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A Sense of Direction

A perfect Mother’s Day

By June Donohue
Posted 5/19/23

My son, Michael took me to a great restaurant for dinner where there was also live music. The restaurant was The ‘76 House in Tappan, N.Y.   It’s the oldest one in the country. One …

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A Sense of Direction

A perfect Mother’s Day

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My son, Michael took me to a great restaurant for dinner where there was also live music. The restaurant was The ‘76 House in Tappan, N.Y.  It’s the oldest one in the country. One of our favorite singers was performing there.  She and her late husband had a restaurant in NYC called the Half Note. It’s closed now. Her name is Judi Marie Cantarino. 

On Mother’s Day at the ‘76 House she was accompanied by a piano, a sax player, a guitarist and a drummer. Also there were three other singers, all named Judy. I kid you not.  

Some of the performers who would drop by The Half Note were Charlie Parker, Zoot Sims, Tony Bennett, and Billie Holiday. Judi Cantarino is a bit of a comedian and even though she is over 80, she often wears her hair in pigtails. During her performance she came to our table to say she was having  sharp pain at her temples and that she might have to discontinue her act.  Michael said that maybe she had wound her pigtails too tight and advised her to loosen them and see if that helped. 

Sure enough, that was the problem and she was back on stage  in no time. She then sang an old song that brought tears to my eyes because it was one that my son, Jimmy had sung at Lake George where we went on vacation. The band was playing “Kiss me once, and Kiss me twice and Kiss me once again, It’s been a long long time.” My husband and I were dancing and we suddenly heard a familiar voice at the mic.

It was our son, Jimmy. I didn’t even realize he knew that old song and the fact that he felt comfortable singing it in front of all those people without hesitation, was a WOW moment for us.

When I told my friend, John Bale about that old song being played on Mother’s Day, he felt that Jimmy was making his presence known and was with me on my special day. He likened it to the time that a stuffed doll that was Jimmy’s whose battery had gone dead years before, started working loud and clear from where it was  on the pool table. That was shortly after Jimmy died.  

I wrote a column about that incident. 

I hope you all had a Happy Mother’s Day.   

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