| People Ed Brodkin, Artist A Transcript of His Speech at his 60th Wedding Anniversary
Editor's note: Kiki and Ed Brodkin are celebrated artists, and two of the most wonderful people you will ever meet, who we are proud to call members in the Manhattan Arts Online Gallery (and I've been privileged to know for nearly 20 years.) They recently celebrated their 60th Wedding Anniversary. One cannot help but make note of how rare they are. They have endured life's ups and downs, so what is their secret? The following is a heartfelt speech Ed gave at their celebration. Read it and you'll learn what it is. Greetings and very many thanks for joining us today! It’s a real pleasure for Kiki and me to see you all, good friends and relatives, gathered from far and wide to celebrate with us. It’s especially wonderful for Kiki, who, as most of you know, is just coming out of a several-months-long medical nightmare. Recently, a few folks hearing about this Anniversary affair asked “How did you guys meet originally?” Well, I foolishly told them the truth -- but they found it very entertaining with a real WOW factor. After a reaction like that, I thought this would be an appropriate occasion to further confess. So, this kid (yes, I was one once) passed the entrance exam to The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art and completed his freshman year before World War II up and grabbed him. Well, then came heavy training overseas with an Infantry Division, long months of frontline nasty business, wounded in the drive to the Rhine River, several months of recovery, return to the States and finally discharged in early September 1945, the war having finally ended. Classes at Cooper Union began that very week enabling me to begin my sophomore year, still in my Purple Heart combat infantry uniform (no time to get any new duds yet). In that sophomore class was this very pretty and talented young lady, fresh out of Passaic, New Jersey, known as Kiki and all this without help from any Hollywood script writer! While pursuing our studies and beginning careers in the Advertising Art world, our special courting dance began, with its stops and starts and ups and downs, but always getting closer and closer to the event that we celebrate today, our wedding in June of 1947, actually just one year before we both graduated. Much hard work and many good times filled the following years. I became a Sunday painter while rising through the ranks in the Advertising Agency Wars, from paste-up kid to Art Director, Creative Director, Executive Vice President and finally into early retirement in 1983 to become a full time fine artist, fulfilling a lifelong dream. In the meantime, Kiki was handling the far more important, primary responsibility of raising our three sons, while this commuting hero of Madison Avenue was devising ways to sell products - you know, ask your doctor if drinking bourbon is good for you . And thanks to our three sons, all here today, we eventually gained three wonderful daughters-in-law and two very special grand children.
As soon as things permitted, Kiki went back to college, earned her Masters Degree in Art Ed. and enjoyed a long career of teaching at Bergen Community College. These busy years did not prevent us from enjoying many wonderful travel experiences, primarily to art historical sites, museums and galleries in much of Europe, in Turkey, in China and Japan, in Australia and New Zealand, in Hawaii, Alaska, Canada, Mexico and much of our US of A. Our love of the great outdoors brought us to many summer weekends of water skiing with friends and family. And a kind of big-sky-marine-wanderlust also led us to attend sailing schools, winding up with long, leisurely explorations on our fast and beautiful sloop, the Compass Rose, explorations of the bays, the inlets and islands, great seafood experiences and glorious sunsets from Western Long Island Sound all the way up to Boothbay Harbor in Maine -- and, I must say, not without several occasions of anxiety when caught in deep fog or unexpected storms. But the raging seas and the perils of China did not detract from, but only fed that other extremely important part of our lives, our art work. Kiki and I have both, although independently, produced a great deal of art work in our studios, have exhibited quite regularly with many sales (although we would love many more) and fine reviews -- and for some time now, we’ve been regular members of a well known artist-run gallery in Chelsea. So, why am I recounting our personal history here and now? Well, of course, this is an occasion for looking back in celebration and reflection. And it reminds us, in particular, of how incredibly fortunate we have been!!! BUT while this flashback has its values in sentimental retrospection, we both feel that the here-and-now and the future are where we want to expend our energies, mentally, physically and esthetically -- because as Yogi Berra says, “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” And what’s more, the fat lady didn’t sing yet!
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