My Mother’s Unexpected Price Is Right Journey

I left Pennsylvania for Los Angeles on a sunny day in early October 1981. It took us four days to cross the country with my clothes, toiletries and my Schwinn bike hanging on the back of the trunk. My dad's lime green 1971 Chevy Impala with snow tires and 100,000 miles made it through without much effort. Eight months later, my mom and dad flew out to Los Angeles for their first visit.

Part of their trip was to visit me, the youngest daughter of my Italian parents, who had dared to leave Western Pennsylvania for a chance at a different life. A few weeks before I left, I witnessed my mother mopping the kitchen floor, crying and saying, “Why the hell are you moving so damn far away? Why can't you be like your brothers and stay here and get married? Your father was going to build you a nice little house next to ours so you could be close. You're my little girl, you can't leave!”

I knew I had no chance of winning this fight, so I said the words she had wanted to hear for ten years: “But, Mom, if I move to Los Angeles, you can come and finally become The price is right!”

It was as if the tears immediately changed direction. She stopped scrubbing the floor, looked at me beaming and said, “Really, Franzie, do you think I have a chance?”

I reassured her: “Of course, you have the same chances as anyone else!”

So, their trip was also to see if the dream could come true. For years, my mother talked about her desire to become a pageant participant. The price is right. It may have started as a last ditch effort to achieve the fame she dreamed of as a young woman, when everyone told her she looked like silent film star Pola Negri. Or maybe she just thought Bob Barker, the game show host, was cute. But after a lifetime of being unappreciated by her parents and underestimated by everyone else, I think my mother wanted to prove something.

People in our town thought she was a dreamer. One woman in her 500 card club even said, “And what makes you think You is there a chance? My mother was furious. “How dare she say datta!” Mom was adamant she went on this show to prove everyone wrong when they doubted her.

While we were standing in line at CBS Studios, my mother was like a little child. Grabbing my hand every few minutes, she would say, “Frenzy, do you think they called me?” Then, looking up to the sky, she said, “Jesus, please, if I'm called, tell me what to say. Crazy, what if I get tied up? Lord, please put these words in my mouth… Okay?”

That morning Jesus and I were full of questions and requests. My showbiz-averse father walked behind us and muttered, “What are you so excited about? It's just a stupid TV show.”