No doubt about it - Mim fell in love with Hawaii & Ireland, but the "big island" that totally swept my sis off her feet was Manhattan. From her first contact in the early 1960s, Mim slipped easily into a New York state of mind.
Our first foray into the wilds of Manhattan was back when I was in middish elementary school, Mim was in high school (I think). Peter took us up to see Mike off on an Atlantic crossing on the original Queen Mary! (Mom was supposed to come to, but she was still recovering from surgery (stripped veins?) & was not up to it.)
What a thrill! The surreal hustle & bustle around the docks. The experience of boarding. The majestic liner & her state rooms were every bit as WOW as we'd imagined.
While Mike's cabin looked to the rest of us like an over-sized closet with 4-bunks squished in, to a former sailor it was cozy enough. When it came to serious squish, seems the Queen Mary didn't come close to the USS Enterprise!
After bidding our farewells bon voyages, Peter bundled us into a taxi & headed to an unknown elsewhere (midtown? downtown?), stunned us by plunking us down on two stools at a Schraft's counter, ordered Cokes, instructed us to sip v e r y s l o w l y, then headed off to a business meeting. I seriously doubt that would have happened if Mom had been with us!
We sipped so slowly, our Cokes got tepid. My first Dali-esque experience of time & place - an eon tick tocked by as two out-of-towners s l o w l y s i p p ed their Cokes at a Schraft's soda fountain counter.
Can still see the advertising placard for Yoo Hoo featuring Yogi Berra - it was over the fountain, near the clock that the two of us (and the counter man) kept watching .
Little did the three of us guess that NYC would become far more synonymous with MIM than Peter. Time would tell!
Mim auditioned for &
was accepted at two outstanding training grounds for the performing arts.
Her first acceptance (in 1966?) was at the Circle in Square Theatre School,
which ran a highly competitive summer theater workshop.
Mom often said that was the
summer the Lockharts first made NYC our playground. In the heart of the
'60s, Mim lived in Greenwich Village. Several times, Mom would put me on
the train & Mim would pick me up to stay for the weekend. When Dad,
Mom & I drove up for her triumphant return home, we enjoyed the first of
what would be many annual visits to the Washington
Square Outdoor Art Show.
Through Mim, the rest of us
got to sample bits & pieces of an astonishing time & place. That
would become a pattern, Mim opening the way for us to experience the
unexpected, even the incredible - think Elizabeth II's visit to Philadelphia, meeting Tasha Tudor and becoming fast friends with Ned Hills & Gretchen Brown, seeing Saturn rockets launch to the moon - through her.
That Mim successfully
auditioned for the summer workshop at Circle in the Square was
impressive. That another audition a couple years later nabbed a spot at Pasadena Playhouse is still mind blowing. Alas, the school closed its doors, without notice, just
as she arrived to start. Literally - she went to register & discovered the school's iconic doors shuttered!
Both schools recognized in Mim talent worth their time, energy, attention. They applauded her as an ACTOR. It still seems incredible. She secretly lined up, then nailed two highly competitive auditions. She PERFORMED off Broadway (okay, off off off). At Circle
in the Square, she appeared in (I think) either a workshop production of either an Edward Albie or a William
Gibson play. Mom & Peter went up & saw her - unforgettable for
all three!
Small wonder her little sis thought Mim could do anything she set her mind to!
A regret - it was always
verboten to ask how she afforded her awesome adventures.
Out-of-state colleges, even mountain schools, aren't cheap, even in the '60s. Imagine the living expenses alone! But Mim somehow managed. There was a wall of silence around her HOW. The fact she financed
getting to NYC & LA & Houston & even Mt. Berry, let
alone came up with the tuitions, is as remarkable as acing the auditions!
Mim might have always sounded
stony broke, but she managed to find funding for truly fabulous
ventures. And her little sis, who longed to learn good money
management (is still working on it), never found out her magical HOW.
