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FORMAL 1/19/2013 9:17:32 AM
The most amusing party I ever attended was in late 1959. It was held at the lavish (by my standards) home of my boss at the time: Peter S. Frishette, CEO of Patriots Broadcasting Inc., operators of WFUK TV, AM & FM.
It was a “formal” affair, a Christmas/New Year’s party, and I was decked out in a custom-made tuxedo, with black tie, pleated and studded shirt, patent-leather slippers shined to mirror perfection — complete with a deep maroon cummerbund that 007 would kill for.
My erstwhile spouse wore a gown that emphasized her diminutive stature while showing off her ample décolletage, which caused women to openly gape while their husbands literally drooled.
I used the word amusing in the first paragraph, but in retrospect it was, truthfully, a "very funny" party.
It began with a significant snowfall — not unusual for Western New York in December. The drinks, served by festooned waiters and waitresses, came with unrestricted abandon, as did the unending trays of splendid hor d’oeuvres — none of which I can either pronounce or remember.
Dinner, when it finally was served, was either roast Peking duck or Kentucky Fried Chicken, I am not sure which. But whatever — Colonel Sanders or Sum Dum Chink did himself proud. I, despite my spouse’s vain protestations, had three scrumptious helpings — small, crinkled potatoes, assorted veggies and all.
While my host sat at one end of the telescopic table and his dour wife sat at the other, both were far enough away that jolly discourse was impossible. Our immediate tablemates were the fellow with whom I daily shared the spotlight, my co-star named Wally Finnerty and his lovely wife, Genevieve. We carried on our normal dialectical nonsense, to the delight of those within earshot, who, as usual, hung on every word.
What everyone knew (with the possible exception of Genevieve) was that Wally Finnerty was deeply involved with, and carrying on a mad affair with the wife of one of our producers — and both she (Jo Tanner) and her husband, Ross Tanner, each dressed to the 9’s, were seated directly across from us at dinner.
All went smashingly well until the dessert, a flaming baked Alaska, was brought out by a parade of more hired help (some stumbled hopelessly in the dark); while it was being carelessly scooped onto tiny plates, my spouse suddenly whispered, “Where’s Wally? He was here a minute ago.”
Always the champion of the maligned underdog, I promptly replied, “Probably taking a leak.”
“I don’t think so,” said my erstwhile spouse. “Jo Tanner’s gone, too.” I looked across, and her chair was empty.
Not so incidentally, the vast dining room in the Frishette home was adorned with a huge balcony enveloping the upper regions of the room on all four sides. The dining room table was replaced on Friday nights with a full-size Everlast boxing ring, the centerpiece for the Catholic Boxing League, whose bouts were televised over WFUK-TV, although the Frishettes were Lutherans. Hosts of sports writers and others crowded onto the four balconies (all comped) rather than sit ringside and be splattered with combatants broken and bloody offal.
Looking upwards, what to our wondering eyes should appear this celebratory night but the singular sight of two pair of legs protruding the slats of the overhead balcony, one pair of which certainly belonged to Wally, as evidenced by the brown shoes and Argyle socks. We assumed the female pair belonged to Jo Tanner.
“Good Lord!” my spouse exclaimed. “Is he banging her up there, right above our noses?!?”
“I hope so,” I said, addressing my baked Alaska.
Even in 1959 Wally was already nine years my junior. Now, much later, he had changed his name and become an internationally famous TV sportscaster, had been employed by all the networks including his current gig with ESPN/ABC, who had retained him to broadcast the title game determining the national number one team in collegiate football. In prime time, yet, and destined to be viewed by 5,461,794,377 people!<
br> Of course, Jo Tanner, were she still among us, would be 193 years old; Genevieve had shuffled off her mortal coil in 1987, which was just as well on that January 2013 night, when Wally and his unsuspecting co-announcer came face-to-face with the most boring, dullest and least exciting football game in their otherwise challenging careers.
With the score approaching 579 to 18, one of ESPN’s cameramen (Floyd Jensen) spotted the Alabama quarterback’s mother sitting in the stands with a Southern beauty named Katherine Webb, a former Miss Alabama. When he, Jensen, informed the show’s director the ravishing gal was none other than AJ Somebodyorother’s (the Alabama QB’s) girlfriend, and the director had relayed that into Wally’s ear, the entire game took on a new perspective.
For the next seven and a half hours, Wally and his co-announcer told the cameraman to “stay on her” while they extolled her beauty and comeliness to the countless zillions tuned in to watch the Crimson Tide destroy the Fighting Irish.
Notwithstanding the game’s overt intent, Wally saved the day by giving the audience precisely what it wanted — a geriatric’s view of what every red-blooded American man was thinking. One wag even compared Wally to a trench coat-clad derelict who had been seen leaving a local Strip Club at 4 a.m.
Of course, ESPN apologized effusively for Wally’s lengthy predilection, but when Ms Webb was later interviewed by Matt Lauer on NBC and offered her own reaction to Wally’s discourse, ESPN rewarded the charmed (though aging sportscaster) with a new, more liberal contract and substantially increased compensation.
Jo Tanner, wherever you are, eat your heart out.
By the way, it snowed heavily the night of the Christmas/New Year’s party in 1959, and my Coupe DeVille convertible had to be towed at 3 that morning by the AAA, crumpled fender and all, from the drifts on the Frishettes’ lawn.
