Among the many events and programs celebrating the Fourth of July this year, the ABC-Disney production with David Muir featuring the Statue of Liberty sparked a memory that had escaped me for years. About 1945 or perhaps ‘46, my Aunt Bubs took my brother on a visit to New York City. She had recently returned from England where she had served as a WAC during the war.
She brought back watches she told us that had been
given her by U.S. airmen for safe keeping if they did not return from missions
over Germany. She said that she had two
that she would give to my brother and me if we bought them for $10 each. I assume her idea was that we would take
better care of them if they cost us than if they were free. Jim gave her the money right away and got the
first watch. It took me longer to
accumulate the funds—from my 25 cents a week allowance—but finally, with help
from my parents, I received mine. My
first watch. I wore it day and
night. Within a year, it stopped
running.
Jim was
7 or 8, I was about 5. I don’t know why
she wanted to take him to the city. My
father was teaching at Rider College and we lived in Trenton so it was not a
long trip. Before the war she had lived on MacDougal Alley in the Village,
perhaps she wanted to visit it, perhaps show it to her nephew. I was not invited. I don’t remember being disappointed at the
time. He was older and was allowed to do
a lot that I was not.
Later, my mother told me that Aunt Bubs and Jim were walking down Fifth Avenue when she discovered that he had walked out of his shoes. I was not surprised. He often kicked off his shoes; for some reason my mother could not find him a comfortable fit. At that time, I had not been to Fifth Avenue, I doubt my mother had, but I knew that it was the fanciest street in the city and pictured it peopled with wealthy, well-dressed, proper folk. Mother said that Aunt Bubs was mortified, and immediately found a store where she bought Jim new shoes.
When Jim returned, he was not concerned with shoes. He reported with great pride that he had been to the Statue of Liberty and had climbed to the crown.
I was overwhelmed: hurt,
envy, disappointment. That
disappointment lasted for years.
Gradually, however, the feelings not only faded, so did the memory.
I have lived in
Manhattan, ridden ferries by Liberty Island, passed the statue on numerous
occasions including on freighters sailing to and from Europe, but I never
visited.
And then, on the evening
news this July, David Muir said he was going to visit Liberty and memories
flashed before me as vividly as if I were again five years old. I had to watch.
It is 151 feet 1 inch from her feet to the top of
the torch, 305 feet 1 inch high from ground level. It is made of copper about the thickness of
two U.S. pennies and has within its web of girders a circular stair from the base to the crown.
I mentioned to my daughter that I planned to watch the program and she told me that when she was at Princeton, she and her husband visited the statue and climbed to the crown, that the climb up was tiring but the trip down killed her knees. When she visited again with her kids, they did not attempt the climb.
The hour-long program did a fine job of showing the statue, inside and out, with views of the harbor and the city. David Muir not only climbed to the crown, he went up the ladder in the arm to the platform below the torch, a climb that has not been allowed to the public since 1916.
So. My brother, my daughter, my aunt, and other family members have visited the statue and made the climb to the crown. I no longer desire to do it. After some eighty years, I am liberated.
