slovakia,
12:24 [Singer singing in foreign language]
12:27 [Marcia] 10 miles from the current Polish border.
12:32 [Resident speaking in foreign language]
12:34 [Marcia] There were 300 people and only three Jewish families. Now there are 86 people and no Jews.
12:44 [Singer singing in foreign language]
12:51 [Marcia] Did she ever talk to you about being an immigrant? You're first generation.
12:56 [Manny] No, she never talked about it. Never talked about her life in Europe. It was like a closed book.
13:04 [Singer singing in foreign language]
13:05 [Marcia] I opened that book and found that my grandmother's ancestors left the crowded shtetls of Poland around 1800 for the opportunities in Austro-Hungary under Emperor Joseph II. Her family had more freedom, but wasn't allowed to live in the towns. Like other Jews, they scattered in a network of tiny villages doing what they could to make a living, peddling, farming, loaning money. Life was hard, especially for women.
13:36 [Residents speaking in foreign language]
13:37 [Marcia] With no electricity, no running water, my grandmother's days were lost to the endless chores of cooking and cleaning.
13:45 [Singer singing in foreign language]
13:46 [Marcia] She did learn to read and write, but only the boys were educated. Girls were kept apart. Boys carried on the traditions.
13:59 [Rabbi chanting in foreign language]
14:06 [Marcia] Her education was as limited as her life. She was confined to the house and her father's tavern, one of the few occupations open to Jews.
14:18 [Gentle harmonica music, birds chirping]
14:23 [Cousin Rose] Picture I have, I have a picture of our great-grandmother, but none of our great-grandfather.
14:29 [Marcia] I found the barn that's in the photograph of my great-great-grandmother, and I found a woman who lives in the house that was the tavern that my great-grandfather, Shlomo Rubin, owned. Emily, why do you think my family owned this couch?
14:46 [Emily speaking foreign language]
14:54 [Church bells ringing]
14:56 [Marcia] Standing in the tiny village, I felt the loneliness of my grandmother's life in Krize. The peasants treated her as an outsider because she was Jewish. Her father forbade her to socialize with anyone but Jews. When her brothers left for America at ages 13 and 14, she was left with her sister and two Jewish families for company. As a young girl on the verge of womanhood, her only chance to meet people was at weddings or at the market in Bardejov. She often walked the 10 miles.
15:29 [Bright harmonica music]
15:38 [Church bells ringing]
15:40 [Marcia] To help with the family income, her father and two partners started a glass factory. In 1908, her world changed. Her father went broke. How'd they go broke?
15:50 [Cousin Rose] How'd they go broke? One of the partners absconded with the money, and he was a Polish Jew. And after that, all the Polish Jews were poison. You know, they just call 'em Polack (chuckles). Sure, that's why they came to America, because to be bankrupt in those days was disgraceful. You couldn't pay your bills? So Henry Spira was in America, and he sent for them. He brought them out.
16:22 [Marcia] When my grandmother stepped off the train in Cleveland, Ohio, she entered a city built on iron, steel, and Standard Oil.
16:31 [Bright music]
16:33 [Marcia] Opportunity was everywhere. Cleveland already had a Jewish elite. The major department store was owned by a Jew, but she joined the flood of poor Russian and Hungarian immigrants crowded into the streets around Woodland Avenue.
16:48 [Bright music continues]
16:53 [Marcia] I was one of the few children from the suburbs who even knew of Woodland Avenue because the family business moved there in 1946. And now my family's scrapyard is all that's left to connect me to the street where my grandmother felt her life began at 17 in 1909.
17:11 [Horse hooves clomping]
17:18 [Children chattering]
17:20 [Marcia] Although I talked to my grandmother about her early days in Cleveland before she died, I'd have a lot more questions now. Now, what happened when you got to Cleveland?
17:30 [Grandmother Rose] My mother and father opened a house.
17:32 [Marcia] Where was the house?
17:34 [Grandmother Rose] On 31st and Woodland Avenue.
17:37 [Gentle music]
17:38 [Marcia] Really?
17:38 [Grandmother Rose] Ooh! When I go there, I still look around.
17:43 [Gentle music]
17:46 [Marcia] She lived in a crowded Jewish neighborhood with a few Blacks and some Italians and Irish. It was dirty and noisy, but I don't think my grandmother minded. She now had electricity, running water, and a toilet.
18:04 [Grandmother Rose] Who gave her the house?
18:06 [Marcia] Spira.
18:06 [Grandmother Rose] Spira.
18:08 [Marcia] She says that with such pride, but her rich Uncle Henry Spira only helped them with the house and not much else, even though his bank was across the street. He snubbed her family, but my grandmother still idolized him. Spira was a real American in her eyes. He was free to earn money, and money gave him power even though he was Jewish. Maybe even a woman could make money, and money was on her mind. Since in America, her father refused to work and retreated to the world of his religious books. The women had to respect his choice. They came from the tradition that a religious man was an honor to the family, and it was an honor for the women to support him. To marry a scholar was more important than marrying a rich man.
19:00 [Manny] He came here to make a new life, and he did.
19:04 [Marcia] But he didn't help the family out to support them. He put a lot of pressure on your mother and your grandmother.
19:12 [Manny] That's true. I guess that's true. That's true.
19:17 [Machine whirring]
19:19 [Marcia] My grandmother went to work in a factory. She joined hundreds of other immigrant daughters in the booming Cleveland garment industry, second only to New York in women's cloaks. For the first time in her life, she was free to make friends. She went to night school, she got promoted, she tasted success and even got to train men.
19:42 [Grandmother Rose] I told to myself, now look, I better cut it out because this guy will learn more than I know, then I won't have no job. Oh, there were always tricks in life, you know.
19:58 [Marcia] She must have been so proud to be recognized for herself, not as someone's daughter or wife, but she was ahead of her time and maybe that was the problem. She was going to be the next Henry Spira. And she almost achieved it. And why shouldn't she be like her rich Uncle Spira?
20:18 [Bright music]
20:20 [Marcia] He came at 15, peddled notions, and then opened a bar with his own 599 Whiskey. Immigrants bought a drink and changed money. As the Jewish population grew from just over 3,000 when he arrived in 1879 to 75,000 when my grandmother arrived 30 years later, his bar became a bank.
20:41 [Cousin Rose] Number 599 Whiskey. Henry Spira. It was right next door, huh?
20:45 [Grace Spira Kruck] Right next door.
20:47 [Cousin Rose] Imagine that. He didn't miss a chance to make money.
20:51 [Marcia] His money flew over wires to make him one of the richest men in Cleveland, at least in terms of money.
20:58 [Grace Spira Kruck] Only interested in himself and his bank, and one son, my father. He was not friendly, and he didn't care much for anybody else.
21:09 [Marcia] Unfortunately, I think my grandmother admired these qualities, too. It was part of her package for success, except she was a woman, and at age 22, she had to think about marriage.
21:24 [Bright music]
21:27 [Marcia] How did you meet Grandpa?
21:29 [Grandmother Rose] I guess I went to a party and he met me and we liked each other right away.
21:37 [Bright music]
21:41 [Marcia] Why did Harry come to America?
21:45 [Grandmother Rose] Because he wanted to be somebody.
21:50 [Manny] He had a horse and a wagon, collected scrap in the wagon, and he worked like a dog, loading it, unloading it by hand, you know.
22:00 [Marcia] Although Harry Rockovich was illiterate and signed his name with an X, he wasn't afraid of hard work, and he was charming. Before she agreed to marry him, though, she insisted he change his name to something short and American, like Rock.
22:18 [Upbeat music]
22:19 [Marcia] But the freedom she enjoyed as a single woman ended with marriage. She gained status, but lost her independence. In Krize or in Cleveland, a married woman did not work outside the home or family business.
22:35 [Gentle music]
22:41 [Marcia] A daughter could work for a strange man, but not a wife. So my grandmother stayed in her new home on 61st Street.
22:50 [Gentle music]
22:54 [Marcia] The birth of her first child, Evelyn, must have completed her return to the world of women. Trapped again in the house, I think she took her anger out on her child and beat her. Was this the moment you lost your softness and your beauty? Was this the moment you cast a shadow over all of us?
23:24 [Eleanor] She must have thrown her down or something, and the child was crippled. She had to have surgery and a cast for I don't know how long. She was a couple years old, I think, at the time,
23:38 [Marcia] Eleanor is the daughter of my grandmother's eldest brother.
23:41 [Eleanor] It worked out. The doctors were able to fix it, whatever it was.
23:46 [Cousin Rose] She would hit Evelyn, not Manny.
23:49 [Eleanor] She loved her son, Manny.
23:51 [Cousin Rose] Manny was her favorite.
23:51 [Eleanor] Mandela.
23:52 [Cousin Rose] And she showed favoritism so strongly.
23:55 [Eleanor] He couldn't do anything wrong.
23:57 [Marcia] Because you were the favorite child, did you feel even worse about Evelyn? Did Evelyn know that?
24:03 [Manny] Well, Evelyn resented her mistreatment and took it out in certain respects on me.
24:12 [Marcia] What'd she do?
24:13 [Manny] She yelled at me, taunted me.
24:16 [Marcia] (Chuckles) What'd she say?
24:18 [Manny] Used epithets against me.
24:20 [Marcia] Like what?
24:21 [Manny] She'd call me manure instead of Manny. (Chuckles) You know. Oh, lots of stuff. I don't care to go into it.
24:24 [Marcia chuckles]
24:30 [Marcia] So, you never established a close relationship with Evelyn?
24:33 [Manny] No, no, I couldn't do that. Well, there were rare moments where she would treat me with respect, but not very often.
24:47 [Cousin Rose] I would have thought...
24:48 [Eleanor] I resent the fact that her father didn't stand up for her.
24:50 [Cousin Rose] That he would have, you know, defended Evelyn.
24:54 [Eleanor] But he was afraid of Aunt Rose. But Evelyn was, she wasn't afraid of her. She would stand up to her.
25:03 [Manny] Guilt about what?
25:08 [Marcia] Not being able to protect your sister.
25:16 [Manny] Well, I haven't given it that much thought, honey. I would more or less try to push 'em outta my mind. I just couldn't deal with it, and I gave up. Just go ahead and do whatever I was expected to do.
25:33 [Marcia] How about anger? Were you angry at your mother for treating her that way?
25:38 [Manny] I couldn't imagine telling my mother that she had mistreated me or mistreated Evelyn. It would've hurt me, and I think it would've hurt her immeasurably.
25:51 [Marcia] But she was hurting you and Evelyn.
25:55 [Manny] She wasn't hurting me deliberately.
25:58 [Marcia] You don't think witnessing her...
26:00 [Manny] Yes, but she wasn't doing it in front of me for that purpose.
26:04 [Marcia] But the residual effect was the same.
26:09 [Gentle music]
26:12 [Marcia]You didn't have to be hit to get hurt. I always felt you kept yourself separate, but I thought it had something to do with me. I didn't realize you built this wall to protect you. I only saw that it shut us out.
26:31 [Marcia] But the word apercus, do you know what it means? My father is a master of words.
26:34 [Manny] It refers to perception.
26:40 [Marcia] I test him whenever I can.
26:43 [Manny] Perceptions.
26:44 [Marcia] What's the root of that word, do you think?
26:47 [Manny] Aper, to perceive.
26:51 [Marcia] He feels safe inside the world of reason.
26:53 [Manny] Yeah, perception.
26:56 [Marcia] Secure with technical solutions to problems. He's always liked to live in his head.
27:06 [Signer singing in foreign language]
27:10 [Marcia] He was introduced to the world of ideas by his grandfather.
27:13 [Singer singing in foreign language]
27:18 [Marcia] Before my father was old enough to go to school, he would sit on his grandfather's knee eating herring while the bearded man conducted Talmudic lessons. Then, it was his turn.
27:29 [Manny] At the age of seven when my grandfather took me by the hand and walked with me over to the (indistinct) congregation and enrolled me into the Hebrew school. I actually enjoyed Hebrew school. I think I was fascinated by the new language. The fact that you could see in writing what was being said. I don't know why, how it happened, but in no time at all, I was head of the class.
28:01 [Congregation singing] ♪ Oh how I long ♪ ♪ To be a Christian ♪
28:11 [Manny singing in foreign language] That's all I remember.
28:21 [Singer singing in foreign language]
28:33 [Congregation singing] ♪ Gone away ♪ ♪ It was there by faith ♪ ♪ I received my sight ♪ ♪ And I ♪
28:51 [Manny] And when I got here in a very short amount of time, I learned Hebrew. And they elected me with the students as their rabbi. And I used to go up and deliver sermons on every Saturday morning.
29:04 [Parishioner 1] Really?
29:07 [Pastor] Here?
29:07 [Manny] Yeah, here.
29:09 [Singer singing in foreign language]
29:18 [Parishioner 1] It's just breathtaking that he would come back. You know, we hear people say, "I'm going back home," but they never mean their church home. This is our home. This is really our home. And we're so glad to have you.
29:33 [Manny] Thank you for your invitation.
29:35 [Parishioner 2] God bless you. God bless you.
29:36 [Manny] We appreciate it.
29:38 [Parishioner 2] And God bless your family.
29:40 [Manny] What I wanna know is what happened to the men?
29:44 [Parishioner 2] That's what we would like to know, too.
29:48 [Marcia] In 1926...
29:50 [Manny] Do they have men in the..
29:52 [Marcia] The room was filled with Orthodox men.
29:54 [Manny] In the congregation here?
29:57 [Parishioner 3] Yes.
29:57 [Parishioner 4 laughing]
29:58 [Manny] I was told a story about this fella who made a lotta money. They told him that he was a very successful person, but he oughta change his name from Lipshitz. So he changed his name to CH Pierpont.
30:15 [Parishioner 4] CH Pierpont, okay.
30:15 [Manny] And they asked him, "Well, why did you choose that name?" Well, he says, "I was born and went to school on Pierpont Avenue."
30:23 [Parishioner 4] Okay. (Laughs)
30:24 [Manny] Well, he says, "Well what does CH stand for?" He says, "That stands for corner hundred-and-5th."
30:30 [Parishioner 4] "Corner hundred-and-5th." (Laughs)
30:33 [Marcia] My father can tell a joke.
30:35 [Manny] Yeah, Pierpont Morgan.
30:36 [Marcia] That's the man I adore, charming, joking, inquisitive. The man who still loves learning.
30:47 [Footsteps crunching]
30:49 [Marcia] The man filled with pride at his landfill. The man who pays attention to details. The man who finds complicated technology a challenge. The man I loved to visit at the scrapyard as a child.
31:08 [Manny] You're missing Harry (indistinct).
31:13 [Marcia] Here are more trucks, front haulers.
31:17 [Manny] Front end loaders.
31:18 [Marcia] Front end loaders. I felt so small next to the tons of metal, the cranes, the crusher. But I felt so proud when he took me from barrel to barrel and showed me how to swing a magnet to test for ferrous or non-ferrous metal. I felt he saw me if I entered his world, and that was the world of business, the world that took all his time, all his attention, the world where there was always a crisis. He was always upset, and our world around him would shake.
31:53 [Manny] This building was built by my mother, Rose Rock.
31:58 [Marcia] No one could help him but my grandmother.
32:00 [Terry] I always thought your father was an interesting man, very bright, gracious in many, many ways, very generous man. But I don't think I ever met anyone as quite as self-centered as he is. It was his way or no way. I mean, he just dominated tremendously, you know, everything, except his mother, I think.
32:21 [Marcia] I guess I was just jealous that my grandmother and the business seemed more important to him than me.
32:26 [Manny] We never talked very much except on business matters.
32:31 [Marcia] You paid more attention to her than you did to us, Dad.
32:26 [Manny] Well, maybe I had more business to do with her than I had to do with you. I don't recall ever being involved in a business relationship with you.
32:45 [Group singing in foreign language]
32:58 [Marcia] My brother must have been jealous, too.
33:01 [Manny] So if it was such a big deal, how come we don't, in Israel, they don't sacrifice animals today?
33:08 [Marcia] He was the only one of us to stand up to my father for attention.
33:12 [Howard] Another way would be that Judaism progressed as religion and animal sacrifice no longer fit in because they developed-
33:17 [Marcia] But it would usually turn into a fight.
33:19 [Howard] They took it outta the temple. There were two incidents I talked back, I got into fights with him. Both incidents I ended up seeing a psychiatrist right after that, and he felt that if I got outta the house, I might be able to develop my personality. I was sort of squelched or something. I mean, I wasn't able to grow.
33:41 [Marcia] My mother was concerned and worked hard to bring them together.
33:44 [Howard] He bought a fish tank for me and we would go off on Saturdays and buy fish for a few months. And I really liked that, I guess. He spent that time with me. Even though I knew he was doing it because he was supposed to spend time with me, not 'cause he really wanted to spend time with me. But you know, I had fish tanks after that. I still have four fish tanks. He's a dangerous fish. He eats a lotta the other fish. I can't put any fish in the tank till I get rid of him.
34:11 [Marcia] I mean, maybe you were angry that Howard wasn't the person you wanted just like grandma was angry with Evelyn.
34:16 [Manny] Well, I saw him suffering so. I was trying to be as helpful as possible by correcting him.
34:27 [Marcia] Supporting him, not correcting him.
34:29 [Manny] Well.
34:31 [Marcia] That's why we never came to you, Dad. You were always correcting us. We never felt the support. There it is.
34:42 [Manny] Yeah.
34:44 [Howard] The problem that created was clearly a lack of self-confidence. If you don't get a lot of positive reinforcement, "You're doing well. You're good. You're important. I care about you. I wanna spend a lotta time with you, and I love you." If you don't get that, you tend to think you're no good, you're not loved, you're not very competent.
35:07 [Background music] ♪ With one who'll watch over me ♪
35:07 [Howard] It's a little bit hard to give of myself completely and to let myself go in a love relationship. To say I love you or something like that, it's a scary thing. Some people do it all the time. They say it every day to themselves and some people hardly ever say it. It's always a hard thing for me to say, because what if they didn't say it back and you're so vulnerable? And I think what I learned from my childhood is don't get yourself too vulnerable. You might not have someone there to hold you up.
35:42 [Background music] ♪ All of the bets you play, Only for yesterday ♪
35:49 [Marcia] My sister and I slid around my father, never approaching him directly.
35:55 [Background music] ♪ Hoping to hit the jack ♪
35:58 [Marcia] But his distance definitely affected our choices in men.
36:03 [Elaine] I just think it really showed me things I wanted with my husband and my family, and I wanted a very open, loving relationship with my family, kids jumping on their father's lap, hugging, reinforcing how important they each were. And we've always worked on self-esteem being the most important thing in raising our children. I definitely wanted a much more easygoing type of person as far as a mate and someone who made me feel real secure.
36:40 [Instructor] Here we go. Leave your posture low.
36:44 [Marcia] Well, they say that girls choose men who are like their fathers.
36:48 [Manny] I think you're too intelligent to fall into that category.
36:52 [Julie] Welcome to the Rock kitchen, November 20, what's the day today? Fifth, 1976. May I introduce my guest, Mr. Terrence Moran.
37:05 [Marcia] Terry's always been a great chef.
37:07 [Terry] Out of town chef.
37:07 [Julie] Quiz.
37:09 [Julie] Out of town chef.
37:09 [Marcia] A perfectionist, the commander in the kitchen.
37:12 [Terry] Recorded for the occasion. Tremendously important to me were the dinners. You know I care about food, and I care about dining properly, and I like things on time. The secret is to give them a fantastic beginning.
37:25 [Marcia] We were the center of a wonderful group of friends and we entertained a lot.
37:29 [Terry] A gateau Florentine, for example.
37:31 [Marcia] And since I didn't know how to cook, I became his sous chef.
37:33 [Terry] I make 'em 16 layers high.
37:36 [Marcia] One of my jobs was to cut the parsley just the way he liked it. And now, whenever I cut parsley, I think of him.
37:46 [Howard] I remember your early courtship and how incredibly affectionate he was, wrote those beautiful letters. You were always so affectionate with him. Considerate of him.
37:55 [Group chattering]
37:57 [Terry in flashback video] That's how you play, Marcia.
37:59 [Terry] You were wonderful. You were very interesting, exciting, very bright, creative, intelligent girl.
38:08 [Marcia] We were so happy for a time. Why did we stop talking? When did we start to hurt each other and not even know it? You know, you'd always said, "You're acting just like your father." So what did you mean by that?
38:24 [Terry] Oh God. You were very self-centered in many ways, especially when you were working on your video projects. You had a fixation that I found very disturbing and everything had to be your way, and that I had very little meaning to you.
38:41 [Marcia] We didn't have children and I was able to completely immerse myself in my work. It was a place I never held back, a place I was direct, happy, confident.
38:53 [Terry] I mean, I think back on the painful-
38:55 [Marcia] You don't think that you want it your way, too? You don't think that you like it a certain way? You don't think you feel there's-
39:03 [Terry] I like my food a certain way. I like my dining a certain way.
39:07 [Marcia] You wanted me to be there at this point, at that point, you know, that you put up a lot of rules for me to live with?
39:14 [Scissors snipping]
39:17 [Terry] Well, I think of all the times I said to you, "Come home. Come home and have dinner. Don't stay in that damn studio," and you never did. You almost never came-
39:27 [Marcia] I know. I did it on purpose, I think. I felt safe there. And sometimes I didn't feel safe here. I was afraid of you. Whatever I did was wrong. It was always my fault. And I believed him. So I'd stay away and he'd get upset and use angry words that hurt. I never thought of standing up to him because I was afraid of losing him, and I couldn't imagine living alone. Had I learned in exchange for love you accept the hurt.
40:08 [Howard] Mom was afraid of him. She was afraid to speak up to him and they would have fights at times.
40:15 [Elaine] They were at many parties together and gave a lotta parties. And I remember him yelling at her a lot.
40:25 [Marcia] "Why didn't you do that? Why didn't you do this? You're supposed to do this." You know, "I asked you to do this. Why didn't you do it?"
40:32 [Elaine] And the one thing I took with me whenever I heard this certain tone of voice that I was used to as a child probably coming from my father either correcting me or just speaking to me, feeling I didn't say the right thing, if my husband ever used that tone of voice, I would react, and he'd go, "What are you reacting to? I didn't say anything wrong." And I would say, "It's your tone of voice."
40:56 [Manny] I don't remember being that way. (Chuckles) I just don't recall that.
41:04 [Marcia] At all?
41:06 [Manny] Yeah, at all. I don't recall using that tone of voice with her.
41:12 [Elaine] Terry would have some very harsh words for you. He would belittle you. He would put you down. And it was not only to you directly, it was with other people. Now, in front of other people I could never forgive him for that, because what you say behind doors is one thing, but in front of family and friends, it was so abusive I had a hard time dealing with it myself.
41:35 [Terry] I fully accept the criticism of my friends that I was horrible to you toward the end. The last couple of years were just wretched, and I didn't even know I was doing it.
41:46 [Howard] How would you react? You would be very nice and submissive. (Laughs) You would just say, try to be nice to him and pacify him and "I'm sorry," and kinda, "What did I do wrong?" kind of thing.
42:07 [Gentle music]
42:09 [Marcia] You got me where I was the most vulnerable, undermining my self-confidence.
42:15 [Terry] Maybe that's what got to be the most painful part, that I was hurting you, and I guess I was getting angry. Maybe I was angry at you for making me hurt you or something. I don't know what the hell I was angry about.
42:24 [Marcia] Well, I'm angry that I never could say to you, "Don't do that, Terry. That hurts me."
42:31 [Gentle music continues]
42:38 [Terry] What are you doing, "Long Day's Journey into Night"? (Marcia laughs) God. God, a Cleveland Jewish "Long Day's Journey into Night." You're gonna, oh my Lord. We had some really wonderful times, Marcia.
42:49 [Marcia] I know.
42:49 [Terry] We really did.
42:50 [Marcia] No, I know that. The tragedy was that we weren't honest with each other.
42:55 [Terry] Maybe. I will freely admit that I have a very hard time being introspective and discussing my feelings and emotions with other people. I still, I never talk like this.
43:05 [Marcia] You are now.
43:07 [Terry] We're doing it now because in a sense we're not talking. You're interviewing me on television, on video, and in a sense we're documenting. We're not talking about the problem. But that is, we're not dealing with the problem, we're talking about it. We're analyzing it from the outside now, and there's enough time and distance that allows us to do that so I can look at the situation. But when I was deeply emotionally involved in the situation, I couldn't deal with it. I couldn't have that distance, that analysis that allowed me to do that.
43:40 [Marcia] But that's when you should do it.
43:41 [Terry] Well that's what they say. That's what they say.
43:46 [Gentle music]
43:48 [Marcia] My parents divorced after 27 years. What was she like when you met her?
43:55 [Manny] She was very sweet and pleasant and understanding and soft key. We were very much in love, I think. We went out to dances. After all, I was going to college, and you know, going to a movie and all that kind of stuff, couldn't have a mental exchange there.
44:18 [Marcia] How about physical exchange?
44:21 [Manny] That, too.
44:25 [Marcia] Did you wait till you got married to make love?
44:30 [Manny] No. (Marcia chuckles)
44:36 [Marcia] She was very different from your mother.
44:38 [Manny] Oh yeah. And she had difficulty in adjusting to Mother.
44:44 [Marcia] Did they fight with each other?
44:46 [Manny] No, Mother, your mother was not a combative type. She would react maybe by crying more likely than by fighting back. I don't know, I think my mother could never adjust to the idea of my becoming an independent person.
45:05 [Marcia] I think my grandmother was jealous of another woman in his life, even though she was busy building her empire. During the Depression, she opened a rooming house, then came her home renovations.
45:18 [Cousin Rose] So she would go down there and get these men.
45:20 [Eleanor] They were winos. Bums.
45:21 [Cousin Rose] But they were good craftsmen.
45:23 [Marcia] Finally, she started her own construction business, building a block of houses near Lake Erie, reserving the best lot for herself.
45:31 [Gentle music]
45:33 [Marcia] Like her idol Henry Spira, she liked the sense of power money gave her.
45:40 [Manny] My mother cared for making money, that's what she was interested in.
45:47 [Marcia] Do you think that he learned the money thing from Grandma?
45:51 [Howard] He learned that money was control, and you can control money, people with money from her. Absolutely. Controlling his wife, his children. I think that was a very profound thing.
46:02 [Marcia] But there were some things she couldn't control. Her daughter Evelyn died of lung cancer at 41.
46:09 [Manny] Well, when Evelyn died, she changed in her temperament. I don't know if she felt some guilt about the way she had raised her or what.
46:22 [Marcia] Was it out of remorse? Was it a sense of punishment from God that caused my grandmother to give up all that she'd worked for since she arrived in Cleveland, her houses and her business, and focus only on my father? Which wasn't so great for my mother.
46:37 [Elaine] Grandma Rose forbid my mother to come to Friday night dinners. She would have her followed and create any type of destructive scenario that she could, and I always felt that my father should have stood up to his mother because I think your first allegiance is to your wife and then to your mother.
47:02 [Howard] She grew very angry at him over the years, but she never expressed the anger.
47:07 [Marcia] My grandmother wasn't the only problem between my parents. In her 40s, my mother drifted away from him. She managed a Latin band and traveled. My father continued to live in his own world. He just didn't seem to need anyone, or couldn't show it. I always thought it was odd he had only two close friends his entire life. Why did you have so few friends, Dad?
47:36 [Manny] I don't know. But I had plenty of people to share my interests with. Remember I got interested in dancing? There's so many people that you get to know.
47:48 [Marcia] But you never shared your inner thoughts with any of them.
47:52 [Manny] No. I didn't feel a need to.
47:56 [Marcia] His distance, her distance. Seems like very closed up inside, then. My parents divorced.
48:05 [Manny] Not deliberately.
48:07 [Marcia] Then they surprised us all by remarrying each other a year later. He was respectful. She attentive. They were the happiest I'd ever known them, and then my mother died of cancer at age 54 in 1976. Oh, you'll like this, Mother. You'll like this.
48:25 [Elaine] Very good.
48:26 [Elaine and Marcia both chuckling]
48:29 [Manny] I guess I never realized how much I loved her because...
48:34 [Marcia] Because...Dad, her death was so, so hard on you. Have you ever gotten over it, Dad? She was your emotional anchor, wasn't she, all those years? She was the only one you let in.
49:07 [Manny] See what it says on the top?
49:09 [Marcia reading in foreign language]
49:11 [Manny] Mm-hmm. You know what that means?
49:13 [Marcia] No, what?
49:15 [Manny] Woman of valor.
49:21 [Group applauding]
49:24 [Marcia] It may be hard for my father to give love, but he always seems to find it. He and Bee married in 1982.
49:34 [Guests chattering, upbeat music]
49:43 [Gentle piano music]
49:46 [Marcia] So what have I learned from dancing with my father? That I am my father's daughter. And things you never resolved in yourself are unresolved in me. That family histories influence generations, that a father can help a daughter be confident in the world.
50:04 [Manny] What did I deny you?
50:07 [Marcia] You. That it's better to talk than stay silent. You never asked.
50:14 [Manny] I didn't know to ask.
50:15 [Marcia] And neither did I. That he can teach her how to give and receive love. I just don't understand this profound thing called love. How you give it, how you take it.
50:26 [Manny] I love you now, I loved you before.
50:27 [Marcia] I know.
50:29 [Manny] And I'll love you in the future.
50:30 [Marcia] That understanding can replace blame. I do feel you have all this love for us, but it's buried in here somewhere. That what a child needs from a father is so simple and yet so complex. I learned how much I needed you, how much you had to give, but couldn't.
50:51 [Manny] We had a good dance last night, you know that?
50:55 [Marcia] And what did my father learn from dancing with me? New admiration for the man in a rabbi's story.
51:06 [Manny] And I was just thinking as I look at my daughter of a little incident in which this man's daughter kept asking him how soon it'll be before she can have a daughter of her own. And finally he asked her, "Dear, why is it you keep asking me that question? 'When can I have a child of my own?'" And she says, "Because I would like to know what it feels like to love a child as much as you love me."
51:46 [Congregation murmuring]
51:47 [Marcia] I'll always regret I didn't see that kind of love in his eyes as a child, but love, like light, is a journey.
51:59 [Upbeat music]
52:10 [Marcia] So what'd you think of it?
52:12 [Manny] I think it's great.
52:13 [Marcia] So it was worth running around with me?
52:16 [Manny] It was worth you running around not only with me but with everybody else. The only thing I regret is that it wasn't long enough. And how about you? Did you enjoy making this tape?
52:30 [Marcia] Well, I appreciated the opportunity to finally get to play with you.
52:33 [Group singing in Spanish]
52:36 [Marcia] Do you think my questions were too hard?
52:38 [Manny] No. We're seeking the truth. There's no limits when it comes to probing the depths of our emotions.
52:45 [Group singing in Spanish]
52:49 [Marcia] Some people think I was very aggressive and hard on you.
52:53 [Manny] If they're disturbed by my reactions, or possible reactions I should say, there is no reason for them to feel that way. I enjoyed the experience, and not only that, but it was also helpful.
53:09 [Upbeat music]
53:15 [Marcia] What'd you think of our dancing?
53:18 [Manny] I didn't know you were such a good dancer.
53:21 [Marcia] I learned from the pro.
53:22 [Upbeat music continues]
53:45 [Group singing in Spanish]
