My Aunt, my mother’s big sister, Bernice Silver, puppeteer and entertainer, is 100 years old today!
The big party is next week and most of my family will be in New York to celebrate it. We’ll be following from here in Prague.
Aunt Bernice
100 years is a pretty amazing span. 1913 isn’t just before WWII, it’s before WWI, which wasn’t even called WWI until WWII broke out. It was called The Great War, but I guess calling WWII the Greater War just would have sounded silly, like it was a competition or something. Besides, what would you say then when WWIII breaks out, the Super Duper War? No, needed to nip that in the bud.
1913 isn’t just before the internet, it’s before television. Cinemas were starting to pop up here and there, but they didn’t have sound until Bernice was a teenager. The bad guy would tie the curly haired blondie girl to the railroad tracks, you’d cut to a card saying “Help! Help!” and the good guy would ride up in the nick of time on the jerkiest running horse you ever have seen. Seriously. 100 years.
Cars had been invented by 1913, but they were still, for the most part, big black boxes, and there was still occasional horse traffic, even on the streets of New York City, where she lived her whole life. In fact, Ford launched its 1st moving assembly line in 1913. Things started to change pretty quick after that.
1913 is not just before the fall of Communism, it’s before the rise of Communism. Russia still had a Czar. Rasputin, the mad monk, was busy drinking huge amounts of vodka and shagging every available female in Moscow, while advising the Czar and Czarina right over the cliff. (Prague was still a provincial center within the Austro-Hungarian empire.)
1913 is not only before 9/11, it’s before the Twin Towers were built. Before the Empire State Building was built. Before the Chrysler Building was built. The tallest building in the world, at 50 some stories, was the Woolworth Building. Still in New York, though.
Some things haven’t changed. Kids still love puppets. Singing and dancing still make people happy. And imagination will still take you a long, long way. These things, like my Aunt Bernice, are timeless.
Happy Birthday, Bernice. And many more.
www.gurukalehuru.com 