It is the only time I can remember my father taking me to the movies. That’s not to say it was the only time, but this one was a standout. It was on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, and the movie was “Song of the South.” Although it was a fasting holiday, I was too young, maybe 5 or 6, to fast, but not too young to understand that it was important enough to stay home from school for me, and work for my dad.
I passed on the popcorn because I did not want to tell him that I had choked on a kernel once, at least it felt like I was choking, and I was afraid it might happen again. He died not knowing that secret about me, although that was probably the least important thing about me that he died not knowing.
On the afternoon that my father sat between my brother and me in a downtown movie theater in Norfolk, he did not know that the little girl who would always choose Raisinettes over popcorn would someday choose New York City over the Virginia suburb where she was raised. He had worked hard to move his family from a small apartment in the Bronx to a stucco house with a porch covered in wisteria vines in a shade of soft lavender that is still her favorite color.
We lost the wisteria house when my father had a massive heart attack, and we lived in several rental houses after that. He died not knowing that no matter how much I disliked moving around, I was so grateful that somehow he found a way to move us to a red brick house on a lovely street lined with crepe myrtle trees, where I spent my teenage years, and the one I always think of as home.
During those moving-around years, I promised myself that someday I would have one house where I would stay for good. I’d like to be able to tell him that I was able to keep that promise to myself, and it continues to make me happy.
When we walked out of the movie theater after seeing “Song of the South,” the sun was shining, and I was singing “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah.” I did not know then that the film would become so controversial or that I would grow up in a segregated state where the governor would shut down the public schools rather than integrate them.
I only knew that my father, a difficult man whom I was always a little afraid of, my father who worked late every day and most evenings, had made time to spend that day with me.
“Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay My, oh my, what a wonderful day…”
Email patriciabunin@sbcglobal.net. Follow her on Patriciabunin.com.