2008-08-19 - 10:17 p.m.

HARRIET, DAH-LING!


Joe Doyle left a message on my voicemail on Sunday to say that my friend and former colleague Harriet Bishop had died last Friday at age 86 following emergency heart surgery. This was NOT a good message to come home to. And I had been in a rare good mood that day, too. Now the pain and guilt began creeping over me. I had forgotten to send Harriet a card on her birthday on June 7, and for the past two months have been meaning to call her and take her to lunch. Now I never can.

I met Harriet in 1975 when I went to work for John Walsh Associates (John�s death being the subject of my last blog entry; what a year!).

Harriet was the fiery-haired bookkeeper�a real New York character and a totally delicious woman. She was super-smart in every way and especially savvy about money and what to do with it. She was a warm, generous, lovely (and loving) woman, and I was crazy about her.

In brief, and with some historical liberties, here are a few facts about Harriet. She was born in 1922 and grew up in Brooklyn in a Jewish family which had suffered losses in the Holocaust. Her family was poor, and Harriet started working at age 11�doing I don�t remember what. She married young, and together with her first husband built a hugely successful beauty supply business and lived the high-life on Long Island�s Gold Coast. Furs, jewelry, boats, fancy vacations, big house, lavish cocktail parties�the works. But the first husband turned out to be a rat, her business went belly-up, and Harriet took her now-single-self and her two teen-age children and moved to Manhattan. Blah, blah, blah�some years later she met and married Tyler, a tall, handsome, wonderful Southern WASP psychologist, and they eventually moved to Greenwich Village. They had been married for 36 years when Harriet died. Tyler was madly in love with Harriet from Day One; he called her �the Big H.�

Along the way, Harriet enjoyed good times and endured tragedy. Her cherished son who was in the Navy came home on leave sometime in 1976 (I remember meeting him in John Walsh�s office), and he was on his way back to his base when he disappeared off the face of the earth. After years of searching by Navy police, FBI, CIA, private investigators�you name it, he was NEVER EVER seen again. This still boggles my mind. She never saw him again; never knew if he was dead or alive.

For years Harriet and Ty had a house in Ocean Beach on Fire Island. Eventually, Harriet�s daughter Shelly married Joe Doyle and had two daughters, Lily and Elizabeth, who referred to Harriet as �The Great Gambini� or �Bini� for short. There was lots of love and laughs and sandy summer gatherings with the grandchildren and close friends. Ty loved to sail and Harriet loved to complain about having to constantly pick up the wet swim trunks and towels he routinely left on the floor and furniture. They were ADORABLE together and those were good times for HB.

Harriet was always there for me during my own ups and downs, including my marriage to terrible Ted, the birth of Elizabeth, my divorce from said Ted, dating disasters, single parenthood (she�d been there, done that). She called me �Linda, dah-ling,� and she was never judgmental; always fair and calm and comforting. But she also told it like it was. She was direct and constructive. She pressured me to get life insurance on Ted when he started taking flying lessons, and she insisted that I open an IRA. She knew all the best tax deductions and all the best places for a good deal on a fur coat. (Yes, believe it or not, I once owned a full-length raccoon coat!) Harriet taught me how to hondel, at which she was a genius. And she was hilarious. She had the greatest laugh, especially after a few glasses of white wine! We had fun times working with John Walsh, and I remember Harriet running from bank to bank in those days to get the best rates on CDs (which then actually paid 9-14% interest!) She would say, �You gotta keep movin� the money around, get the best interest. Gotta keep it movin�.�

So many memories were swirling in my head today at Harriet�s memorial service. Naturally, it was held in her beloved Greenwich Village in that weird little multi-named funeral home next to the Porto Rico Coffee Emporium�and just blocks from Jefferson Market, Harriet�s second home!

A slide presentation showed Harriet the glamour-girl in sexy swimsuits, all va-va-va-voom style, as well as goofy shots of Harriet and the grandchildren on Fire Island and Harriet riding her �Miami Sun� tricycle in Ocean Beach (which technically wasn�t allowed, but, of course, Harriet found a way around that).

Tyler spoke about the first time he met Harriet�on June 18, 1971. He described it as the greatest moment of his life. They married a year later and have never been apart since...until now. His loving words about �the Big H� brought everyone to tears. And the tears kept coming, as Lily and Elizabeth played guitar and sang, �I�ll Fly Away��with Tyler�s deep baritone joining in on the chorus. Lily�s tribute also included this description of her grandmother:

�She smelled of pink Dove soap and face powder and sunshine. I could have hugged her forever.�

Granddaughter Lily lightened the mood of the crowd by summing up Harriet this way:

�My grandmother could do ANYTHING. She knew how to beat the system! She could return a five-year-old blanket�USED�to a department store and still manage to get a full refund!�

You will be missed, my friend. If only we could have had that last lunch.


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UNE ESCAPADE BELLE - 2012-04-11
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Say WHAT..?? - 2009-07-09
THE MENNONITE SCHLEMIEL - 2009-05-30
HARRIET, DAH-LING! - 2008-08-19


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