D AV I D PAT R I C K C O L U M B I A (Bye-bye Dave, nice knowin’ ya.) Although, ironically many years later, after we’d gone our separate ways and lost complete contact with each other, I came home one night to a phone message from Ann, that she was “looking for the David Columbia who writes for Quest,” and if so, would I call her. That was in the mid-1990s. I did respond the first thing the next morning. We met and caught up. The familiarity from our youth was still there with both of us. She’d raised a family, had been divorced and remarried and living just a few blocks from me here in the big city. Sometimes over dinner I would remind her of the days when I was no longer “of interest” to her growing popu-
larity in college. Oh no, that’s not true, she would say with a smile and maybe a laugh. Nevertheless I was her first Valentine as well as her partner in Mr. Ryder’s Ballroom Dancing class. And we never got divorced! Earlier last month with winter weather in New York, I’d been in a detached mood. I blame it on the whole megillah, the vibe, and the lack of social intercourse. And, the fact that the town is still mainly closed down, and fear of one kind or another, is everywhere. So that’s my excuse. A lot of people who could have left town for the duration, or maybe forever. In the warmer seasons, they headed out to the Hamptons or Newport or other parts of the coun-
tryside. With the cold weather, many, very many, have gone south to Florida. Palm Beach seems more popular than ever. I haven’t been but I hear of lots of people who’ve rented down there for the season. The restaurants, I’m told, are packed every night, maskless and shoulder to shoulder. Same with the clubs and the shops. My relationships to PB has been occasional and the visits have been brief. The biggest impression it made on me was the first time I visited in the late 1960s. I was a newlywed and we made the trip one February to stay with a friend who had been a schoolmate of my wife. It stays in memory because it was quite a different town back then.
It was wintertime up North but the town was not busy. One day we were invited to lunch at the house of Betty Betz McMahon. Betty was famous in America as a writer for women’s magazines as well as newspapers and books for young people. A girl from Indiana who majored in journalism at Sarah Lawrence College (class of ’41), she wrote a book on teenage etiquette called Your Manners Are Showing which established her reputation with the younger audience. She was married to a Canadian oilman, Frank McMahon who was well known as a champion racehorse owner. The luncheon was at the McMahon residence—a very large house surrounding a wide terrace and swimming pool. It
H O S P I TA L FO R S P EC I A L S U R G E R Y ’ S O P E N I N G C E L E B R AT I O N I N F L O R I D A QUEST, FEBRUARY 2020
Michael and Marlene Perlmutter with Aimee Merszei 30 QUEST
Ann Jackson and Ken Wilson
Regina Pitaro and Mario Gabelli
Nicholas Sama and Kathleen O’Hare
Ellen and Joe Wright with Patsy Warner
Terry and Polly O’Toole
LILA PHOTO
Lou Shapiro, David Altchek, Bryan Kelly, Tom Lister and Bob Steel