Sunday, January 21, 2018

An Email To My Brother (1-21-18)

I saw an advertisement for INTRODUCING! The New Glock! It was a HOT DEAL! at $559.99! You know what? It looks just like the OLD Glock.
     Just more expensive.
     I looked carefully at the picture and couldn’t see anything that was new about it. It’s like when Colgate toothpaste advertised “New Colgate! Now With MFP!”
    Well, MFP turned out to stand for “More Fluoride Power.” In other words, it had fluoride, which it always had. There was nothing new about it at all. I guess what PT Barnum said was true:
    There’s one of you born every minute.
 
    I’ve got some bad news.
    I was listening to KROQ’s Kevin & Bean show, and they were talking about how Daryl Strawberry was so sex addicted he would arrange to have sex during baseball games he was playing in.
    Remember those days?
    Not with YOUR Alzheimer’s, you don’t.
    I don’t call it Sex Addiction. I call it Sexual Opportunities. If you’re at work and a cute girl wants to play doctor, you’ll take advantage of that opportunity. It has nothing to do with addiction.
    Masturbate too much? You’re bored. You don't have enough going on in your life.
    Celebrities always claim to be sexually addicted when they get caught cheating on their wives, but it’s really just them being surrounded with a lot of girls who are willing to have sex with them.
 
     Remember our Aunt’s funeral? The one you weren't invited to? Remember how it was said that her eldest son Fredo was stealthily handing out invitations with accompanying directions to his house to only a select few for the private wake afterwards? (The food was delicious, by the way.)
     I know you tried to defend him, but the story continues...
     His wife’s mother died just before Christmas. They kept her cold, and her funeral is tomorrow. His two older sisters are flying in from out of town to attend. Even my wife and I were planning on going because, since it’s on a Saturday, I didn’t have work as an excuse not to go.
     I say “were,” because Fredo called his youngest sister Connie to have her call the rest of the Duchene family to let them know that the wake after the funeral would only be for his wife's family, no one else. His father. Not invited. His younger brothers Sonny and Michael. Not invited. Connie, the one he called to do his dirty work. Not invited. The sisters from out of town. Not invited. Only his wife's family.
     “It’s cheaper that way,” he probably thought, but didn’t say.
     What he DID say was: “We can all go out to eat at a restaurant the day after,” he told Connie to inform the others, but not offering to pick up the tab.
      “Great, I have to pay for a flight AND pay for my own meal to honor a woman I’m not related to?” the two older sisters probably groused. 
     Uncle Vito probably thought, “All those times I used to pound that cake outside in my car at family gatherings, and I can’t go to her wake?”
      In a related story, we were at Michael and his wife's house for Christmas and I was sitting outside with Uncle Vito. Fredo’s eldest son arrived, came outside, and walked right past us, ignoring his grandfather. I know you'll probably want to defend him the way you defended his father Fredo from years before, but there was no way he could miss us because we were sitting right by the door. Ignore me, I could understand, but walking right past his father’s father without even looking at him, I don’t.
     He said hello and started talking to our cousin Connie’s oldest son who works for him as a trainer at the gym he owns. Connie’s daughter also works for him. She’s been there for four years and has never gotten a raise. Your nickel raise back in the 60s that you still complain about all these years later doesn’t seem so bad now, does it? Anyway...
     I went inside, so I don’t know if he said hello to Uncle Vito on his way back into the house.
     In confidence, Uncle Vito has told Michael (who told his wife, who told my wife, who told me) that, “I don’t like that guy.”
     Michael's wife is going to the funeral, but she refuses to go out to eat with Fredo and his wife the next day.
     “You have to go,” Michael told her. “You’re my wife.”
     “I’m not going,” she told him back, digging in her heels. She would have threatened him with not giving him any booty, but she doesn’t do that anyway.
     The Unwanted Duchenes are all going out to eat together by themselves after the funeral. 
 
     By the way, I hear your favorite team the Raiders got a new coach.
     It’s your old coach from the catholic high school you went to:
     Father Haywood Jablomie.

 
   
Raising My Father
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JimDuchene.BlogSpot.com  American Chimpanzee
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Sunday, January 14, 2018

Once A Dog...

Even before he was diagnosed pre-Alzheimer’s, my father never had an internal editor to filter out the things he shouldn’t say. If you had a question, but didn’t want an honest answer, my father was not the one to ask.
     He was more than blunt, he was brutally blunt.
     Another thing he was, especially in his younger days before he was married, was a hound dog. If you’ve ever heard the song Nosy Joe by Bull Moose Jackson, it pretty much tells the story of my father’s bachelor years.
     I remember once going with my father to look at a truck he saw advertised in the Classifieds section of the newspaper. He was going to go alone, but my mother made him take me along.
     He pulled up to the house. We both got off, and he knocked on the door. A very attractive lady greeted us, and then went inside to get her husband.
      When the man came outside, my father was already checking out the truck, which was parked in the driveway with a For Sale sign taped to the inside of the rear window.
     “So,” the man said, “are you thinking about buying my truck?”
     “No,” my father told him, “I’m just looking at your truck. What I’m thinking about is your wife.”

 
 
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Sunday, January 7, 2018

A Christmas Memory Re-Remembered

Somehow, my brother remembers Christmas like this:
     "That year I got the top of the line, decked out, most expensive Schwinn bicycle ever. It must have cost our father a week's salary, maybe two. You got an air pump, a tire-repair kit, two tire tubes, and a dollar. You looked at what Santa left you and asked our father, 'Dad, why did Santa Claus bring me this stuff?'
     "Dad answered, 'In case your brother gets a flat. And the dollar is for you to buy him a soda.'
     "Best Christmas ever..."
 
 
Raising My Father
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Monday, January 1, 2018

The Shower Curtain Rod

as featured in Desert Exposure Magazine
desertexposure.com
 
"Honey," my wife said, giving me her sweetest smile. "I need you to fix the shower curtain in dad's bathroom."
    “Again?” I questioned.
    “Again,” she confirmed.
    “But I just fixed it,” I griped.
    "Well, fix it again,” she countered.
    "It can't be broken," I insisted.
    "And yet it is," she insisted back.
    “Again?” I mumbled to myself, because I knew the only one in this room interested in hearing my complaints was me.
    I must have fixed that darn thing--what?--eight, nine, ten times? It seems I retired from a job I enjoyed just to spend that retirement fixing my father's shower curtain. It’s not that it’s hard to fix, because it’s not, but that’s not the problem.
    "The problem," I explained to my wife, "is that dad uses the curtain for support when he gets out of the shower. We have the same kind of rod in our shower, and how many times has it fallen? ZERO times."
    "I know," my wife agreed.
    That ended the conversation, because how do you argue with someone who’s agreeing with you? What she left out, however, was, "He's your dad." My wife is good that way. She never tells me, "He's your dad." She just tells me to fix the things he breaks.
    That's the funny thing. At one time my father could fix anything, and I mean anything. During World War Two, when he was stationed in the Philippines, he built a washing machine while fighting the Japanese. Well, not exactly while he was fighting the Japanese, but in between fighting the Japanese.
    I know that story is true, because I've seen pictures of the washing machine. It was essentially a barrel rigged to the front wheel of an Army Jeep. Crude, but effective.
    Had washing machines even been invented yet in the 1940s, or was this an original invention of his? That seems like too much work to look up, so let’s just say they weren’t. I’d rather continue writing this story than spend my time looking up unnecessary facts.
    Just then, my father walked into the kitchen and sat down, ready for breakfast.
    "What happened to the shower curtain, dad?" I asked him, putting aside the book I was reading, the one I told you about in my October column. It’s called “The Joke Man: Bow To Stern,” and it’s written by my favorite comedian, Jackie Martling. I had ordered it on jackiethejokeman.com, and it was shipped out on the 24th of that same month. I got the book a few days after, but haven’t been able to find the time to read it.
    I’ve been too busy fixing shower curtain rods.
    Hmm… maybe I should have ordered a book on home repair instead.
    My father looked over his shoulder to see if my wife was on her way with his food. She wisely kept her back to us.
    “What?” he said, turning back.
    “The shower curtain,” I repeated.
    "It's broken," he said.
    "What happened?" I asked him.
    "It just fell. I could fix it, but I know you like to take care of this stuff."
    I don't know where he got the idea I like to fix things, because I don’t. I remember, back when I knew everything, I told him that when I grew up I was going to hire handymen to do all my work for me. He laughed at that. When I grew up, I understood why he laughed, even though I was offended at the time.
    "It sure does break a lot," I told him.
    "Yeah," my dad said.  "It sure does." I guess he felt the need to say something else, because he added, “They just don’t make things the way they used to.”
    I tried to arch an eyebrow the way my wife does when she’s irritated with me, but I probably only managed to look like Popeye the Sailor, rather than a skeptical son.
    “They sure don’t,” I agreed, sarcastically.
    My wife put a plate of food in front of him, and my father began to eat with the enthusiasm of a man who doesn't have to constantly fix the things he breaks and leaves behind.
    "The problem is," my dad continued, pointing a forkful of scrambled egg at me, "there's something wrong with the rod in the shower area, it keeps falling.”
    My father emphasized his point by doing his David Copperfield impersonation and making the egg on his fork disappear.
    “Yeah, they just don't make things like they used to,” he repeated, chewing his breakfast. “Stuff, nowadays, is cheap. Those characters that built this house knew they were using cheap materials. That's why the rods keep falling by themselves."
    “Not the ‘rods,’ dad,” I wanted to tell him. “The rod in my shower is fine.”
    My wife glanced over her shoulder to see my reaction. It reminded me to keep my temper. I take issue with my dad telling me we live in a cheap house. My house is not cheap. Just the garage is probably worth more than the house I grew up in. I'd tell you how much it cost me, but I don't want any recently unemployed former Chicago community organizers showing up at my front door.
    So I fixed it.
    What's the big deal?
    And three more times, before the month was out, I had to fix it again.
          
When I’m not busy making the same repairs over and over again, you can find me doing nothing at RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com, JimDuchene.BlogSpot.com, or @JimDuchene. 
   
 
Raising My Father
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JimDuchene.Blogspot.com  American Chimpanzee
@JimDuchene