Mama Mia

Like many California transplants, my mother moved us here with stars in her eyes. But not the kind that many have of becoming a star themselves. She came here to get away from my insufferable father, to exchange the dreary midwest for sunshine, beaches and mountains. I guess you could say she was romanced by Hollywood. She left her husband for him. And from the living room window of our first apartment, you could see him as plain as the sun, sitting up in the side of the Hollywood hills. For years I romanticized that sign as well. It looked so regal, it symbolized so many things. Then one day when I was about 13 years old, my uncle Doc took me and a couple of my cousins hiking and we stumbled upon it. Up close and personal, Hollywood was not what it seemed at all from a distance, from my living room window. It was dirty, and shaky, and full of graffiti. Of course, from that day forward the stars in my eyes dimmed a bit and that sign no longer captured my imagination so wonderfully. But my mother still did. I never lost that sparkle that she provided. She came here a star. She was glitz and glamour to me. She was the romantic starlet, the adventurer, the model that Hollywood emulated and her sisters, cousins and close friends wanted to be. It's funny because before she moved us here (me 2mos old, her 26 yrs old) she was nicknamed "Ms. Hollywood". Here's her with The Bellettes, a singing group she put together with her cousin Carolyn and friend Mary. That's her on the far right ...with the Halle Berry haircut that was hers before Halle made it famous :) (mom cut her's herself). They won the talent show of '68 and got to sing a few stints as backup to Smokey Robinson. There's a newspaper clipping of them with Smokey somewhere in my grandmother's closet.
Anyway, my grandfather used to say that she belonged on a stage...doing something, anything. Everyone else always told her that she didn't belong in the midwest. That she needed a bigger pond. Although she had dreamed of moving here all along, the push came once she was fed up with my father.
to be continued (maybe...if i feel like it)