Golden Girls Epsiode: Clinton Avenue Memoirs

"The Golden Girls" was a comedy series set in Miami, Florida (it wasn't filmed in Miami) and originally telecast on the NBC network from 1985 through 1992. The basic gist of the show is that four women, 3 widowed and 1 divorced, share a house together and develop such a strong family-like friendship, they deal with and overcome their differing personality conflicts, as they support each other in life's challenges, including that of aging. 

 

This episode originally aired on NBC in February 1990.

 

Episode Cast: 

Bea Arthur as Dorothy Zbornak

Estelle Getty as Sophia Petrillo

Betty White as Rose Nylund

Rue McClanahan as Blanche Devereaux 

Sid Melton as Sal Petrillo (Sophia's deceased husband, Dorothy's father)

David Correia as Mr. Hernandez (the tenant in the Petrillo's former apartment)

 

Sophia forgets that Dorothy is taking her out to eat for her wedding anniversary, something Dorothy does every year since Sal died. Dorothy is concerned that her mother is getting more forgetful, and this concern only increases when she sits down with Sophia to look through her mother's photo album of pictures from the past. At one point Sophia says that her late husband Sal had carved a heart and "Sal loves Sophia" on the inside of the kitchen pantry door at their former apartment in Brooklyn. Dorothy corrects her mother by saying that the kitchen pantry door was where her mother and father kept the children's height marked. Sophia gets upset that she can't recall everything. Dorothy takes her mother to the doctor, who tells them Sophia may have a nutritional imbalance that is causing her memory problems. Dorothy also suggests that they talk about old times to refresh her mother's memory about the past. 

 

Sophia decides to go back to Brooklyn to help stir her memories of Sal and her earlier life. She makes a poignant statement to Dorothy, Blanche and Rose, "I hate getting old, you always seem to be losing something. First it's your eyesight, then people tell you to turn down the TV set, when you can barely hear it, and you could live with that, but this, they're trying to take something from me I just won't give. I can't let this happen, Dorothy. I can't lose my Sal, not again." 

 

Sophia and Dorothy travel to Brooklyn and go to their old apartment. They explain to the current tenant that they once lived there and that they would like to look around, for old times' sake. He agrees and they enter the apartment. Sophia recognizes some of the old wallpaper that is still on the wall, but when they go to the kitchen and open the pantry door, there is no heart carved on the inside of the door, but rather the height markings for the Petrillo children. Sophia is discouraged and she decides to go upstairs to the bedroom. She takes a photo of Sal out of her purse and sets it on the nightstand. When she asks the photo "What's wrong with me," Sal appears and cracks a one liner. At first, Sophia wants sympathy from Sal, but Sal tells her she is losing her spunk and that he originally liked her because she was a survivor. When he then mentions one of Sophia's deceased female friends, Sophia warns Sal that he'd better not be messing around with the woman in heaven. Sal tells Sophia she still has some fire and he tells her that when the time is right, he'll be waiting for her. Sal disappears. 

Dorothy comes into the room with the tenant and when he opens the bedroom closet door, there is the carved heart with "Sal loves Sophia." Now Sophia is reassured about her memory, as she tells Dorothy she got the kitchen pantry mixed up with the bedroom closet, because Sal used to hang salami in the bedroom closet. haha 

       

 

Photo is from the 2006 Buena Vista Home Entertainment & Touchstone Television Fifth Season Set

WORD HISTORY:

Die-This is the verb meaning, "to lose life, to pass into a state of death," not the noun meaning, "little cube with dots on it," most commonly used in the plural "dice" in English. The verb "die" goes back to Indo European "dheu," which meant "to die, to pass away." This gave Old Germanic "dawjanan," which seems to have meant both "to die," but also, at least in certain contexts, "to kill." Now, some believe Old English had a form derived from the Old Germanic word which either died out (no pun intended), or remained in use among the common folk, and therefore was not written down.^ The common "written" word for "to die" in Old English became modern English "starve," now meaning the more specific "die from hunger;" compare close relative German, "sterben," which still has the more general meaning "to die." By the 1100s the word began to spread in usage, either through reinforcement of an existing, but unwritten form of "die," with the reinforcement coming from Old Norse "deyja," or by a direct borrowing of "deyja." Various spellings were used: dege, dien, and then deien, before the modern spelling. The pronunciation likely emphasized the "e" sound, rather than the more common long "i" sound of modern times, although in Scotland the pronunciation "dee" is still common. Forms of the word died out in many of the other Germanic languages, but Danish and Norwegian still have "dø," Icelandic has "deyja," Frisian has "deagean," Swedish has "dö." 

 

^ Old Saxon, the close relative of Old English, had "doian," and another close relative, Old High German, had "touwen," for example, which would suggest that English too had a form of the word, perhaps "diean" or "diegan."

Time Takes A Toll

As the years pass, from some point in our childhood, we realize that we all share a common fate that will take life from us. That fate befalls some far too early, but it will befall all of us. When we are 20, it all seems far off and generally incomprehensible. But then the decades tick by almost like they are singular years and our appearance changes more and more as we journey toward our end. It scares most of us, probably all of us. Some seek refuge in religion, but that can't save us from our inevitable destiny. We ache, we hobble, we're unsteady, we get dizzy, we tremble, we see spots before our eyes, we have to listen more closely to hear things, and there are any number of other things. 

 

If we're lucky, as time ticks onward, no matter how much we wish it were not the case, the people close to us in our lives pass on in predictable order; that is, great grandparents (also great-great aunts and uncles), grandparents (also great aunts and uncles), parents (also aunts and uncles). Of course, this is idealistic in many ways, as I'd guess few people experience such an orderly passing of their family members, let alone the passing of neighbors or the people they grew up with or those they came to know closely or perhaps just as basic acquaintances. Deaths of people in our lives hurt, even if they are "expected," but they both stun and hurt a lot more when they come at us out of nowhere. As we lose people in our lives, we hear the footsteps of life's worst bogeyman, "Death," as the footsteps tail us from some distance, but they always keep gaining on us, as the footsteps grow ever louder and they draw closer and closer. When will death catch us?

Like other people, I've had the ugly shock of unexpected deaths of people in my lifetime, but two of those deaths hit me especially hard and made me face something that I'd tried to ignore ... the footsteps were getting closer. When I was 50, one of those deaths was of a former boss named Al who was about 4 years older than me. He dropped dead in the shower at his home as he got ready to go to work one morning. I saw the death notice for him in the newspaper, and while I'm sure I knew the truth, I later called his secretary to have her confirm it to me. That's was how I learned what had happened to him. A few years later, I saw an even more terrifying obituary, an obituary for Joe, one of my best friends from childhood. Al's death really hurt, but Joe's death was a full scale wallop that shook me to the core. When we were in our early 30s, Joe was tremendously stressed over the possible permanent loss of his job, due to steel plant closings during the 1980s. I still recall him telling me back then, "Remember when we were kids? We didn't have to worry about earning a living, because that worry was with our parents. Our biggest worry was to have enough money to buy a new wiffle ball and our next bottle of pop."* Learning of Joe's death was almost too painful to deal with, and there are no medicines for such pain.  

 

We wish we had one more time with so many of those who have passed from our lives; one more time to tell them something special, one more time to give them the hug we wished we had given them before they were gone and the footsteps behind us grew louder.  

 

* A wiffle ball was/is a baseball type ball of plastic, with holes in its surface. Because it was made of plastic, it wasn't much of a threat to do damage to property, like vehicles or windows, so it could be used just about anywhere, which was naturally not the same with a regular baseball. Of course, as kids, we were innovative. A wiffle ball didn't always hold up very well, so we wrapped them in various types of tape to make them last longer, but that also made them somewhat heavier, which made them travel further, and it also could make them more likely to put at least a mark on a car or "perhaps" even crack a window. Wiffle ball was VERY popular in our neighborhood and we played in the schoolyard, a churchyard, alleys, streets and playgrounds. It was also pretty thrifty, as you only needed the plastic bat, the ball (with tape, although you could get by without it) and whatever you could scrounge up to use for bases, and they didn't have to be pretty. And pop, or soda pop to some, was typically sold in bottles back then, not cans.   

 

 

WORD HISTORY:

Destiny (Destine)-The main body of this word is related to a large number of words like: "station," "statue," the verb "stay" (meaning "remain in place, stop"), all words of Latin derivation borrowed by English from Latin-based French, to "status," a Latin word borrowed from that language, to "stand" (both the verb and the noun) and to "stead," with these words coming from the Germanic roots of English. The "de-" is a common prefix in Latin and its offspring languages, related through Indo European to English "to" and "too," which go back to the Germanic roots of English. "De-" goes back to Indo European "de," with a wide range of meanings like, "stemming or coming from, because of/by reason of (both closely connected to "stemming/coming from"), from, down from," and this gave Latin "de," generally meaning "from, down from, about, concerning." The main body of "destiny" goes back to Indo European "sta/steh," which meant, "to stand, to be in place, to be firm (that is, "in place")," with the extended form "steno." This gave Latin "stinare," meaning, "to fix in place," and with the prefix this gave Latin "destinare," meaning "to establish, to set securely in place, to make firm." This passed to Latin-based Old French as "destiner," meaning "to set in place or occur (by fate or deities)," and its past participle (feminine), "destinée," was used as a noun for "fate" ("that which is intended to happen"). English borrowed the word in the 1300s from French as "destine," before "destiny," and with the same meaning, generally more concisely as, "predetermined outcome. "English also borrowed the verb from French "destiner" as "destinen," meaning "to predetermine by way of some intention by fate or deities," and "to predetermine," as in, "The starlet is destined for tremendous fame" (that is, she is so good, fame is already determined; it is inevitable, her destination is fame), and further in meaning, "an intended purpose or goal," as in, "The terrible storm forced the closing of roads and we had been destined for the beach."  

Bette Davis Was Right About Aging

Unfortunately, some people suffer with medical problems throughout their lives, but there's no question, that once we pass a certain age, which varies by person, even people who have gone decades without major illness or injury start to feel the effects of just having lived. We often hear about "aches and pains," and much of this pain sort of creeps up on us; that is, it doesn't necessarily slug us in the jaw and knock us to the ground, but rather some people start to feel pain or achiness in some parts of the body, often like in knees, hands or shoulders. As time passes the achiness may intensify, and achiness may also flare up elsewhere. Generally speaking, when we're younger, and if we're fortunate, we won't have too many difficulties to deal with at the same time. When we get older, however, things can begin to happen in quick succession, giving the sufferers multiple health issues to deal with, and bringing with them necessary changes to the lives of people so afflicted. I mentioned "aches and pains," but remember, even if some are lucky enough to escape these problems in their early decades of life, as we age, many people have some change in their eyesight, their hearing, their teeth, their blood pressure, their digestion and their balance. Those "aches and pains" are likely that nefarious enemy ... arthritis; inflammation in the joints, which can also cause swelling. Of course the chances of far more serious conditions rise with advancing years, like heart problems, respiratory problems and cancer.  
 
This brings me to one of my favorite actresses ... Bette Davis. Besides her many roles in show business over the decades, Bette Davis was also known for being outspoken. In her later years she suffered with breast cancer and strokes, as well as, I'm sure, a number of conditions I mentioned above. She also uttered the line, "Old age ain't no place for sissies." There's a funny thing about this quote, while oft attributed to Davis, I can find no time or place for her quip, although I must admit, I haven't exactly made this my life's mission, especially since my neck hurts, my shoulder is bothering me, my hand is shaking, my blood pressure pill is due, there's ringing in one ear and there is tingling between my should blades. So whatever the case about who actually said, "Old age ain't no place for sissies," there is much truth in the line.

WORD HISTORY:
Quote-This word is distantly related to a whole series of common words from the Germanic roots of English: "who," "whom," "how," "why," "where," "what," and a number of others. It is also distantly related to "quorum," a Latin-derived word borrowed by English. It goes back to the Indo European root "kwo," which produced the expanded form "kwo-ti," which had to do with "how many, how much." This gave Latin "quot" ("how many"), which produced Latin "quotus" ("what number in order," also, "which"), and this produced the verb, "quotare" ("to differentiate by numbers;" thus also, "to divide a book by numbers/chapters, to set an amount or value to some item). This was passed to Latin-based French as "coter" ("to set a price or value for items," "to give an evaluation of something"). This was borrowed by English as "coten" in the second half of the 1300s, seemingly from both Latin and French, but initially with the Latin meaning, "to divide a book by numbers/chapters." By the second half of the 1500s the spelling had changed to "quote," and the meaning had developed to, "to use or cite a numbered part of a book (chapter) as a reference." By the second half of the 1600s the meaning had moved to, "to cite sentences or particular passages of text." In the mid 1800s one of the old meanings returned, "to set a price or value for items," but whether this came from French or Latin, I'm not sure. The noun form seems to be both a use of the verb form as a noun, but also a shortened form of the closely related "quotation."