Sundays With Ed

Last night I watched a Netflix documentary on Ed Sullivan. The same Ed Sullivan I disliked and disparaged for taking over our living room every Sunday night when I was a kid…………….until he brought the Beatles on to perform. After that I felt a little better about him. Our family — and yours probably — sat through countless cossack dancers, gymnasts, varied vocalists and Topo Gigio on a regular basis. My dad loved them all. The Sunday “normal” in our family was a big midday Sunday dinner. A roast with potatoes and vegetables. I remember my aproned mother rushing around the kitchen to fix a big meal after we got home from morning Mass and Sunday evening was her kitchen break. On Sunday nights our meal was buttered popcorn, eaten in well-worn wooden salad bowls that were used for nothing else. On those nights we ate in the living room, accompanied by the Ed Sullivan Show. The new documentary I saw was an eye opener. I had no idea Ed Sullivan had been a leader in civil rights. That before he lobbied for them to be on his primetime show, Black performers weren’t welcome. Harry Belafonte, Louis Armstrong, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Nat King Cole, Nina Simone and many more. None of them appeared on national television before they were showcased on The Ed Sullivan Show and he personally chose all the acts. He bucked tradition and promoted equality both in his personal life and on television. This and more, I learned about my old nemesis.

Picture courtesy Peggy_Marco at Pixabay.com