Authors
- our service's benefits
- author account log in
- author sign up form
- claim your articles
- terms of service
- submission guidelines
- adsense share system
56380 free content articles
New York's Opera Society chapter 8
Chapter 8
Meet My Parents
After I got off the elevator I entered our home and opened our door which was the only one on our floor, where I said “hello” to my mother and father, who were sitting on the sofa in the family room watching CNN dressed in what they called their after work clothes, which for my mother meant a knee length skirt and an old blouse and for my father meant an old pair of jeans and a football jersey or sweatshirt. Sometimes l think that the clothes they wore at home allowed them to not only to feel more relaxed but to forget the pressures of their stressful jobs. They however never left the house or received expected guests in their "after work clothes" as both of them were fond of dressing up when either welcoming company or when ever exiting the house for whatever reason.
My mother and father heard me enter and said “hi” without taking their eyes of the TV screen and I could tell by their concentration that they were watching something that must have been of particular interest to them, so l chose not to interrupt them by telling them about my not so eventful day and simply went over to my computer which was in my bedroom to see what emails Gosia and the rest of my opera friends had sent me.
There is a lot I could say about my father, Frederick Albert for instance that he was a large man standing at 6' 2"(192c.m.) and weighing 17 stones or 107 kilograms, whose parents were both born in the old country of Germany in a city in the north called Hamburg. Looks wise my father had blonde-reddish hair and blue eyes with facial features that perhaps were not handsome but very strong, not unlike his character which was one of the factors that had contributed to making him the man and father that he was.
Professionally speaking we could say my father was a successful man who made a very good living as one of the top people at fiser (one of the worlds largest makers of prescription medicine),after all he held a PHD from Michigan State University. Sometimes I think he was more proud of the fact that he had a PHD from that university then the elevated position he held in one of the biggest companies in the field of medicine. My father always told everybody who would listen and several who would not, that chemistry was the greatest thing one could study due to it's versatility that gave one the possibility of getting many jobs in many different kind of companies from medical companies to cosmetic companies (such as Revlon or Max Factor), to food companies (such as Unilever). He sometimes joked that if he really wanted to make money he could produce things like cocaine or L.S.D. or make bombs for terrorist networks. My mother knew that none of their friends took my father seriously when he joked about the possibilities of working for terrorist, though she did prefer it for him to desist from this sort of humor specially following the attacks on our country of September 11.
As for my mother I will say that her name is Gertrude, a name which most non-Germans considered to be funny for some reason and perhaps it was why her friends referred to her as Getty. She once told me that at first she could not bear the thought have having her classical German name shortened or changed like most names are in America, but however with the passage of time, she had even gotten used to it. She often said in jest that she preferred being called Getty then having her name mangled by erroneous pronunciations. I even think, though she has always denied it, that being called Getty made her feel younger.
My mother’s parents came from a town which was close to Munich in Bavaria meaning she too was of direct German descent. My mother said that her parents coming from Bavaria explained her hair being dark almost black like Gosia's. In the opinion of my father as well as many others, myself included my mother was a graceful women in every respect who despite her age had not lost her fine facial features which were so perfect that she seemed almost doll like. Her eyes were brown, her nose was perfectly straight, her cheek bones were high, and her mouth was ideally proportioned to the size of her oval shaped face. She had a face which apart from being beautiful also expressed the warmth and wisdom that lead others to confide in her not only as a teacher but as a friend who always seemed to care.
My mother was a semi-retired opera soprano, who despite having sung at the Met had never achieved stardom like some other singers of her generation such as Pop or Schwarzkopf. She always maintained that this was due to the fact that she had never really been a great soprano but only a good one, and that her success though not phenomenal was more then a person with her limited talent had deserved, this also giving cause to the lack of bitterness in her which she hovered non as she was more then content with both her teaching job as well the position she held at what she believed to be the greatest opera house in the world “The New York Metropolitan Opera House”.
As far as her taste in music goes, she had many composers whom she truly liked and some which she even adored but I could say with out the slightest hesitation that her favorite was without a doubt Richard Wagner. I once asked her why she liked Wagner so much, if it was because he too was German, to which her reply was that she loved Wagner above all the rest not because he was German but because his music was German, so German that she felt that very few people apart from Germans themselves could ever really feel it enough to truly enjoy it let alone play it or sing it as the “great maestro” himself had intended it to be performed. My mother like my father was very proud to be German-American and felt that German Americans have as much right to be proud of their heritage as any other ethnic group has the right to be proud of theirs.
My mother is without a doubt personality, the kind who no matter how she may try, can never go unnoticed at any party or social gathering, her being the kind who because of her model like beauty and figure can draw attention away from almost anybody, with a personality which when supplemented to her beauty made her a real attention getter anywhere.
I deeply believe that the reason people felt the way they did about my mother was because she saw people who ever they might be or what ever might be their standing in the community as special when ever talking to them or just listening to them talk about what ever might be on their minds even if it was a subject which she herself had no particular interest in . She was and still is I might add a person who possessed a warmth that radiated through her smile as well as the way she looked people in the eye making her the sort of person who through her own inspiration inspired others, myself including to do things they themselves might not have thought themselves capable of doing.
