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Personal Christmas memoir by Virginia LeGuey-Feilleux, originally published December 1980.
If ever there was only one thing that could be considered predictable in young single people trying to make it in the big city, it would be that after a few months they will be moving again to a new apartment.
So it was with me in the fall of 1950 when I traded the traditional apartment living of uptown Manhattan for a quaint brownstone with a four flight walk-upon a narrow street in Greenwich Village. Christmas was coming, its music was heard everywhere.
It was a heady moment indeed when I handed over that first month’s rent to my new landlady and could then say I lived in The Village. Coming back to reality I became aware that I was being given a run-down on the tenants in the remaining two apartments. Apt. 2 was glossed over as being occupied by a young couple that gave numerous parties, while the apartment on the first floor seemed to offer more promise.
This couple was at least different.
He it seemed, struggled at song writing while his wife supported him by working in chinaware at Macy’s. I must have smiled sympathetically because my landlady quickly added that things might be looking up for them, that perhaps he had hit on something after all.
He had written a little piece that really seemed to be catching on–a little ditty called Rudolph The RedNosed Reindeer.
Not long after, I had a chance to catch a glimpse of our hero.
I was down at my mailbox one evening when I heard the latch turn in the door of Apt. 1. Someone was coming out.
I was curious as to what this song writer would look like. Having learned that his name was Johnny Marks and with visions of red noses, I had a pretty clear idea of what I was about to see.
The door opened and closed quietly, but what should emerge from the dim shadows of the hall but a man looking for all the world to be chairman of the board of a firm with a Wall Street address.
His mustache was close-clipped, his bearing aloof.
He wore a dark suit topped with a black chesterfield and on his head was an expensive homburg.
He moved through the narrow passageway, past the stairs, the mailboxes, and me. I watched him glide through the door of our apartment building, up the steps and onto the street.
Two weeks later the tenants from Apt. 1 didn’t live there any more.
Originally published in The Paper, December 1980.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1980_12.pdf, printed page(s) 1, 7; PDF page(s) 1, 7.
