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When you
walk through a storm,
Hold your
head up high,
And don’t
be afraid of the dark.
The
Muscular Dystrophy Association Labor Day Telethon, hosted by Jerry Lewis has
been a part of our Labor Days for all our lives – literally. Jerry hosted the
first (aired locally in New York)
in 1952. In 1966, the event went national and became a part of our culture.
For 19
hours, starting Sunday evening and running through the night, Jerry hosted a
cast of singers, comics, actors and some “celebrities” who were pretty much
just the previous generation’s Paris Hiltons and Kim Kardashians; all focused
on raising funds for MDA, and reminding viewers to “call the number on your
screen.”
I remember
dad stopping to watch comedian Jack Carter, who he (for some reason) thought
was “… full of real knee-slappers!” Mom always found time to dreamily watch
Tony Orlando sing. Dad would grumble that Orlando
“needed a haircut” – while ogling Tony’s back-ups, “Dawn,” of course.
My brother
and I would sometimes sneak out of bed in the middle of the night (really,
early Labor Day morning), quietly slip into the living room and turn on the TV,
with the volume low, just to experience the wonder of something actually on TV
at that hour. Remember, that was long before 24/7 cable and satellite networks;
when after midnight you only found a test pattern, or static.
As kids,
MDA was close to our hearts earlier in the summer, too. We’d send away for an
MDA “Backyard Carnival Kit” and create a midway full of games built from
corrugated cardboard boxes and featuring refreshments like Mrs. Podolack’s chocolate
chip cookies and homemade lemonade with not quite enough sugar. Our motivation
was somewhat self-centered, though. We really just wanted to be some of the
kids invited to appear on the local broadcast, proudly showing the bucket of money
we’d raised for “Jerry’s Kids” and being invited by Sir Graves Ghastly to dramatically
dump our donation into the fish tank full of cash. Never happened.
Maybe it was
a reflection of the economic level of the neighborhood where we grew up in
Riverview, but we never raised more than a few bucks, which we just put into an
envelope and mailed to the MDA P.O. Box. A few weeks later, we always got a
“thank you” note from Jerry Lewis himself, complete with a printed facsimile of
his signature.
For us, the
Labor Day Telethon wasn’t so much a part of the holiday, as it was a holiday
within a holiday. Everything would come to a stop near 6 p.m., when Jerry would
call for “… the final total …” I mean everything; grilling, street baseball,
even card games on the porch, just stopped. We all collectively held our
breath, along with Jerry, waiting for that magical number. And when the digits
appeared – six, and sometimes seven, of them; Jerry would sigh and we’d all get
a lump in our throats.
Then the
strains of that familiar closing melody would begin … mom would shed a few
happy tears, dad would say something like “… that man’s a saint,” and we’d
watch Jerry take a seat on a stool, center stage and hoarsely sing;
Walk on
through the wind,
Walk on
through the rain,
Though your
dreams be tossed and blown.
Walk on,
walk on with hope in your heart,
And you’ll
never walk alone.
You’ll
never walk alone.
Well, times
change. This year, the MDA Telethon is a six-hour event, and it’s not even on
Labor Day, it runs from 6 p.m. ‘til midnight on Sunday. And Jerry’s not a part
of it. I’ve read various reasons – Jerry, in his mid-80s, decided to “retire,”
or MDA decided to “go in a different direction.” Ultimately, the reason doesn’t
really matter. Fact is another part of our past has, well … passed.
Nonetheless,
we’ll still take care of “Jerry’s Kids” (Which they will always be to us,
right?); and thanks to the legacy of caring and giving that Jerry provided to
our generation, we’ll never walk alone.
“You’ll
Never Walk Alone,” 1945 – Rogers and Hammerstein
