We became very close when Melanie was still in Art Production on the 4th Floor of the Warner Bros. Records "Ski Lodge”. I was a gopher in Merchandising on my best behavior except for every Friday afternoon when Hale, my boss, had me rolling joints in the Conference Room. He’d pass them out with his business card, but I digress.
I couldn’t help but be smitten by an almost hourly flash of blond past my desk, an art board in its wake. Mel could turn any hall into a runway as she’d glide her way down to solicit yet another Curly-Q of approval and sashay back. She certainly had my approval, but we hadn’t been properly introduced until one day she abruptly stopped in her tracks to compliment me. I wasn’t used to that, so I just punted and squirmed, but by the time I regained my balance, there went that blond flash again! I don’t think I’d ever been caught in the sights of an authentic come hither look before either, but Mel was nothing if not authentic.
She lived with lovely Linda Allen in Silverlake just down the street from me; no other dynamic duo could compare. We briefly dated then, in only the blink of an eye to be honest. It was my bad, I know and I'm here to say so. She taught me two things that, to this day, always make me smile, place my virtual hat against my heart and bow deeply to her with respect: Nick & Nora Charles and the word "Haberdasher".
That was her dream, one of them, to be a haberdasher, in its original use: a hat maker. I love saying that word. It's like all that joy, hope, promise and self-belief she retained through thick and thin was embodied in one pure ambition: to make the perfect hat for just the right person, never mind that no one we knew, particularly then, would even consider wearing a hat! But, she was convinced she could find that person and he would appreciate it, darn it, and that hat would mean the world to him. Well, by all accounts, though I haven’t had the pleasure, I believe she did find that person and how he must cherish his hat, a hand made ten gallon hat, and even that not large enough or deep enough to contain all the love she put into its making and all the love that, as I write, must indeed be pouring out.
Melanie, my own hat, these last few days, has been off to you again, you who were always determined to be bigger than this world allows a woman to be and will be, easily, as big and bigger still in the next world. I'll know for certain when I get there should Gabriel be wearing a natty, felt bowler hat, for instance, tipped at just the appropriate angle, not to suggest a bowing to this long, sad "goodbye" we've all been giving, but a salute, a celebration, a continuation of a line that has not and will not be broken as if to say, with your same sense of humor, welcome and joie de vivre, "Hello, good friend, just this way! You can't miss her. She'll be right over there with Asta, Nick Charles and Nora mixing a martini. You're just in time."
I couldn’t help but be smitten by an almost hourly flash of blond past my desk, an art board in its wake. Mel could turn any hall into a runway as she’d glide her way down to solicit yet another Curly-Q of approval and sashay back. She certainly had my approval, but we hadn’t been properly introduced until one day she abruptly stopped in her tracks to compliment me. I wasn’t used to that, so I just punted and squirmed, but by the time I regained my balance, there went that blond flash again! I don’t think I’d ever been caught in the sights of an authentic come hither look before either, but Mel was nothing if not authentic.
She lived with lovely Linda Allen in Silverlake just down the street from me; no other dynamic duo could compare. We briefly dated then, in only the blink of an eye to be honest. It was my bad, I know and I'm here to say so. She taught me two things that, to this day, always make me smile, place my virtual hat against my heart and bow deeply to her with respect: Nick & Nora Charles and the word "Haberdasher".
That was her dream, one of them, to be a haberdasher, in its original use: a hat maker. I love saying that word. It's like all that joy, hope, promise and self-belief she retained through thick and thin was embodied in one pure ambition: to make the perfect hat for just the right person, never mind that no one we knew, particularly then, would even consider wearing a hat! But, she was convinced she could find that person and he would appreciate it, darn it, and that hat would mean the world to him. Well, by all accounts, though I haven’t had the pleasure, I believe she did find that person and how he must cherish his hat, a hand made ten gallon hat, and even that not large enough or deep enough to contain all the love she put into its making and all the love that, as I write, must indeed be pouring out.
Melanie, my own hat, these last few days, has been off to you again, you who were always determined to be bigger than this world allows a woman to be and will be, easily, as big and bigger still in the next world. I'll know for certain when I get there should Gabriel be wearing a natty, felt bowler hat, for instance, tipped at just the appropriate angle, not to suggest a bowing to this long, sad "goodbye" we've all been giving, but a salute, a celebration, a continuation of a line that has not and will not be broken as if to say, with your same sense of humor, welcome and joie de vivre, "Hello, good friend, just this way! You can't miss her. She'll be right over there with Asta, Nick Charles and Nora mixing a martini. You're just in time."
for Melanie Penny
11/21/53 - 9/03/09
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