A Mom Story

My mother is here! And she told a funny story that really says a lot about her.

She was at a dinner last week, a fish fry with other people in her building, where everyone was mixing and chatting about various things, and in one conversation, the topic of assassinations came up. As it does, you may say, but probably it was because of the recent anniversary of MLK Jr.'s death. Anyway, someone said John F. Kennedy, and then someone said Marilyn Monroe, and my mother immediately said, "No, no, Marilyn wasn't assassinated. I was having dinner with Sammy Davis Jr. when his wife called to tell him that Marilyn had overdosed."

And, being my mother, she was very matter-of-fact about it, and was surprised when the person she was talking to was faintly stunned.

So, if you want to know where my mother was, or for that matter where Sammy Davis Jr was, on Sunday night, August 5, 1962, it was in the dining room at the Hilton in Port of Spain, Trinidad. He had played a show earlier that day, and my mother (who worked at the embassy) was in charge of driving him around.