Remembering Jerry and his "Kids"

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