Fun
Truman Capote Reads ‘A Christmas Memory’
Dear Kay,
In a week when Alabama took the headlines, let’s go back with Truman Capote to his childhood in rural Alabama. Here, via This American Life, he reads his 1956 short story “A Christmas Memory.”
Love,
Ann
PS Truman Capote has always loomed in my imagination—a Southerner who left for the North. I did it, then came back. My parents did it, a long time ago, for a brief period, and I wonder what it must have been like for them.
Last year, my dad gave me his Kodak Carousels of slides from the 1950s. One slide, the most shadowy and inscrutable of all, is a photo of my mother with her parents, taken by my dad. That’s it, at the top of this post.
This is easily the most haunting picture I have of my mom.
Christmas at 168th Street, Manhattan. It was 1955.
My Alabama parents, newly wed, had come to New York City for my dad’s residency at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. She got a job at an antiques shop. Dad worked all the time. What must this have felt like for a 23-year-old recent graduate of Auburn University?
That Christmas, my mom’s parents came to New York to visit their only child. I really can’t imagine my Selma grandparents walking the streets of the city. How alien it must have seemed to them, how dissonant to their narrow views. Mind boggling, I guess.
Love the photo!
Love this story of your parents and grandparents and what a great photo!!!
I love the old TV movie of a Christmas Memory from the 1960’s. It starred Geraldine Page. It always reminded me of my Aunt Cille (also from Alabama and a bit eccentric). Loved it! Not crazy about the remakes and it is difficult to find the old one. Wish they would do a really wonderful remake.
This is picture is such an intriguing glimpse of a Christmas Past. I’ve been ruminating on similar matters lately–packing, moving, unpacking will do that to you. Thanks for sharing.
We read “A Christmas Memory” aloud anytime between Thanksgiving and Christmas–whenever someone feels moved and the audience is unplugged. I can hear Truman’s high nasally voice come through no matter who is reading it. “Love is all you need” no matter where you live.
I always like listening to Dylan Thomas’ reading of his poem “A Child’s Christmas in Wales”.
Slides and those still one second moments from the past. I became the family keeper of all slides dating back 1951-1974-we then did polaroids. In Nov. I made a DVD compilation for my 91 year old father set to tunes he loves and cry like a baby every time I watch. My mom has been gone 24 years so the slides help me see her again as memories seem to fade as I age.
Thank you for sharing your “moment”.
You have a FB page !?!? WOW !! I have both of your wonderful books. So happy to find you. 🙂
Parents and grandparents are such a mystery
So true.
My Virginia grandmother always talked about visiting her in-laws (Lower East Side Jewish) in the city. She always made new outfits for everyone. She said everything was dirty, and loud, and “you could never put your feet on the earth”.
I love NYC myself. But loved her house too, where there was no shortage of putting both your feet and your hands into the earth.
Forgot to tell you that when I first saw this image at the top of the post, I thought that was Clif where your mom is sitting.
How lucky you are to have such photographs. Yay, Dad of Ann!
What a special place this lil home on the WWW is during the holidays. Or maybe I’m just a sap. But I love it.
I purchased a feeding photo scanner and plan to spend as much time as I can at my Grandpa Cruse’s house this year, saving memories. From what I can tell, Google Photos is the best place for storing them due to the facial recognition and well, piece of mind in knowing they are stored with Google, who I don’t think is going anywhere. I wish they’d let you edit or improve the facial recognition, but at least gramps can help me caption them all. My lil Xmas hope is that someday my kid’s kid’s can whip out their lil smartphones (or whatever they are then) and pull up load of pictures of their great great grandparents and such.
Happy holidays, Ann, Kay, and the whole MDK fam!