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This week's Ruby Tuesday features not just my mom but my Dad, too. It's short, sweet, and extra silly. When I first started studying film in college, both of my parents would often star in my short films. This is a one of my favorite videos we made together, it's a 30 second short titled, "Angry Parents Hate Swimming." I hope you have as much fun watching this it as we did making it! 
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One of the things that I've tried to do with this blog is to paint a picture of my mom before she got sick, and this afternoon, while looking through a few e-mails that she sent over the years, I came across the one below the photo from April 1st, 2006. Usually my mom wrote letters and the envelopes were stuffed with photos, post-it notes with inspirational quotes, and newspaper clippings from our local paper. Sometimes there was even an article or two lifted from a magazine that was in the waiting room of a doctor's office. The only time mom ever used e-mail was when she wanted to share something immediately. She used my Dad's e-mail account to send a message, usually a recipe or a photo. She never had her own account and didn't care much for computers. When she wanted to send a message to someone, she would tell my Dad, he'd get the window set up on his desktop computer, and when she was done with the message, she would call my Dad, tell him that she was finished, and he would be the one to press send. The e-mail below has so much of my mom's charm as well as her desire to be always trying new things. Whenever she was excited about something, she loved to share these things with her friends and family.  Subject Heading: Pomelo Greetings! Have you ever heard of a Shaddock? You are probably thinking, "huh?" It's a tropical citrus 2 or 3x the size of a grapefruit..sweeter. And a bit dryer than the grapefruit. It's also called a pomelo. I came across it accidentally! Like my Brooklyn college film tee? Just thought you would like a few pics and to learn about this fruit. They are expensive but its worth trying it. I think 4 for $6.50. Hope you are well and looking forward to a nice spring. It's raining here in the am at 8.30.  We are going tonight to an Italian 50th wedding anniversary at the Bellevue Country Club! I heard the menu....it's a real Italian feast! I am wearing my champagne gold dress. We will send photos. Take care and enjoy the moment.
Lots of love Ruby, Mom As told by Ray Adams. I guess it all started with this guy named Barkely. We were both Marines and we were stationed in Trinidad together. I arrived in Trinidad on Christmas Eve of 1963 and was there for about 18 months. I met Ruby in the fall of 1964. She was working at a bank and there was this girl that worked with her that Barkely was interested in. The girl said she wouldn't go out on a date with him unless she was able to bring a friend, so he asked me to help him out and it turned into a double date. I really had no clue what I was getting into, but when I met Ruby, I thought she was really bright and articulate, not to mention attractive. She had done lots of things and had lived in the states for 6 or 7 months so we had a lot to talk about. For the double date, we went to this movie called “The Upper Room.” It wasn’t an adult film, but it was a pretty suggestive movie. Ruby was a little bit embarrassed. It wasn’t anybody's fault, I mean nobody knew what the movie was until we got in there. It was just a first date, you know. Casual. When I picked her up, she told her Dad, “This is Ray Adams, we're going to a movie.” I just met him briefly. Over time, I used to go over there a lot and he would sit there and watch us while he was supposedly reading the newspaper. But one time I looked over and he had the newspaper upside down. He was just trying to protect his daughter, it didn’t bother me. The date went well though.I don’t know what exactly it was but we hit it off. She gave me her phone number and we agreed to see each other again.  For that second date she picked out this really expensive restaurant for us to go to. Back then, I didn’t have a car, but there were cars called “Trip Cabs” that you could get a ride in. Trip cabs ran up and down the main streets and they’d pick you up and they’d take you where you wanted to go and then they’d pick somebody else up. It was almost like a bus but it was a cab. It was like a 1964 version of Uber. It was like 25 or 50 cents and that’s how we got to the restaurant. It was a French restaurant called Chez Paul and it was very fancy.
The guy that took the photo was one of those guys that wanders around and takes photos. Then if you want the photo, he sends it to you with an invoice. Ruby gave her address to the guy to have him send it to her so she actually ended up paying for it. Although those guys charge you 10 times the normal cost of a photo, the picture didn't cost much compared to the actual date. That French dinner cost me a little less than I made in about a week and although the food was good, a week's salary is quite a bit of money for anyone. I think the meal cost about $30 and I was making about $150 per month at that time. After that second date we started seeing each other quite a bit. I used to call her every night from the base. We’d talk about everyday stuff. Nothing really serious. We went to the beach, we went to other movies, we did some stuff during Carnival time and our love built over time. I stayed in Trinidad until June of 1965 and by then we were engaged. Getting married was actually Ruby’s idea. She kind of asked me but I’ll save that story for another day. If you want to find out why Ruby's infamous rules regarding screen time were relaxed, please watch the video below and then check out the pics from the late 80's when Zelda, Bart Simpson, and playing Nintendo were a few of my favorite things.    |
"Ruby Tuesday" is a place for friends and family to share stories about my mother and show how she has impacted their lives.
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