Ivana, Mrs. Trump’s hair and the theme park that never was

Donald Trump’s mom on TV

So here I am with double digits of channels on the tube at the hotel up in Columbus, and I’m watching Biography on A&E. It is a relatively unobtrusive look at the life of Ivana Trump.

The cast of characters seem outlandish, but flat. Even the head of hair on Donald Trump’s mom fails to warm me to the story.

Ivana would be best served with an Eddy to her Patsy.

Reminds me of another made up woman though – Tammy Faye Bakker.

How many nights I sat up with my Dad. Watching the endless pleas for money as Heritage USA was being built. The sketches of hotels replete with folks for scale, swarming with activity. The conceptual drawings of the water park with the slow pan and dissolve.

Jim and Tammy voiceovers. The room at the resort _our family_ could have every year if we would just give a thousand bucks.

We stared glued at the sketches whirring by each night. Looking at each other with that, “This is a bargain” gleam. Each of us had our niche carved out in the vacations we would take at the resort/theme park. Mom and I would throw pottery. The water slides and endless pools for us boys, and Dadstuff for Dad.

Perhaps he would take up golf.

This was likely the most evangelistic our family ever got. Dad coughed up the grand, eventually – and thus began our vigil of the construction with renewed vigor.

Then it fell apart.

The look of shock that must’ve crossed mine and my siblings faces when we thick headedly realized, this vacation would never happen.

Was this the end of trust?

Were our religious morals corrupted at this news?

I’m not entirely sure, and by no means want to paint a picture so bleak, as there were many fine vacations before and after the Heritage USA debacle.

We have an uncanny ability to muster a smile in the face of adversity, our clan.

I could go on, but first I must see the evolution from Casino mogul to purveyor of Home Shopping Network Pant Suits.

Ivana is no Patsy. There’s a lesson here, I know it.