The other day, which is only to say it was not today, this moment in time, but another moment in time that I cannot quite recall, I read a post by daisy cashin. I laughed so hard , I coughed my coffee through my nose.
Hey, for my money that opening sentence is up there with some of the best of Dickens and Wodehouse in offering a lesson in how you go about introducing some comic writing. It’s so wonderfully redundant, in the best possible way. Because what the self-serious Writing Gurus™️ don’t realise- or at least what they haven’t figured out a way to monetise yet- is that it is not ‘lean prose™️’ that makes people smile. No it’s warm and observant waffle that turns the frown upside down, it’s an unhurried teller spooling out a perspective that is at once completely relatable yet just a little bit crooked that gets the laughs . Which again, in the nicest possible way, are all qualities that
offers up in spades.Enjoy.
TJB.
The other day, which is only to say it was not today, this moment in time, but another moment in time that I cannot quite recall, I read a post bydaisy cashin. I laughed so hard , I coughed my coffee through my nose. His characterization of a guy named Chris, a bit of a wildman who had a personal relationship with bologna, was not something I was expecting to read on Substack with my morning coffee. After all, Substack bills itself as “a new economic engine for culture”.
I snorted loudly enough that my husband looked up from his ipad long enough to ask, “What’s so funny?” I read it outloud, not the whole thing, but enough so that he cracked up too.
“Can you imagine saying something like that in High School?”
“No, but, I know guys who would, maybe not in front of girls.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. That’s pretty funny though, I wouldn’t have thought of that.”
“Yeah, me neither, who would?”
“Oh you’d be surprised.” he adds chuckling to himself as if he is reminded of something funny, his attention goes back to his ipad
Before I return to my laptop reading, I take another sip of coffee and it hits me.
Not only do I know a Chris, I know several Chrises. And what is even more shocking to me is that, I not only know people like that, I am related to people like that! I am related to them by marriage.
I am a lucky woman and I married well by any measure. My husband is good looking, well educated, hardworking, and smart. When I first met his parents I noticed that they were good looking, well educated, hardworking, and smart. When I met his grandmother on his father’s side, nothing suspect. She was a staid churchlady who’s standard contribution to a family meal was lime jello infused with cottage cheese, pineapple and marshmallows served as a scrumptious pulsating rectangle on a piece of lettuce - Yum! “Wiggle wobble shiny bright!”1
It wasn’t till our wedding reception that I met the cousins. How to introduce them? Hmm. Let’s just begin with the fact that we ran out of hard liquor and had to restock twice before the end of the reception. The ‘reception’, mainly the cousins, moved to my mother’s house after the liquor stores closed and officially ended around 4am the next morning, when her ample stock was drained dry. At that time, the cousins, now best friends for life with my mom, loaded into their cars, one of them towing a camper, and headed to the nearby short track race track/ campground where later that day they would drive one of those very same cars, after removing a seat or two, in the weekend street-stock car race.2
We didn’t get to see the cousins often, they lived in a different city. Yet, I looked forward to the yearly pool party/family reunion, it was a break from my husband’s public accountanting vows. Sadly, since he had pledged to be boring in public as part of those vows, we always left before they started throwing people in the pool.
When our son was sixteen we took him to see the stock car races. As we were leaving we ran into one of the cousins.
“Hey cuz” a loud and happy voice called out through the crowd.
Looking over the heads of the crowd, we saw a hand clutching a beer in a cosy waving to us. My husband recognized the voice and headed towards the beer beacon.
“Hey Freddy! Some race wasn’t it? Glad to see Chad3 win!”
“Hell yeah!” Freddy answers, then turns toward the crowd of exiting race fans and shouts, “Can I get a hell, yeah?”
“HELL, YEAH” the crowd dutifully responds.
“How ya doing Danny boy?” The cousins never address each other by the proper name, it’s always an eee added to be familiar. “Who ya got there wit ya?”
“You remember Jeanne, my wife?” Danny boy answers nodding towards me. “And this is my son, Andy4, you met him when he was younger, at the pool, remember?”
Now Andy was small for his age. At sixteen he barely stands five foot two and no one would mistake him for an adult. He holds out his hand for a shake and quietly mumbles, “Hi Fred.”
Fred looks down at his hands, the right one holding his beer and a lit cigarette, the left one an open bottle of Jack5, unsure of the best move, he falters then decisively tucks the beer under his arm and puts the cigarette in his mouth so he has a hand free to shake.
“Hey, You’ve sure growed.” he says without a bit of ash falling, “Do you party?”
He holds the bottle of Jack out to Andy’s big ass grin.
“Hell, Yeah!”
Danny boy quickly places a firm restraining hand on Andy boy’s outstretched one, crashing the party.
“ Hell, no. He’s too young Freddy.”
“Oh, sorry man.”
At this point there is only one ‘man’ that appears truly sorry and he is sixteen.
At another meetup, this time with cousin Ron(ny), my husband is complaining about a local speed trap.
“They got me for one hundred and sixty.” Dan says.
“Hell, Danny, you got me beat.” Ronny replies with admiration in his voice. “The fastest they ever got me for is one fifty-three (mph). Had to spend the night in jail, lost my license for six months, sons a bitches. There weren’t nobody else on that road. I couldna hurt nobody.”
Safety first.
“No, no, no.” Danny boy laughs. “The fine was one hundred and sixty dollars. I wasn’t driving one hundred and sixty (mph). I was going thirty-three in a twenty-five zone.”
Danny boy is a little embarrassed, maybe a little envious too.
It’s not that any of the cousins are drunken bums. They all have jobs. They take care of each other. Their family support network is one of the tightest I have ever seen. It’s more that they don’t worry about image. They like what they like and they do what they do. They enjoy each other and they enjoy life. Sure you won’t meet them at the opera, or the symphony but you’d be lucky to meet them somewhere, sometime because they live life all in.
Like I said, I’m a lucky woman and I married well.
This was part of a Jello tv jingle. 1960s Jello Comm ercial (youtube.com)
They won.
Chad is the racing cousin. They all have raced, but Chad is actually pretty good at it.
You might think adding an eee to Andy would result in Andyie. This would sound silly so in cases such as this, the name is usually shortened. For Andy, the familiar would be Ang. Think Barney Fife’s nickname for Andy Griffith.
Jack Daniels is an inexpensive US whiskey. Some people are on a first name basis with it.
Hahaha this is as warm as it is funny!!
ahhhhh <3