A Nice Little Accessory

A pretty purse? A stunning pair of shoes? Or maybe, just maybe, baby....a BABY.

Holiday card from Nassau @1955.

In the mid 1950’s, my mother lived for several years in Nassau with her first husband, U.S. Navy Lt. Commander Gene Lakos, who was at the time the official US government liaison to the British Governor of the Bahamas.

She often referred to Lakos as “The CommAAHHnder,” or “The Monster.” Her extra-juicy diaries and voluminous correspondence from the period are rich snapshots of a very social and privileged time and place—but almost certainly not words and thoughts that she imagined would be pored over by her daughter 70 years later. Thats what happens when you save absolutely everything. Forever.

Here is an excerpt from one of her letters to a friend:

House was remarkably clean—not nearly as bad as I’d feared. It’s still cute but not much fun empty, will be better when my friend The Monster gets home. (Not that it’s been entirely empty so far.)

But it feels drafty in the mornings. I just don’t really like living alone, I guess…Kept wishing there were little creature like cat or dog waiting at home to greet as I drove home the other eve.

May have to start a little creature of my own to accomplish this…Talked to Polly Warfield. They had baby girl — she had caesarian—but they are very pleased with it and say it’s endearing little animal, even tho she’s exhausted right now from the combination of sodium pentathol for operation plus the 2:00 am feedings.

Pat had invited me out on the boat for a day on Saturday and I’m to go back after that to see Polly and the baby. If weather is good and Donaldson’s can come along. I must think of a good baby gift for this baby. Oh, wot can it be? Something different for Warfields…..

I was born about two years later, but by then she was divorced from The Commander and married to my father, aka “Binnsy.”

With “Binnsy” in San Francisco just a couple of years later. Possibly before she was pregnant. Thirteen years before he joined A.A.

Binnsy was an actor. Not just at the time, but forever. When they met, my mother was briefly, post divorce from The Monster, trying to create a career in San Francisco as a journalist. Meanwhile she juggled multiple cryptically-nicknamed gents in the Fourth Estate. My dad was in town appearing in “The Lark” with Julie Harris, on the national tour. (According to family lore, they were briefly “involved.) My cousin Ruth Ann Binns introduced the two at a cocktail rave and they became instantly inseparable. On December 31, 1956, just days after she received the final divorce papers from Mr. Lakos, they married at a quick downtown SF civil ceremony. My mother quickly abandoned her lady-reporter aspirations. If it’s not going to pan out the way I want it to, she reasoned, I might as well have a baby. It’ll be cute.

Things didn’t turn out exactly as she’d hoped.

I may not have turned out to be quite the cute accessory she had in mind.

And just because the landscape of my youth is West Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Malibu, Bel Air, and the Palisades, here are the lyrics to Jerry Jeff Walker’s “L.A. Freeway” (track link below):

Pack up all your dishes
Make note of all good wishes
Say goodbye to the landlord for me
That sum-bitch has always bored me

Throw out them old LA papers
And that moldy box of vanilla wafers
Adios to all this concrete
Gonna get me some dirt road back street

If I can just get off of that L.A. freeway
Without getting killed or caught
Down that road in a cloud of smoke
For some land that I ain't bought bought bought
If I can just get off of that L.A. freeway

Here's to you old skinny Dennis
Only one I think I will miss
I can hear your Bassman singin'
Sweet and low like a gift your bringin'

Play it for me one more time now
Got to give it all we can now
I believe everything your saying
Just keep on keep on playing

If I can just get off of that L.A. freeway
Without getting killed or caught
Down that road in a cloud of smoke
For some land that I ain't bought bought bought
If I can just get off of that L.A. freeway

Put the pink slip in the mailbox
Leave the key in the old front door lock
They will find it likely as not
With all the things that we have forgot
Oh Susanna now don't you cry, babe
Love's a gift that's surely handmade
We've got something to believe in
Before you know it's time we're leavin'

If I can just get off of that L.A. freeway
Without getting killed or caught
Down that road in a cloud of smoke
For some land that I ain't bought bought bought
If I can just get off of that L.A. freeway

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Tidbits For The Week of January 13, 2025

Brigit’s What I’m

CURRENTLY LOVING ➡️  My list of Ten P's for 2025. More in the next post. 
THINKING ABOUT ➡️  The loss of huge swaths of my childhood, literally wiped off the map. So many, many friends in various stages of crisis and grief. 
LISTENING TO ➡️ Jerry Jeff Walker's iconic, L.A. Freeway.