I was in in New York on a quick visit for something involving my daughter there, I forget what. My brother-in-law asked if was staying for Theo's big bash. I had no idea what he was talking about, and asked WHAT big bash. Well, it turned out that the next night, a Sunday, when I had been planning to fly back to Germany, Theo was having a huge 85th birthday party bash at Carnegie Hall, doing a huge concert with all sorts of people he knew, such as Tom Paxton, Peter Yarrow and Noel ("Paul" ) Stuckey (Mary Traverse was too sick to come), Arlo Guthrie and a LOT of etc. No, I had no idea, and Theo had no idea I was in the States, either.
So, I called Theo on his cell phone, and he had just landed from L.A. He said well if you're in New York, you MUST stay for this. I agreed, but didn't know if I could still get in. He said Ruth Westheimer was coming, so I called her, and she told me where she was sitting, and that I "HAD" to get a seat near her. I told her to give me her seat number, and I'd go to Carnegie Hall's ticket office and just ask. So, I did, and it turned out that Ruth had reserved six seats in an eight seat box. I said, fine, give me the other two. I asked my daughter if she wanted to come and she said sure! She had no idea who Tom Paxton or Peter Yarrow were, but I assured her they were legends of their time. Also, there was one woman staring at me for about an hour during the "Theo's friends pre-concert reception," and I kept thinking, WHERE do I know her from? Finally, neither of us could stand it any longer, so about the same time we converged and said, "I KNOW I know you from somewhere, but I can't place you." Well her name was Susan Werner, apparently a famous singer in some circles, but I had never heard of her, and she had never heard of me. We had a good laugh about that.
Anyway, when the signal was given for people to go to their seats, my daughter and I went to our assigned seats, and we were the first ones there. Not for long though. We heard Ruth's distinctive voice coming from down the hall. Her eyes went wide in amazement when she saw us in "her" box. She asked, "How did you manage to do this?" I said that I hadn't managed to do anything. She was the one who told me to sit near her, so I found seats that were as close as they could be without her sitting in my lap. She laughed, called me "very clever," and the the program started. I didn't think it required any bit of cleverness to ask a ticket window if they had seats near other seats, but for some reason, she seemed suitably impressed! Some people are just easy to please, I guess..........
In the big concert, Arlo Guthrie showed up, but disappeared as quickly as he had come (Theo knew Woody, I suppose, but hell, Theo had been in a film with Humphrey Bogart, so who WOULDN'T he know?). After it was over, some of us, including women's author Deborah Tannen, a longtime friend from the same gatherings where the photo was taken, gathered at some nearby bar. Theo and I sang a few a capella Russian songs (as usual). He used to say he spoke 36 languages, 24 of which were Yiddish. I wouldn't know, since I don't speak Yiddish.
Soon after that, Tamara died suddenly, and Theo never really recovered from that. She really was wonderful. He was diagnosed with cancer a few years later, and was gone within a year at age 91. But he did more in his 91 years than some people could have accomplished in five lifetimes (including me!).
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