Donald and I shared the same bedroom right up to the time
I joined the Army, and then I shared the same (larger) room with several
others. In basic training or course we
had huge rooms with dozens of double bunks and maybe 50-60 men. In Germany we had single bunks for maybe 8-10
men. I don’t think I had my own room and
the related privacy until I was living in South San Francisco during the few
weeks prior to our wedding. Anyway, Mom
liked to tell the story of when Donald and I were little and she was saying
good night to us. One night I made a
loud snorting sound having to do with clearing my nose or sinuses or something
and Mom said something about it. Then
Donald told her that I often made that sound and that he didn’t like it. So Mom told me to stop that; it was
disgusting, she said, as in “Tommy, stop that; that’s disgusting.” Naturally, as soon as she left the room I did
it again, probably feeling that it was my right and privilege to do so,
whereupon Donald yelled, “Ma! Tommy’s
doing that ‘scusting thing again!” So
this became one of those family stories repeated down through the years. To this day, I sometimes make a head-clearing
noise, and I think to myself that if Don was around he would say, “Are you
still doing that ‘scusting thing?”
One of Dad’s favorite jokes was about two guys who
escaped from the “nut house” one night and were up on the roof of a tall
building. They could see the police
climbing up the fire escape, so they went to the back of the building and one
said to the other, “I’ll shine this flashlight down towards the ground, and you
slide down the beam and get away.” The
other one says, “You think I’m nuts?
I’ll get half way down, and you’ll turn the light off!” Dad also liked to say that he was working on
an experiment whereby he would take an ordinary glass of water out of the
faucet, set it on the table and try to bring it to a boil by staring at it and
mentally concentrating on it. He would
pause for affect, then say, “So far I have gotten it to room temperature!”
I confess that the only reason I remember these is that I
think they are funny, too, and have told them a few times myself. I don’t get any better reaction than he
got. I have my own variations of that
last one. In explaining my increased girth I have said, “I’m going for the
prosperous look. So far I am up to
‘well-fed’”. In another case, a coworker
was telling me how her child was part of a group doing something to raise breast
cancer awareness. I told her to tell her
daughter that their efforts seemed to be working, even in the case of an older
guy like me: So far I am up to breast awareness! Well…maybe you had to be there.
Dad used to say ‘immersely’ in place of ‘immensely’ just
to be different, as in “I enjoyed the dinner immersely.” I always knew that he knew the right word and
just chose to say something a little more amusing. However, he told me that a friend of his
finally corrected him after many years, and he couldn’t convince the guy that
he knew the right word and was just being funny. I
guess it wasn’t that funny. He also
liked to say, “You have a point there, but if you keep your hat on no one is
going to see it.” And, “Just because
your nose is shaped like a banana, don’t think you’re one of the bunch!” And,
“Just because your head comes to a point, don’t think you’re so sharp!” I always saw the humor in these quips and
never took them personally. Some people
probably did. To the expression, “That’s
a horse of a different color,” I don’t recall whether it was he or I who first
started saying, “That’s the color of a different horse.”
If that is original with me, I’m sure he would have thought it was
clever. He sometimes pronounced the
words bulb or palm as “blub” or “plahm” once in awhile just for fun, and it
stuck with me, so I guess I thought it was fun, too.
A day or two after Halloween each year Dad could be
counted on to tell somebody, “Halloween is over; you can take off the funny
mask now,” or maybe, “Why are you still wearing that funny-looking mask? Halloween is over!” Again, I thought it was funny, even though
most people just thought it was corny, maybe offensive, and getting old after a
few years. I have even pulled it on my
own grandchildren, who just thought it was weird. There was a song, “Because of You,” that Dad
would sing as “big horse of you,” with similar results. I think Mom in particular, and women in
general, don’t like to hear references to the possibility that they may be
bigger or heavier than the ideal. It
seems like women have some sort of understood pact wherein they may size each
other up in unflattering terms, but they close ranks in defense of themselves
and each other if a male dares even allude to the possibility that a woman may
be less than perfect. It is like racial
slurs. Members of the same minority
group can and do use slang and derogatory terms with each other and laugh about
it, but a non-member of that group would be wise to avoid any such
behavior. It will not be appreciated or
tolerated.
I think it was Mom who told me that Popu said one time
that Aunt Dot was a “sophisticated lady” and Mom was “pleasingly plump.” He no doubt thought he was being clever and
complimentary to both women, but Mom felt she surely got the short end of that
stick. The fact that Mom remembered it
and told me about it is proof enough in my mind that the comment was not
appreciated. Mom used to tell the story of when I was in my play pen at around
age two, and she heard me saying over and over something that sounded like “I
deem about the knife.” She was very
concerned that I was having nightmares until finally she was playing one of her
long-playing 33 1/3 rmp records that included a song with the phrase, “All
through the day I dream about the night,” and I started singing along, “I deem
about the knife.” What a relief! I wasn’t having nightmares!
My taste in music includes songs and singers that were a
little before my time. I really like the
big band era and the old crooners who pre-date the rock ‘n roll era. I should hasten to say that I also like a lot
of the pop and country music from the late 1950s to today, which pretty much
covers my whole life, including the old doo-wop groups, Elvis, the Beatles; and
so many of the Broadway show tunes. I
just never caught on with the extremes of heavy metal, acid rock, etc, and I
get nothing out of Bruce Springsteen or Bono’s U2, and that ilk. But Donald and I are currently helping a
Celtic rock band get started. They play
blue grass, folk, punk rock, etc, as well.
I’m starting to get an ear for some of the wilder stuff and really like
it!
Vinyl records were 33 1/3 rpm, 45 rpm or 78 rpm
(revolutions per minute). When I
received a record player one year for Christmas or my birthday at around age
12, the 45 rpm was the standard, with one song on each side. The record companies learned pretty quickly
to put a weak or unpopular song on what we called the B side, in order to sell
more records overall. Prior to that
move, the pairing of two popular songs on one record would sell a lot of units,
but a pairing of two unpopular songs would just sit there on the store
shelves. It seemed to me that the songs
on the 33 1/3 and 78 rpm records were old fashioned and didn’t have the sound
quality of the 45s. Those others had
small holes in the middle, while the 45s had a large hole. The record players
came with an adaptor to place over the thin spindle to accommodate the
45s. It was not unusual for me to find
that I liked the B side of a record almost as much as the A side, in many
cases, perhaps because I could get tired of hearing the most popular songs all
the time. Also, for me, half of my
enjoyment of a song is the words, and the words were often as good or better on
the B side as on the A side.
Dad played the mandolin by ear and taught me to do the
same. He never had music lessons. I started music lessons but stopped, probably
due to money (lack of), but I’m not sure.
In 4th grade I was exposed to the trumpet and really liked
it, but Dad said that people who play the trumpet end up working in sleazy
dives around fast action and bad people.
Plus, the trumpet caused their lips to become malformed, he said. He said that if I would give up the trumpet,
he would let me take up the accordion, outside of school, since they didn’t
offer accordion in school. The accordion
was much more wholesome in his mind, associated with nice people like Lawrence
Welk, whom we watched every week on TV.
I actually liked the Lawrence Welk show, which gets back to my old
fashioned taste in music for such a young person. Anyway, I gave up the trumpet, but never got
an accordion, probably also due to money (lack of).
In a similar vein, Dad didn’t want me to go to the Junior
Prom, partly because he did not approve of boys and girls getting that close to
each other (dancing), plus there was no money for a tuxedo. A friend was willing to lend me the $25 for
the tuxedo rental, if my Dad would co-sign the loan, which he would not
do. I had enough money from caddying to
pay for the corsage and dinner. Let me
stop for a minute and point out a few signs of the time then: 1) you could rent
a tuxedo for $25, 2) $25 was a lot of money to my parents (and evidently to my
friend, or my friend’s father, since they needed a written note, and 3) note
the role of women - there was no thought of getting Mom to sign the note. Anyway, I ended up wearing a blue suit that
Mom came up with from somewhere. I told
my date that I thought I looked better the rest of the guys, because I stood
out and wasn’t wearing the same boring color as everyone else. She promptly disagreed and said she was
embarrassed for me and for herself.
Yikes! I mentioned this to Sandy
recently, and she agreed with the girl.
She would have been mortified to be with the only boy at the dance who
did not have a tuxedo.
A couple of more anecdotes on my background: Mom was
convinced that the safest place to eat out was McDonald’s. She said that you could always count on the
same high quality and the same fair prices, plus they were always clean, the
staff was all trained the same way, etc.
She thought at the family-owned restaurants they were probably taking
the dishes out back and hosing them off for re-use, and violating any number of
other health and cleanliness laws in the kitchen, where customers couldn’t
see. Dad was telling me one time about a
wonderful restaurant that they always went to for Thanksgiving dinner. He raved about the food, the service, the
atmosphere, the price…and said the name of the place was Denny’s! They say that the apple does not fall far
from the tree, but in my case I think it jumped up on its itty-bitty legs and
ran as far away as it could. Perhaps at
some basic level, the story of my life is the story of running away from my
roots, but never really leaving the tree.
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