Mendel Letters 88 — Frank Sinatra
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July 30, 2022
Dear Mendel,
If you could have been any singer, other than Manny Singer, it would have been Frank Sinatra. In retirement at the Deerfield Beach Century Village you finally got the chance to fully indulge in the Chairman of the Board’s music. You performed as a soloist for Century Villiage stage productions and with traveling performing groups that visited senior centers.
Going back, I remember growing up to Frank’s songs, especially when you sang with Fay. These were some your favorites with the wisdom from Frank that you sang about. They became your wisdom, your message.
“Love and marriage, they go together like a horse and carriage.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRDBvKGc1fE
“Luck be a lady, stick me with me baby, I’m the fella you came in with, luck, be a lady tonight.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X69P_Vce9vw
“Fly me to the moon, hold my hand, in other words, please be true, in other words, I love you.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEcqHA7dbwM
“Strangers in the night, lovers at first sight, it turned out so right.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd_3EkGr0-4
“I’ve got you under my skin, I’ve got you deep in the heart of me, so deep in my heart, you’re really a part of me.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1AHec7sfZ8
“It was a very good year, but now the days are short, I’m in the autumn of my years.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh0rwbtI9Ro
And of course –
“That’s life, each time I find myself flat on my face I pick myself up and get back in the race.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnlPtaPxXfc
One thing I can’t forgive you for, at Heidi’s wedding, you and Solomon sang, but you wouldn’t let me join you as one of the Three Singers. Claimed you were professionals.
Your son
Hard copies of these typed letters were discovered in an old camp trunk in the basement storage facility of one of the few buildings that remain standing in this Brooklyn neighborhood. The building is quite decrepit and is scheduled for demolition. The letters were found in November 2048 by a teenager who believes they were written by his great-grandfather. The letters are addressed to Mendel, the letter writer’s father, who appears to have been dead for at least six years when his son, whose name we are unsure of, started to write him. The son appears very agitated in some of the letters. With permission from the family, we are publishing them on the date they were written, only 28 years later.
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