The Divine Miss M

TheDivine Miss M

Bette Milder

A Philadelphia Stage

June 2015

I've seen Bette Midler several times and she is always enjoyable.  She is not as bold and vulgar as her younger age but she is still just as funny.  So I saw her on this night with two of my sisters and my brother-in-law.  Most of us in the audience were older.  There were not as many gay men as there used to be in her crowd.  The back-up singers did more of the dancing than she did.  But it was still fun.

But as I sat there and listened to her, I had a moment of regret.  It is so unusual for me to have any regret.  But I thought of a moment, maybe 20 years ago when I was sitting on my mother's porch and she told me that Bette was coming to Philadelphia and she wanted to go see her.  And so did I .  And do did my sister-in-law.  And so did my two nieces who were 20. And so did my sister. And so we made plans to go, three generations of us.  We were going to go together.    But for some stupid reason, the plan never came to fruition. We didn't go.  Now, my mother is gone.  My nieces are no longer interested in her and an opportunity was missed and as I watched her catch her breath between songs, I had regret.