The Maiden and The Maven – Ain’t Love Grand
- 24 hours ago
- 6 min read
By Lydia Hope Wilen / New York City
& Stan Fischler / North Golan Heights, Israel
The Maven Counts The Ways:
Why do I love Lydia Hope Wilen?
Her voice is softly silken like a muted trombone.
She not only talks tachles; she knows what it means.
Her sense of humor is a curious blend of Robert Benchley, S.J. Perelman and Henny Youngman.
Lyd and her sister Joany wrote more practical self-help books than Dr. Ruth.
She worked for Dr. Ruth, so there's absolutely nothing I can teach her about eagles and honeybees.
Nobody–not even Travis Green who coined my handle–ever says "Hey Mave" more affectionately than my Lyd-ee.
Unfortunately, she knows 70.7 percent of my jokes and listens so attentively that I never mind when she delivers the punch line two seconds before I start my exhale.
Lyd is the only person in captivity who bought my book Tales of Brooklyn, read it cover to cover and then told me "I love you and your book." (That saved her from doing the obligatory book report.)
When she laughs it has the pungency of Good Health Seltzer and the liveliness of a grasshopper.
Hungarian grandma, Etel Friedman, warned me against loving a Litvak but she didn’t know Lyd.
We're so much on the same page about comedy that when I told Lyd to watch Tin Men and Diner, she was shooting dialogue at me faster than the Lucky Strike auctioneer.
I love Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Al Bowlly and The Great Jimmy Durante, and that's Lyd's weakness now.
When my sweetheart says, "I Love You Mave" THAT is that thing called LOVE!
Lyd's the only one who ever let this monotone sing a love song from start to "Red Sails in the Sunset" finish and made me believe that she loved it.
Lyd knows I love hockey; she didn't know from it when we met, so she gave it a try; made me feel good and watched a few playoff games. "Puck is too small, goes too fast and I can't follow it. Sorry." I love her 'cause she didn't bullshit me! She did suggest that the hockey puck be replaced by a hamantaschen. It would be easier to see.
Confession: I've been a "Leg Man" since my 582 Marcy Avenue, Brooklyn days. The minute I got a look at my lover's gams on a photo taken when she was in the movie Network with William Holden, my temperature zipped past "heat wave" and beyond.
A look at Lydia's legs or Network's Girl with the Gams Since I love her so much, I can only get mildly pissed that she's reluctant to wear that hot dress she wore in that movie and still has and says it still fits.
It's gotta be love if I'm left smiling after we hang up on the phone.
I would have loved her folks because singing, dancing and just off-the-cuff funning was part of their DNA.
She's a good healthy devotee in such a nice way, you get the warm feeling that The Great Lyd is your private nurse.
Not many gals would almost kvell over The Hoosier Hotshots singing, "I Love Bananas Because They Have No Bones."
There's a tune, "You Make Me Feel So Young." Many times I get the feeling that it was composed with me and Lyddy in mind.
Put it this way, Lydia Hope Wilen makes me feel loved just as the tune says, "Come Rain or Come Shine.”
And if you think this Cupid caper of mine is direct from the heart, well -- as my dad liked to say, "I don't mean 'maybe' either.''
Lydia’s Turn:
Long-Distance Love
I’m going to be telling you personal things that I probably shouldn’t be writing. Ah, but who are you going to tell, huh?
Daylight Maven Time
It is seven hours later in Israel than it is in NYC. When I go to sleep at 11 p.m., Stan is waking up at 6 a.m. Want to hear romantic? Lately, he wakes up at about 5 a.m., calls me with his soft, sexy, sleepy voice and sings a few lines from a wonderful old love song and then he goes back to finish his night/morning sleep. And I go to bed with a smile.
By that time, I will have sent Stan emails that will be waiting for him when he goes online in his morning. When I get up in my morning, I have his answers to my emails waiting for me. I’ve been getting up earlier than usual these days. Hmm.
One of my emails is Stan’s idea of a getting-to-know-you “Question of the Day.” I ask tough questions that Stan never not answers and his answers lead me to say to him: “Who but you?”
Q & A example
If, every time you entered a room, there would be theme music, what would that music be? Stan’s answer: “Semper Paratus” (Always Ready), the United States Coast Guard motto and march. Do you know anyone who is not in the Coast Guard that would have that as an answer? I don’t. Well, now I do.
Another Q & A example
What word would you turn to in the dictionary to find a picture of you illustrating that word? This hockey maven, writer, reporter, historian, musicologist, mentor, dad, grandfather, podcast prince (and more I’m sure) says that if you find his picture in the dictionary, it would be next to the word dreamer. DREAMER! Stan never stops surprising me.
Telephone Tsouris
Don’t get me started when it comes to Spectrum, my landline provider. For weeks, it was telephone torture and three technicians testing equipment, replacing the modem, updating whatever could be updated. Nothing helped.
Talk Is Cheap – Ah Now
A few times I splurged and called Stan on my cellphone at $2 a minute. When I mentioned it to a friend, he made me aware of WhatsApp.
What’s Up with WhatsApp?
The microphone is at the bottom of my phone, beneath the keyboard.. The speaker where Stan’s voice comes through, is at the top of the phone. Matt, the Insider’s tech whiz, suggested a headphone to prevent carpel tunnel syndrome from having to turn the phone back and forth during our conversations. That should happen by the time you read this.
Music Maven in Addition to Hockey Maven
Mave’s romantic and sometimes weird songs were all born before 1960…same as us.
We all know wonderful old songs, but you ain’t heard nothin’ yet. Here are some unusual titles on Stan’s playlist:
“Since They Stole the Spittoon from the Corner Saloon, The Guys Can’t Go Pitooey Anymore”
“Celery Stalks at Midnight”
“Who Ate Napoleons with Josephine When Bonaparte Was Away”
Oops! I’m past my word allowance and I haven’t even gotten to Stan’s references, requests, joke-telling, and our attempt at sexting. Maybe next month. For now, I’ll end with Rhyme Time
For Better or For Verse Stan is affectionate, supportive, and kind
He’s exceptionally bright with an eidetic mind.
A total mensch is Stan the Man,
He makes people laugh like no one else can.
This poem is far from Poe's classic “The Raven”
‘Cause it isn’t Poe who is cravin' the Maven.
Lydia Hope Wilen began her professional career as a comedy writer on Personality, a celebrity-driven game show. Her greatest gig was her extremely successful collaboration with her late sister Joany as nonfiction bestselling authors (18 books), which led to the sisters becoming popular TV personalities. They continued as journalists (NY Daily News Sunday full-page feature, Celebrity Surveys for Cosmopolitan Magazine, cover stories for Parade Magazine) and got the opportunity to write and talent coordinate a Nickelodeon series hosted by Leonard Nimoy. The Wilens had an unusually versatile writing range from Reading Rainbow episodes, to off-color comedy skits for Dr. Ruth Westheimer’s TV show, Sexually Speaking, plus three optioned screenplays. And that's just for starters . . .
Stanley I. Fischler (born March 31, 1932) is an American historian of hockey and the New York City subway, as well as a broadcaster, author of over 100 books, and professor. As a broadcaster with MSG, Fischler has won seven Emmy Awards (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Fischler)
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