The Phil Silverman Martini Story

I just had a moment, the kind of moment that has to happen, just looking at dad's martini glass and missing him so much.

So I thought I'd write down the Phil Silverman martini story, which I actually told to Phil's two sons in Paris five days before dad died.

By way of background, Phil Silverman was a close friend of mine in high school.  He and Peter Morris, both of whom were a year behind me, and I made up the main triumvirate who ran tech in the Little Theater, but unlike the crew when my brother did the same, we all acted as much or more as we did tech.  Some shows we actually were running from backstage and climbing up the ladder to do a light cue.

Phil was the best male actor in our group at the time, but he was going through the same growing up travails we all did, only he took things more seriously and was sometimes quite upset or even depressed.  One particular day in my senior year, we were talking as we walked from OPHS to my house and it was clear to me he needed something to help him.  So when we got home, I offered to fix him a martini.

It was probably four o'clock, a time when no one was home.  Carol was off with friends, mom was off shopping, and David was off doing whatever he was doing in his off year between his years of college.  I was  still 17, Phil was 16, the legal drinking age in Michigan was 18 but I gave it no thought.

So I'm in the kitchen mixing the martini, Phil is sitting in the living room and dad drives up to the house, and walks in on the tableau.  He walks into the kitchen and the following dialogue, which I will never forget, occurs.

Me:  Hi, dad.  Phil is having a tough day so I'm fixing him a martini.

Dad:  Would you fix me one, too?

That was dad.  He knew he'd taught me to fix a good martini.  And he knew there were times when a man, of whatever age, needed one.