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Note: REFN3 Laura Dupee Benkard
November 28, 1909 - November 28, 1988
In the Kaufman-Ferber burlesque of the Barrymores, The Royal Family, there is a scene at, believe, the end of the second act; the stage, inside a New York townhouse, is packed with almost the whole cast in a gaggle of confusion. lust when the chaos c an't get worse, the dashing Tony--last seen in Act One--arrives back from a circumnavigation complete with a huge dog, an ape, an aviary on his back, snakes on his arms and an alligator on a leash. The house is convulsed and the curtain falls, leaving th e audience to puzzle through the second intermission as to how it can all come out right.
Art follows life, A friend of the Benkard family cannot see this scene without what Yogi Berra calls "deja vu all over again". This was lifted from 1000 Park Avenue, Apartment 28; home to the Benkards and host to several score of transients as their home away from home; Laura, their mother away from mother: warm and cozy digs presided over by the unflappable Mrs. B. The personae of this opera buffo included Benny, the remarkably sedentary world-weary raconteur, piano player, music lover, and devotee of Spengler who saw in us all too vivid proof of the Decline of the West. Benny liked to monopolize the young wome n we brought around, particularly if they would play duets with him, talk of history and of literature, especially Rabelais, and be too polite to slip away. Then there were the peers of the parents, such worthies as Captain Van Liew, the dashing Rickenba cker-style hero of peace and war whose major contribution to our nation's defense was to get Jim into the Marines where he overnight went from Lord Peter Wimsey to Rambo. There was a Mr. Griffin--who always seemed to be in a cast and who contributed a si gn in the pantry: "Work is the curse of the drinking class" --and others nowfaded from specfic memories.
Joan always had a crew in from Oldfields, lovely young, omen who would cuddle us harmless eighth graders,�stirring in us nascent strange yearnings that became lifelong afflictions. I still can picture Taffy Woods, avatar of spring loveliness
Jim's friends were shameless in their acceptance of hospitality. I think we called first-usually; some would just arrive. Many of us, Nat, Steve, Dooney, myself were from out of town. Others, New Yorkers, made the Benkards their base, Tucky, Tom, Fre ddy were some of these--despite perfectly good homes of their own. We were never turned away, never without a bed somewhere No one to my knowledge was ever up before Laura. She would be there in the kitchen dispensing coffee, breakfast and inquiring with genuine curiosity and not the slightest trace of parental judgmentalness as to how things were going. The interest was real; the conversation the best therapy we ever had and, at least in those days, ever needed. But of all the guests one was always extra social. We all knew our place; in Laura's vast extended family, Kelley Anderson reigned supreme--a paragon, her own j ewel--the Queen's favorite. This perfectly ordinary mortal was, in Laura's eyes, Apollo, Achilles, George Washington, Joe DiMaggio.
Then there were the animals; the zoo. Laura and Benny were given an alligator as a wedding present from a Grande dame in Boston. Rather than risking disapproval from this patroness by consigning the beast to live with his pale white
this was less than tragic but no, within a couple of months, he was missed and replaced by two new alligators. Fourteen birds, including a grape-throwing Toucan, were not enough. Two poodles, Bruno and Junior, later Henry, the basset, were not enough. T wo children with myriad friends were not enough. Penny arid the adult satellites were not enough. Two alligators rounded things out nicely.
It would have been fine to think that all these relationships, human, bestial and aviary, were symbolic in nature. It is hard,
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