It is possible to be thankful every moment, every
day. It is possible to be thankful every moment,
every day. It takes practice and humility. Hi,
and welcome to Tell Me What Happened, the podcast
that features real people talking about real
events from their childhood and how those events
impacted their lives. I'm your host, Jay Rehack.
And I love listening to stories from people's
childhood, which also helped me understand who
those people are. Tell Me What Happened is sponsored
by Sidelining Publishing, publishers of quality
books, including Susan Salador's children's book,
I've Got Peace in My Fingers, available worldwide
wherever quality books are sold. Tell Me What
Happened is also sponsored by laughsaver .com.
Visit laughsaver .com and record your laughter.
We'll save it for you now and forever. It's free
and it's easy to use. That's laughsaver .com.
So today I'd like to introduce to you a friend
of mine, a man I've known for about 35 years,
one of the most creative men I've ever met in
my life. He's a production designer out in California,
works on TV and movies, et cetera. But more than
anything relative to his job is just the fact
that every time I talk to him, There's just a
creativity and an energy that I envy. So I'd
like to welcome to our show, Tell Me What Happened,
Stuart Blatt. Stuart's out in Pasadena right
now, and we're doing this via Zoom. So welcome,
Stuart. Thank you, Jay. Welcome to you. Well,
Stuart, tell me what happened. Are you ready
to tell your story? I guess so. I think I was
ready as I'll ever be. Alright, you know what
I'm gonna do Stuart. I'm gonna get out of the
way I'm gonna let you tell your story then afterwards
I'm gonna ask you one question and that's gonna
be how is that whatever you're telling me How
has that impacted your life, but I will not interrupt
you if I can if I can help it So microphone is
yours All right well It all started years ago,
I guess everything started years ago my I'm through
the Philadelphia area and my grandparents owned
a farm that was a summer camp where they lived
in North Wales, Pennsylvania. And it was 137
acres. And it was my kingdom. I was the first
grandchild. And I was very close to my grandparents.
And my mom was raised there. And my mom was not
so in love with the country having been raised
there as an only child for a while until her
siblings were born. But for me, it was always
very captivating, and I loved being there with
my grandparents and my aunts and uncles, and
I loved exploring, and I loved walking through
the woods, and I loved spending every bit of
time I could out there. And we also happened
to live on the property when I was very young,
so it was very near and dear to my heart. And
my mom had three siblings. They all were born
and raised there. And my mom's youngest sister,
Rosie, was everything to me. She was my world.
And I was her play toy. I think she was probably
12 or so when I was born. And so I was, you know,
this new puppy that they got to bring home and
play with. And I have fantastic memories and
a lot of photographs of she and I together playing
in the snow, building snowmen or building igloos
or doing... other adventurous things on the property.
But my memories of my aunt are what I hold near
and dear to me because, again, I think because
I was the first grandchild and I was so new to
her that she treated me like a plaything and
a puppy dog. And she would take me everywhere.
And I have great memories. of going to her high
school with her when I was very young. And I
really can't even place these as much as I can
remember them viscerally of learning to make
peanut butter cookies with she and her friends.
And as out of memory as that is, whenever I see
or eat a peanut butter cookie and see the three
depressions of the fork times in the top of a
peanut butter cookie, a memory floods back of
that day. at North Penn High School in Lansdale,
Pennsylvania, of making peanut butter cookies
with my aunt and her friends. I also have a memory
of my aunt and her friends taking me to a high
school football game. But I remember going to
sit in the end zone on the grassy hill behind
the goalpost, and I remember them bringing a
bag of confetti with them. I'm not sure if I
ever saw confetti in my life. I don't know if
they just bought this at a party store. If they
even had party stores back in, you know, 1962.
But I remember now, whenever I see confetti,
also telling this story and launching into the
idea of this memory of, I guess we threw confetti
in the air at the game. I have no idea what we
did. But it's a very visceral or cellular memory
of my aunt. Philadelphia... At that time, in
the early 60s, I was born in 56. Philadelphia
was a very happening city. And even though we
lived in the suburbs and further out, my grandparents'
farm was in the country, which has now really
become the suburbs, because everything is encroached
upon it. And the farm's been gone for years.
The camp's been sold, and now it's a housing
development. But Philadelphia had a very famous
and still has a very famous folk festival, the
Philadelphia Folk Festival, which was one of
the... across the country, along with Newport
Folk Festival in Newport, Rhode Island, Philadelphia
Folk Festival, and I believe in Monterey. That
was a fairly famous one. And I have a very, very
faint memory of my aunt taking me there, walking
across the field. I don't remember who we saw.
I'm sure if I were able to come up with a date
that I was there, we saw amazing performers.
It was the height of the folk scene. It was,
you know, probably 1963, 64, 65. And there were,
you know, probably, you know, who knows? It could
have been Dylan. It could have been Phil Oakes.
It could have been Joan Baez. It could have been
any one of the major players in the folk scene.
And I have no idea of who I saw, but I just have
a vague memory of walking across the field. But
again, I was able to revisit the Philadelphia
Folk Festival for the second time, the first
time being a very young child, about six years
ago, and trying to... evoke that memory of being
there with her. And I wasn't able to. As great
of memories I have, this is just one of the millions
of memories I have. And so just suffice to say
that being there and seeing all the cars parked
in the field and walking across the field and
walking to the tents to see the different performers
stirred up all these amazing emotions in me.
And as I got older and my aunt got a little older,
she became everything that I wanted to be. She
was a hippie. and she was a folk singer, and
she was an artist, and it was everything I wanted
my world to be then. And I got myself a fringe
buckskin jacket, and I had, like, some kind of
beaver pelt fringed belt and moccasins. And I
really thought myself to be this little junior
hippie. I was, like, in the junior hippie club.
And I remember going... My aunt had moved into...
The city at this point was going to the Philadelphia
College of Art and the Tyler School of Art, which
is also associated with Temple University, part
of one of the campuses of Temple. And I have
a memory of going with her to her classrooms
at the Tyler School of Art, which was in some
wild old barn or crazy building where there was
plaster casts of statues and, you know, anything
that you can imagine being an art studio, this
was there. And I have a very but faint memory
of going there with her. But I do remember going
to her apartment with her other, I'm gonna call
them hippie folk singer friends, because to me,
they were all hippies and folk singers. I don't
know if any of them were folk singers, and I
don't know if any of them actually were hippies,
but they're all hippies at this point. And I
remember a very clear memory of they had painted
on their refrigerator. some sort of free -form
Peter Max kind of art. And I remember thinking,
this is the coolest thing in the world. You can
paint on your refrigerator. And, you know, being
a young child, and even though my parents were
in the arts, my parents happened to be both dancers.
My dad was a dancer on Broadway. We didn't live
a bohemian existence. We were very suburban.
My parents had a dancing school and then later
became florists and, you know, was fairly...
mainstream in a non -mainstream world. They didn't
work in an office. They didn't work for a factory
or a corporation. But even still, my lifestyle
was fairly to very mainstream, albeit I got to
live in a world of arts, luckily. And my parents
were very supportive of that. You know, but my
aunt was different. And my aunt, you know, had
this amazing energy. And she was, again, I was
around her. pretty much all year long because
my grandparents, as I said, owned a summer camp,
and my aunt was one of the counselors there when
I was a very young camper. And so her energy
and her enthusiasm was always around me, and
she always had her guitar, and she was always
singing folk songs, and folk music was a big
part of my life because, hey, that was the era.
So if you had any life with any kind of music,
and it was the 60s, folk music was there. My
life was either folk music or Broadway show tunes.
So those are the two things that really honestly
that have shaped my life in the most complete
form of who I am, why I am, what I am and how
I am is show business, show tunes and folk music.
So, and my aunt, when she still lived with my
grandparents in their big farmhouse, had a room
that was the most fascinating place for me to
spend time and discover it. It was really like
Alice down the rabbit hole because I'd walk into
her room and it was full of her paintings and
it was full of posters and it was full of books
on poetry and not that I was that, I don't want
to be so bold or even exaggerate the fact that
I was inspired by poetry because of that. But
there was one specific thing and also her music
and I would spend time in there with her and
without her just sort of poking around looking
in drawers and looking behind whatever album
was on the front of the stack so everything about
my aunt was adventurous and larger than life
and exciting and a glimpse into a world that
i guess i assumed i was going to be in and so
many great memories you know her taking us on
the train to go to Florida to visit my grandparents
and her taking me to see a Beatles movie at a
movie theater. But I don't have a lot of fully
fledged memories except for almost like snapshots
or a slideshow of memories because they were
so long ago. And when I was 12 in September of
1968, my aunt and I believe four or five other
friends were up in New England or maybe specifically
Woodstock, New York or somewhere around there,
I'm not exactly sure where, and they were all
killed in a horrific car accident. And I think
being so young when it happened, even though
we were so close and she was my everything, I
don't think I was able to really place it in
a context. I don't know if I knew anybody who
had died. I certainly wasn't close to anyone
who had died. And I know because she was the
youngest and she was this crazy energy and much
loved by everyone in the family, and of course
everyone at the summer camp with friends and
relatives from afar, it rocked the world. And
I know it really... sort of was a knife in my
family's heart for a long time. And I don't really
think my grandparents ever recovered, even though
this was 1968 and my grandparents lived until,
I think, the 80s. But I believe there was always
a veil over everything after that. I know my
mother, who's 86 years old, is still very, very...
and is easily brought to tears if we talk about
it. But my grandparents left my aunt's room exactly
like it was for years. But whenever I would go
to their house, which was often, I'd go into
the room, which was frozen in time, and still
do the same exploring. You know, the exploring
was... probably searching for more of my aunt
at this point and trying to bring back or revive
more memories and keep them alive in me. And
from that room, three or four very clear memories
I have was, or still have, is a memory of a small
book of poetry. by Laurence Ferlinghetti, who
was very famous in the beat poetry era and opened
the City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, which
is the home of all the, you know, Ginsburg and,
you know, Cassidy and Jack Kerouac and everybody,
everybody who was anybody in that world with
the fringe jacket and moccasins. And my aunt's
albums that were always stacked on the floor
and not stacked on top of each other, but stacked
one in front of the other so they were stacked
so you could leaf through easily. And three of
those albums are incredible visual memories for
me. One is Anita Simone album. I don't think
I had any idea who Anita Simone was. One was
a Fred Neal album. No idea who Fred Neal was.
One was a band called Moby Grape. Had no idea
who Moby Grape was. And I think they may have
been a Leonard Cohen album. Now, I now, and I'm
64 years old, but for years, I've had my aunt's
entire record collection, and they all live in
boxes in the garage. And everyone, so while I'm
out there, I'll take them out and I'll look at
these albums, and it'll be an immediate flashback
to that room, and of course, looking at those
albums. And about five years ago, weird coincidences
have happened. I worked at a restaurant back
in 1983, and somehow, in Silver Lake, California,
and somehow the owner got Nina Simone to come
perform for a week. I didn't have the nerve to
say anything to her about it. But it was, again,
I always felt so connected. I did a TV show in
San Francisco about six or seven years ago, and
we shot at the City Lights Bookstore. And I know
that Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who's a much elderly
man, still came in there. I believe maybe he
still owned it. And I very badly wanted to go
in and tell him the story. of my aunt, but couldn't
bring myself to do it. I don't think I was overcome
with emotion. I think I was just scared out of
my mind as to what he'd say to me. I don't know.
I really don't know why. But I think all these
events are my aunt still letting me know that
she's present in my life. And I have dreams about
her every so often. And usually the dreams, it's
me running into her as, well, now she'd be It's
not me running into her as a 76 -year -old. It's
me running into her as an older than the last
time I saw her, but maybe not that much older.
And I think I'm always asking her, where is she?
And she says, oh, you know, I'll be back. I think
her answer is, I'll be back, or I'm around, that
kind of thing. And when our daughter Addie was
born, her middle name is Rose, named after my
Aunt Rosie. And she oddly... looked very similar
to Aunt Rosie. And we have photographs of the
two of them. If you put them side by side, they're
not, certainly not photographs together, but
there's an eerie similarity that everyone remarks
upon. So it's, when I embarked in the life in
the arts, first pursuing acting, and then now
as a career as a production designer, I think
I'm always wondering what she thinks of it, assuming
that she's watching, because what else would
she have better to do than to watch everything
I do in life, and trusting that she's there,
whatever there means, wherever there is. I was
fortunate a few years ago to be in Philadelphia
with my parents and actually got a chance We
happened to be at the cemetery where she was
buried for another funeral, but I walked over
to where her tomb grave marker was and was able
to stand there for a few minutes and talk to
her, not about really anything specifically.
I think really just to say hi and to check in,
but she is an ever present, constant force. And
I don't mean daily or weekly, in so much that
there's never a day that goes by, there's never
a moment that goes by that I'm not thinking about
her. But in some respects, there probably isn't,
because in everything I do, whether it's my creations
at work, my art at work, whether it's my gardening,
which is really not so much her, but her father,
my grandfather, who I was very close with, my
vegetable gardening, but... Her energy is something
that I think I carry and was buoyed. I mean,
my love of folk music, my love of the arts, my
love of a good buckskin fringe jacket and moccasins.
It's something that I imagine I'll carry forever.
And yeah, that's pretty much my story. I love
it, man. That's very powerful. It's a beautiful
story. And I'm telling you, I actually, I've
known you for 35 years, and you've got this,
you know, this ball of energy, you know, this
ball of creation. You're constantly drawing something
or making something or making stuff happen all
the time. And it sort of makes sense that, I
mean, short of answering my question, but how
she's impacted your life, but it just feels like
you're, I'll let you speak to it, but just the
idea that... Your creativity is an you know,
it's it's it comes from you but it may have some
relationship to You know what your aunt may have
I shouldn't say nurtured you or somehow but I'm
gonna get out of the way I don't want to speak
for you how you know how it's impacted you Well,
I you know, I think I mean in retrospect to the
idea of how She's impacted me because she left
me when I was so young that I really hadn't formed
myself into anything at 12 -year -old, at 12
years of age, except for everything. Everything
I do, I think, is, you know, I have all of her
old portfolio from art school that I look at
once in a while. And I have her old sketchbooks
and her old, you know, and I don't know what
I'll ever do with them. I will literally, I'm
sure, never do anything with them. I don't have
that kind of wall space to put all the artwork
up. And... But I love the idea of going into
the garage and opening them up and looking at
them or sitting in the guest room and opening
up the portfolio and leafing through them all
and thinking about them and sort of just daydreaming
about it. Crazily, because I'm a very emotional
person, I remember recently, almost a year ago,
I happened to be in Serbia working on a television
show. And I was at dinner with two guys I work
with. Neither of them I'm that close with. And
neither of them are people that open up emotionally
to me and somehow we got in a conversation and
this story of my aunt came up and brought me
to hysterical tears where I couldn't compose
myself in front of two people who were staring
at me like they couldn't get away from me fast
enough even though we're fairly close in work
relationships I think they must have thought
I was out of my mind and crazy but you know this
is this is a testament to my and my relationship
with my aunt, or my relationship with my memory
of my aunt, because again, my relationship ended,
the physical relationship ended when I was 12.
And interestingly enough, in the past couple
years, we've, my wife and I, have had a couple
spirit circles at our home, where we've invited
a medium over and other friends have come, and
this medium will do what mediums do, you know?
talk through the spirits that are in the room
when they come to visit or whatever. And I'm
always hoping for some big revelation. And my
wife says, you know, you're going to get what
you're going to get. And you need to be open
to whatever it is you're getting at that moment
and stop looking for more, thinking there's going
to be more, or expecting it to be more. Just
sit back and take in what is coming at that time.
But, uh... One of the weird things, and I'm not
sure if, again, life imitating art, art imitating
life, chicken on the road, or whatever you want
to call it, is somehow at a very early age, and
I need to even check the dates on this to see
if I've just made up the story in my mind, is
my aunt had introduced me, maybe even just a
photograph or maybe she had the album cover,
I don't know, to the music from Big Pink album
from the band, who is Probably my favorite band
of all time. And I don't know if they're my favorite
band of all time because of that connection with
my aunt, which I'm quite sure didn't not contribute
to that, or if I've made up this and romanticized
this story about them because of her, but also,
bizarrely either enough, one of my other favorite
bands, who happened to be from Philadelphia,
is Hall & Oates. And just recently, I've heard
stories from another cousin of my aunt, Rosie,
playing guitar. with John Oates when they were
both of high school age, whether they were in
high school together or not, I'm not sure, but
maybe the small Philadelphia folks scene or even
the smaller folks scene out in the suburbs in
Lansdale, Pennsylvania. So somehow, again, through
everything, you know, my aunt circles around
me and her energy, her spirit, her light, her
whatever. And it's something I hold very near
and dear to me, that there are so many facets
of my life that she has either created or she
has nurtured or prolonged. But it's pretty awesome.
Well done. Well, thank you very much, Stuart.
That was fantastic. I mourn for your loss. I
mean, it makes me sad that you lost there. But
it actually, again, I've known you for a long
time. And it's sort of... informs me about who
you are in the sense that all that creativity
all that sort of You sort of take a joy and just
about all the different arts You're not just
kind of a limited guy in that way. You're not
the music. It's the dance It's the you know all
the different things and so who you are really
comes through and I think that I Don't I don't
know what the deep and I don't I'm not smart
enough to know the deeper connections, but Nor
am I. She does live within you, I'm sure. So
thank you for being my guest. I really do appreciate
it. Thank you for including my story in your
book. So that's our show. I'd like to thank our
guest Stuart Blatt for that great story. I'd
also like to remind our audience that Sideline
Ink Publishing will be publishing a collection
of stories from the Tell Me What Happened podcast.
and we'd love to hear or read your story. For
more information on how to submit your story,
please contact me at jaycrehak .com. I look forward
to hearing from you. Now we're going to end the
show with Susan Salador's inspirational song,
Every Moment, Every Day, which is available on
Spotify and iTunes and just about everywhere
you listen to music. So until next time, This
is Jay Rehack asking you to stay safe out there
and try not to hurt anybody. It is possible to
be thankful It is possible to be thankful every
moment, every day.