Stuff That I Have Noticed #48: Solitary

Having become a relentless miner of the undiscovered ore of my personal history here’s another essay on that favorite subject and if you do not find the saga of this writer’s nine (1930s–2020s) decades of tales interesting feel free to move on. I understand.

Elizabeth and I were watching something-or-other on the electric T & V a few nights ago about a family with three kids. It got me to thinking on my solitary childhood. She had two brothers but I had no siblings. And as you know if you read Three Stages, I had very few contemporary little friends as a kid.

I began to ponder how this early isolation has affected my adult life.

Never a joiner, I had but one best buddy in high school. There was a trio of chums but only one, Bob Collins, evolved into a near-brother. We were the closest of friends for fifty-six years until he died in 2008. When BC went back to Texas after our freshman year at Whittier College I did join a “society”, the Orthogonians, comprised almost entirely of we jocks. (WC had no national fraternities.) But the only real value in that association for me was the ability to “fit in” enough to be accepted into the club. Once in I was never much of a pal with any of the other “brothers”. My sole close friend then became – another musician – Bill Hall.

Both Bob and Bill became surrogate big brothers to me. They too were sans siblings so in retrospect these relationships make perfect sense. (Lots of formerly obscure truths are obvious in retrospect. No?)

Turns out that I had an instinct for connections with greatness. BC went on to be awarded three Emmys for cinematography and Bill won acclaim for his world tour concerts with the William Hall Chorale of which I was a charter member and soloist. (Audio files 2nd paragraph below Hitchcock)

But I digress.

During my fifteen years as a working singer/actor I made lots of short term friends but only a few lasting much beyond the closing of a given show or tour. One of them, the lovely Elizabeth Hepburn, became my twice wife. (That’s a whole other book: Waiting for Elizabeth.) The other, Jeff Siggins, has remained a treasured and intimate friend for fifty-five years and counting.

When I migrated gradually from the front of the camera to the back I made new friends. And again, only a few (two are Bobs; Kaylor and Santos and a piece about them is in the works) Carl Zucker, Kevin O’Connell, Kit Whitmore, Ken Licata and Frost Wilkinson became treasured lifetime friends. Ken and Carl are the only ones who are geographically close enough to see in person from time to time.

There is a real camaraderie of movie crews since we work together as a team in often difficult and unpredictable situations and do become a “band of brothers” in a sense. Strangely quite a few of my old comrades with whom I enjoyed working and trading jokes and the occasional joint but never engaging in substantive discussion have turned out to be facebook friends. And now we do have substantive “conversations” on everything from politics to art. To my eternal regret, I have learned more about many of them through interactions, commentary and both political and philosophical postings on that platform than I did when we were in physical proximity. I often “kick myself” for not getting to know them better in those days but at work together our interactions – other than actual work related conversations – consisted mostly of banter and jokes.

So here I sit in my Manhattan (rent stabilized!) Penthouse with my sole remaining soul sister, the aforementioned (still) Lovely Elizabeth who had the good sense to marry me in 1967, leave in 1996 – returning me again to a solitary existence – and return in 2005 to marry me again in 2010.

Author Ben Bryant with his (twice) wife Elizabeth Hepburn at their Wedding #2

So despite the loneliness and solitude of the brief though seemingly endless separation I am happily heading into the winter of my life snuggled warmly in the down coat of our enduring love.

Primarily due to Her being my life partner I have an excellent reason to celebrate THANKS-giving. I hope you do, too.