Letterman misses show; girlfriend in labor
Tuesday, November 4, 2003 Posted: 11:09 AM EST (1609 GMT)
NEW YORK (AP) -- David Letterman had a good excuse for missing work: His girlfriend was in labor with their first child.
Bandleader Paul Shaffer filled in for Letterman as host of the "Late Show" Monday night. He told the audience: "If you're feeling that there's something wrong with this picture -- you're seeing me -- because Dave is at the hospital waiting for his baby to be delivered!"
There was no immediate word on where Letterman, a Connecticut resident, and girlfriend Regina Lasko were, said Tom Keaney, spokesman for Letterman's production company, Worldwide Pants.
The talk show host was looking forward to being a first-time dad -- but admitted he had some trepidation.
"Here I am, 56, and by all rights it shouldn't be happening," he said on his show in September. "But, there's nothing we can do about it now. And I'm terribly excited about this. I'm scared silly about this."
Letterman spokesman Steven Rubenstein did not immediately return a call Tuesday morning seeking word on the baby.
Marriage. What is that? Some kind of ancient ritual?
The 50's as pure as the driven snow....
Ah yes, when married couples slept in single beds across the room with staid little kisses to keep them satisfied.
The days of the three martini lunches when drunk driving was encouraged - I'll have another one for the ditch and smoking was good for you. Children were instructed to dive under desks to escape the BOMB's nuclear fallout. A closeted, cross-dressing homosexual so afeared of his 'deviance' ran amok and put a nation on it's knees with thoughts of anti-american sedition and communism.
The 50's where orphanages graced most communities and families sent disgraced daughters away from prying gossiping eyes across county lines to 'relatives' - and institutions for the un-wed mothers could be sniggered at. Or when back alley butchers prospered leaving women dying from botched procedures.
Rape, incest and paedophilia were never spoken of until victims 30 to 50 years later finally exposed the heartbreaking truths they were made to swallow for so long.
The fifties were not so pure, it's time to remove the rose coloured glasses.
Father did not really know whats best, and Ward was a little hard on the beaver last night. Princess was sent to live with an "aunt" for a few months and Bud wrapped his jalopy around a telephone pole on his way home from a kegger. But then there were those Kents with the coupon and if you saved enough you could get that lawn furniture you always wanted. Gas was 19.9 cents and I made 65 cents an hour working at the JC Penney's warehouse after school and on saturdays.
I will say again for all you youngsters. When it came to sexual morality when compared to the 40s and fifties. Today is Sodom and Gomorra.
au1929 wrote:Montana
That is the path you have chosen. How many however, did not choose that life style but had it thrust upon them not by choice or circumstance but by their promiscuity and lack of control.
I did not chose this lifestyle. As I said earlier, the father of my son and I were planning on getting married, but it didn't work out that way. I use to want to get married and have that wonderful family life, unfortunately it didn't work out with the men in my life, so at this point in my life where my son is almost an adult, I have decided that I will stay single. I was very much in love with my son father when my son was concieved, so there is nothing promiscuis about it. My ex wanted our son as much as I did, but after our son was born he decided he didn't want the responsability. I had a 2 family house at the time and if I had married the jerk, he would have ended up with half my assets. Today I have a beautiful home that's paid in full and I worked my ass off for it, so what's mine stays mine! I am not a religious person, so marriage means nothing to me, especially when I've seen so many marriages fall apart. I know plenty of people who are happily married and I envy them, but I know more people who are unhappily married who envy me. You can commit yourself to a person without that piece of paper and I don't understand why you're making such a big deal out of it. You may hear of single parents who neglect their children, but I've seen many married couples who also neglect their children, but you can't label people simply because of what some people do or don't do!
au1929 wrote:I will say again for all you youngsters. When it came to sexual morality when compared to the 40s and fifties. Today is Sodom and Gomorra.
You seem to be glorifying the 40's and 50's as if no one did wrong. Aren't those the days where dad had a nice thick belt hanging on a handy hook for those times when their children needed to be punished, or when mom need to be kept in line?
Montana
I am not glorifying the 40s and fifties. There was plenty wrong than. What I am doing is making a comparison.
I never had that strap you are talking about. In fact I never had to hit my children. One word from my wife was sufficient. Our problems started in the 60s when my oldest started college. Went to the communes and was part of the Woodstock generation. Believe me I have seen it all. First hand.
Maybe you didn't hit your wife and children, but many did!
Ceili - thanks for the memories.
There are some men who live up to their responsibilities and I have known many. However, the statistics prove that most men do not. And for good reason the courts side often with the mother.
My daughter's father was one who did not support his child. He spent 25 years in college and never cared enough to send any money or even visit her. And as I child I was in the same situation an absent father and no financial support.
Although my parents never divorced I still grew up with abandonment issues that haunt me to this very day.
Joanne
I agree and my son feels your pain while I feel your pain through him. It is beyond me how any parent can abandon, neglect, or abuse their children.
Montana
Quote:Maybe you didn't hit your wife and children, but many did!
Many still do. However, men were much more respectful of women in those days. I never heard girls and young women walking down the street cursing like truck drivers. Nor were girls sexually aggressive as they are today. Yes, there was always the one. Every neighborhood had the one.
Thank you sweetie I feel for your son too. It is funny when I see children in a situation where the father or mother has left I can see it in their eyes. And believe it or not I think they can see it in mine. Kind of like a silent communication among the knowing.
au, i think you're making a mistake in assuming that all of the posters in your thread do not remember the 40's and 50's.
one of the things i know about the 50's - is the astonishing number of preemie babies. all of those babies born within 6 and 7 months of weddings. nice, big healthy babies. not preemies at all. but that was the fiction of the 1950's.
ehBeth
I don't know about an astonishing number of 6 and 7 month babies. However, if there were these parents bothered to get married. There weren't many women with 5 and 6 children from different men around. And if you remember the 40s and 50s you must recognize the difference between the respect men had for women in those days and now.
Sure in that time everything was not peaches and cream. But the values in regard to marriage and parenthood were far IMO superior.
This discussion reminds me of one I had with my secretary. She was the same age as my son and was born and brought up in the city of N.Y. I told her that when I was young we could ride the subway system at anytime day or night anywhere in the city without fear of being harmed. I never bothered to lock my car door and when you were at home you never locked the front door. I don't think she ever believed me. I guess it was too far from the reality she knew.
AU 1929: "And if you remember the 40s and 50s you must recognize the difference between the respect men had for women in those days and now. "
Are you serious? Which part? The expectation of the stay at home, always smiling woman, wearing full makeup and high heels, waiting for the husband to return from work with a hot dinner served on the table? Why, thank you, I'd rather be single and working.
Want to hear about the good old times? Turn back another fifty years - I had the privilege of reading an entire year of Boston Globe from 1883. Do you know how a woman was treated if she left her husband (for whatever reason, that was not important for she was his property)? Lunatic asylum. Nice. Once every two weeks or in a month some unfortunate woman would end up there for similar reasons.
No, but seriously, I just do not see that the respect for women declining today, if anything, just the opposite. Look at the big picture of what women have achieved in society. Family is only a fragment of that. Families were kept together artificially for centuries - you had no other choice if you didn't want to be an outcast. Domestic violence was commonplace, not even an issue. You were a wife, not a person with an independent will. I would not call the change of that as a downfall exactly.
Of course it's not that simple and there is a whole array of other issues that are problematic, but to portray the world from 50 years ago as a better place, I just don't buy that. I can't judge from a first-hand experience, I only know the lives of my parents and grandparents. They will tell you the same though.
Ladies I surrender to a superior force.
