The first house that my wife and I had was a rehab special. Bob Vila and Norm Abrams were on This Old House and we thought that we could do the same. Norm has a fleet of carpenters behind the scenes but that didn't bother us. Geez was I ever a dumb ass back then.
So it's another hot summer day and I'm trying to cool off. We did not have air conditioning in the beginning of our marriage nor could we afford it. We didn't have two nickels to rub together as the saying goes. So cooling off was important and there were various ways to do so. We could stay in the unfinished basement where it was cooler but the TV reception was really bad. We could and did put tin foil in the west facing windows to block out the afternoon sun AND block the aliens from our thoughts. Or we could eat some frozen candy that we had in the freezer. These candies were bite sized Mars bars and they were solid as a rock-but they were cold.
About this time, my two oldest came in from outside and they were flicking something out of their arm pits. They actually raised their arms and tried to stick their little hands in their own arm pits as if they were trying to imitate monkeys in the wild. I asked them what they were doing and they said that they were "flicking out the Neepo Beepo's." That's pronounced "knee-po Beep-o" by the way according to our 4 and 5 year old.
Now curiosity has gotten a hold of me so I raise their little arms to see just what a Neepo Beepo is. They had the little ropes of dirt in the crevices of their armpits and they were trying their darnedest to get them out. I saw that there were some crud ropes behind their knees and asked what they called them. Those are Neeps and Beeps because they haven't crawled their way up to the arm pits. So now I understand. They then followed with that mom does not have Neepo Beepo's because she cuts their heads off with a razor while she's in the shower. Point taken.
So we clean them up and send them back outside to play some more. I make my way to the freezer and pull out a frozen Mars bar and unwrap it. About this time my 4 year old daughter comes in through the back door and almost catches me with the candy. I very quickly and stealthy put the candy, the ice cold candy, in my arm pit. She asks me if I ever get any Neepo Beepo's. I slowly look over my left shoulder with the devil's own grin and rest my gaze upon my horror stricken wife. She's pleading with me in what can only be described as a low growl tone of voice that I should not show our little angel that I did have a Neepo Beepo.
I look back at my daughter and said, "Sure do!" and with that, I raised up my arm and the candy dropped out. I very quickly snatched it up from the floor and popped it into my mouth. Her eyes got as big as dinner plates when she saw this and shreaked, "Bubba! Daddy is eating his Neepo Beepo's!" and then ran out the door int the backyard.
My wife was beyond angry and said that sometime in the future, our kids will be on some psychiatrists couch telling them about all of the times that I messed with their heads and that is why they can't function in life. I told her that they'd be OK and not to worry.
About this time we see the back door opening ever so slowly and in come the two kids. They had wrapped their arms around each other holding on tight and were walking in lock step. It really looked like there were two heads on one body. My wife is still angry but now shes afraid that these two will start crying or something like that. Our daughter looked up and said, "Do it again daddy!" and we laughed as I gave them some of the frozen candy and explained what I did. They didn't care as they got cold candy on a hot day.
On the other hand, my dear wife stomped out of the house to cool off so she didn't really enjoy the day but we sure did!
A few years later I had a brilliant idea. I announced at the dinner table that I had been elected into Chicago's Medinah Shrine Clown Club and needed a name. It had to be something simple, funny and it had to make people laugh. The two older kids said in unison,"You have to be Neepo Beepo dad" and history was made.
People who have known me for most of my life either said what took you so long to come out of the clown closet or that they knew that eventually I'd find my true calling. Either way it was hard work and I'd try out all of my clown antics on my kids so that I could hone my skills. My older daughter taught me how to make balloon animals. They are in their late 20's and early 30's now and none of them are on a shrinks couch!
Maybe it's my turn.....
Saturday, April 12, 2014
The Origin of Ass Worms.
Several years ago, my wife and our 3 children were on their way to a wake for a good friend. He was in his upper 80's, a free thinker and a real fun guy but it was his time. Our three teen age children were in the car and saw that their mom was feeling a wee bit sad so they tried to cheer her up on the way to the funeral home.
They talked of many things and finally our middle child asked mom, "Did I ever tell you about dad and the ass worms story?" The Love Of My Life almost slammed on the brakes of the car and screamed, "WHAT?!" Our child went on to tell the sordid tale of how her dad was a cagy old codger even when he was younger and the other two just chimed right in.
The kids would run around the house and outside all day long and burn off loads of energy. I thought that they were more energetic than usual for 3 and 4 year old's but didn't notice because I was busy rehabbing the house. I went to the refrigerator to get something cold to drink and saw the two older kids running towards the kitchen at full toddler speed, swoop by the table and stuck their sticky fingers in the sugar bowl and then place these same fingers into their mouths without breaking stride. I was amazed at their dexterity and finesse but knew that as a father, I should stop this.
I called them in and washed off their fingers and told them that you will get worms if you keep eating raw sugar. They were young enough to believe me too. I explained that worms will crawl out of your butts when you sleep if you eat raw sugar. So they looked at each other and decided that maybe they shouldn't do that anymore. I was told later that there was a great discussion about this at bedtime that night and maybe they should go to mom with this tidbit of information but they didn't after all. It's a good thing that they didn't because the story would have ended there.
They held this to be true for years and years and years. It got to the point that if I wanted something out of the refrigerator that I'd tell them that they'd get ass worms if they ate this or that so they should leave it alone. They once asked me why I didn't get ass worms so I told them that my gut microbes were more sophisticated then theirs and they that I could handle this inconvenience.Yeah, they believed that one too.
So a few years later, here comes our third child. She's growing up and the older two are teaching her about life and why she should never eat raw sugar. It was about then that the older two were starting to doubt my wisdom but kept with my admonitions. The three of them were playing in the dirt outside a little later when the youngest got some earth worms in her little pants suit. That was it! They knew that dad was right all along because after all, the 2 year old was eating sugar and she got worms!
Not too much later, the kids got smart and looked up this worm story on the computer and confirmed their suspicions that dad was full of shit and they were right. They never really told me that they knew but I knew that they were old enough to, 1. Not believe me anymore, and 2. If they did still believe me, that their gut microbes would be able to handle this.
Of course my wife was very angry that I would stoop so low and further that the kids would actually believe me but in the end, she knew that I was not being cruel and that I was just doing what clown in me would do. So she shook her head and said that one day we would have grandchildren so I should try not to be too much of a dunderhead.
My daughter and granddaughter visit on a regular basis and I'm sure that even as a 15 month old, my grandbaby has been told to not believe everything that Pop-Pop has to say. But that doesn't stop me from trying!
They talked of many things and finally our middle child asked mom, "Did I ever tell you about dad and the ass worms story?" The Love Of My Life almost slammed on the brakes of the car and screamed, "WHAT?!" Our child went on to tell the sordid tale of how her dad was a cagy old codger even when he was younger and the other two just chimed right in.
The kids would run around the house and outside all day long and burn off loads of energy. I thought that they were more energetic than usual for 3 and 4 year old's but didn't notice because I was busy rehabbing the house. I went to the refrigerator to get something cold to drink and saw the two older kids running towards the kitchen at full toddler speed, swoop by the table and stuck their sticky fingers in the sugar bowl and then place these same fingers into their mouths without breaking stride. I was amazed at their dexterity and finesse but knew that as a father, I should stop this.
I called them in and washed off their fingers and told them that you will get worms if you keep eating raw sugar. They were young enough to believe me too. I explained that worms will crawl out of your butts when you sleep if you eat raw sugar. So they looked at each other and decided that maybe they shouldn't do that anymore. I was told later that there was a great discussion about this at bedtime that night and maybe they should go to mom with this tidbit of information but they didn't after all. It's a good thing that they didn't because the story would have ended there.
They held this to be true for years and years and years. It got to the point that if I wanted something out of the refrigerator that I'd tell them that they'd get ass worms if they ate this or that so they should leave it alone. They once asked me why I didn't get ass worms so I told them that my gut microbes were more sophisticated then theirs and they that I could handle this inconvenience.Yeah, they believed that one too.
So a few years later, here comes our third child. She's growing up and the older two are teaching her about life and why she should never eat raw sugar. It was about then that the older two were starting to doubt my wisdom but kept with my admonitions. The three of them were playing in the dirt outside a little later when the youngest got some earth worms in her little pants suit. That was it! They knew that dad was right all along because after all, the 2 year old was eating sugar and she got worms!
Not too much later, the kids got smart and looked up this worm story on the computer and confirmed their suspicions that dad was full of shit and they were right. They never really told me that they knew but I knew that they were old enough to, 1. Not believe me anymore, and 2. If they did still believe me, that their gut microbes would be able to handle this.
Of course my wife was very angry that I would stoop so low and further that the kids would actually believe me but in the end, she knew that I was not being cruel and that I was just doing what clown in me would do. So she shook her head and said that one day we would have grandchildren so I should try not to be too much of a dunderhead.
My daughter and granddaughter visit on a regular basis and I'm sure that even as a 15 month old, my grandbaby has been told to not believe everything that Pop-Pop has to say. But that doesn't stop me from trying!
Monday, March 31, 2014
Gimme Some of That Old Time Religion!
My parents wanted to give us everything that they could so that we would grow up to be quality human beings. Yeah, that second part makes me laugh too. My two brothers and me were dead set against anything that we'd have to take a bath for but the will of our parents usually prevailed.
Saturday night was bath night and we usually had baths more often than that but one really couldn't tell. Where there was dirt, there we were in the midst. If there was a water hose, there was mud and again we were in the midst of it. I think I remember people calling us pigs but that may be a false memory. It's not like we hadn't earned it though.
Saturday night is here and we are cleaned up and ready for some quality TV. What's next? Polishing our shoes and mom making sure that our church clothes were laid out neatly pressed and ready to go for the following morning. No TV for the piggies. We wanted to stay up as late as possible so that it would take a long time for church services to come but that was not our parents plans at all. They dropped dead asleep once we were in bed so they were looking for as much sleep as possible. Being a parent and grandparent now, I can see their wisdom if not their fatigue.
Sunday morning came and we woke up bright and early to the smell of bacon and pancakes! It was going to be a grand day after all! My mothers youngest sister came over every Sunday to take us to Sunday school at a fire and brimstone Pentecostal church. My parents would come to services later in the day but Aunt Lucille made the rounds gathering up all sorts of kids from all over the north side of Chicago to attend Sunday school.
We were dressed in our blue colored blazers with the little gold shield crest on the breast pocket with the fake hankie, white shirts and red bow ties and shoes so highly polished that we could almost see up girls skirts. Not that we actually did that....! We were styling back then! We had the obligatory crew cuts as was befitting the style for little boys back then. I think that is was so mom and dad could check for cooties but then again, maybe not. It was definitely easier to wash us though.
Aunt Lu-Lu and her fiancee (later her husband) would park their VW micro bus in front of the house and come get us. It was like pulling teeth for us to go but we went anyway. I was about about 5 years old so I did what I was told to do-sometimes. Anyway, we'd walk to the bus and see all of the other kids there and then off to church.
This had been going on for a number of weeks and months and possibly years and Aunt Lu-Lu was getting tired of the tussle every Sunday so she hit upon what I could only say is a brilliantly imaginative if not shortsighted idea. She stopped at the penny candy counter and bought candy for all us! Besides me and my brothers, there were some friends of my aunt and some of her neighbors so all in all there were about 3-9 kids in the bus on any given Sunday and once in a great while there were more.
So we're all loaded in and I'm in the middle seat nearest the front and Uncle Ernie starts driving. Aunt Lu-Lu turned around and gave me the bag of candy and told me to pass them out. Big mistake since my ears shut off at "Rich, have some candy!" She bought the candy that had 4 differently colored dots across and went the length of the paper. I looked at this with amazement of my good fortune and proceeded to eat the candy. I put the candied paper in my mouth and hooked the first row with my upper front teeth. Then I put my finger onto the paper forcing it into my mouth and pulled up and out removing every piece of candy on the paper on one shot. There had to be hundreds if not millions of dots! In about 2 seconds the candy was gone. The paper looked to be about 6 feet long or so but my mouth was full of candy goodness!
My mouth is so full and cheeks so packed that I looked like a chipmunk just before winter was about to set in. My nose had every color of the candy wiped right across unbeknownst to me. Now about this time the other kids started bellyaching that they weren't getting anything. Aunt Lu-Lu turned around and looked at me. I had multicolored drool coming out of my mouth and it looked like I was having trouble breathing and my nice white shirt looked like a Jackson Pollack painting. She asked, "Richie, did you pass out the candy like I asked you too?" What was I to say? I mumbled "no" and shook my head sideways. About that time my mouth exploded and all of my hard won candy was all over the place in a most disgusting manner. Uncle Ernie was very upset because he had to clean out the mess before it set into the carpeting. We were just about at church and Aunt Lu-Lu was just flabbergasted about my behavior and the other kids were crying that they didn't get any candy and the uproar was deafening as we offloaded from the bus.
And then the sugar kicked in...
Saturday night was bath night and we usually had baths more often than that but one really couldn't tell. Where there was dirt, there we were in the midst. If there was a water hose, there was mud and again we were in the midst of it. I think I remember people calling us pigs but that may be a false memory. It's not like we hadn't earned it though.
Saturday night is here and we are cleaned up and ready for some quality TV. What's next? Polishing our shoes and mom making sure that our church clothes were laid out neatly pressed and ready to go for the following morning. No TV for the piggies. We wanted to stay up as late as possible so that it would take a long time for church services to come but that was not our parents plans at all. They dropped dead asleep once we were in bed so they were looking for as much sleep as possible. Being a parent and grandparent now, I can see their wisdom if not their fatigue.
Sunday morning came and we woke up bright and early to the smell of bacon and pancakes! It was going to be a grand day after all! My mothers youngest sister came over every Sunday to take us to Sunday school at a fire and brimstone Pentecostal church. My parents would come to services later in the day but Aunt Lucille made the rounds gathering up all sorts of kids from all over the north side of Chicago to attend Sunday school.
We were dressed in our blue colored blazers with the little gold shield crest on the breast pocket with the fake hankie, white shirts and red bow ties and shoes so highly polished that we could almost see up girls skirts. Not that we actually did that....! We were styling back then! We had the obligatory crew cuts as was befitting the style for little boys back then. I think that is was so mom and dad could check for cooties but then again, maybe not. It was definitely easier to wash us though.
Aunt Lu-Lu and her fiancee (later her husband) would park their VW micro bus in front of the house and come get us. It was like pulling teeth for us to go but we went anyway. I was about about 5 years old so I did what I was told to do-sometimes. Anyway, we'd walk to the bus and see all of the other kids there and then off to church.
This had been going on for a number of weeks and months and possibly years and Aunt Lu-Lu was getting tired of the tussle every Sunday so she hit upon what I could only say is a brilliantly imaginative if not shortsighted idea. She stopped at the penny candy counter and bought candy for all us! Besides me and my brothers, there were some friends of my aunt and some of her neighbors so all in all there were about 3-9 kids in the bus on any given Sunday and once in a great while there were more.
So we're all loaded in and I'm in the middle seat nearest the front and Uncle Ernie starts driving. Aunt Lu-Lu turned around and gave me the bag of candy and told me to pass them out. Big mistake since my ears shut off at "Rich, have some candy!" She bought the candy that had 4 differently colored dots across and went the length of the paper. I looked at this with amazement of my good fortune and proceeded to eat the candy. I put the candied paper in my mouth and hooked the first row with my upper front teeth. Then I put my finger onto the paper forcing it into my mouth and pulled up and out removing every piece of candy on the paper on one shot. There had to be hundreds if not millions of dots! In about 2 seconds the candy was gone. The paper looked to be about 6 feet long or so but my mouth was full of candy goodness!
My mouth is so full and cheeks so packed that I looked like a chipmunk just before winter was about to set in. My nose had every color of the candy wiped right across unbeknownst to me. Now about this time the other kids started bellyaching that they weren't getting anything. Aunt Lu-Lu turned around and looked at me. I had multicolored drool coming out of my mouth and it looked like I was having trouble breathing and my nice white shirt looked like a Jackson Pollack painting. She asked, "Richie, did you pass out the candy like I asked you too?" What was I to say? I mumbled "no" and shook my head sideways. About that time my mouth exploded and all of my hard won candy was all over the place in a most disgusting manner. Uncle Ernie was very upset because he had to clean out the mess before it set into the carpeting. We were just about at church and Aunt Lu-Lu was just flabbergasted about my behavior and the other kids were crying that they didn't get any candy and the uproar was deafening as we offloaded from the bus.
And then the sugar kicked in...
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Grandma Edna and Meister Brau
I started out as a child on the north side of Chicago in the shadows of Wrigley Field in 1958. It was the early 60's when we moved into a new house and the neighborhood wasn't all that bad then. It would be far worse in the latter half of that decade.
Air conditioning was not something that we knew of personally although we had heard rumors that such a thing existed. My two brothers and I were always outside digging in the dirt, playing with the water hose, annoying the neighbors dog and in general, being what some little boys always seemed to be-pigs. And we enjoyed it too. We never really thought about air conditioning let alone soap and water. Shampoo? Forget it!
Mom was bound and determined to make us clean so on Saturday night, we would line up and take a bath. Mom always swore that she needed Linco Bleach just to have an even chance of seeing clean kids. Then we would go off to church with my mother's younger sister to a fire and brimstone Pentecostal church. It didn't take.
My mother was a "boy" mom. She knew how to handle us pigs and we accepted that if she was mad, that we may have had something to do with it. She was a shorter woman but she had the strength of voice that could have a car park itself out of fear for her. Her step-mother raised her from the age of 11 so her Aunt Edna became our Grandma Edna. Grandma Edna was strict with my mother and her twin brother when they were growing up but the grand kids could do no wrong to my mothers dismay.
One fine, sunny and very hot day, Grandma Edna and Grandpa Joe came by for a visit. Mom and Grandma got into the car and we three pigs got into the back seat and went along to do some errands. Now, Grandma Edna loved her Meister Brau beer. These were the days when you needed a church key to open a can. So we're driving north on Sheffield Ave. and Grandma pulls a cold beer from her purse and pops it open. Now that was funny to us boys because we knew that mom ordinarily would have passed scratching and clawing kittens but this was her mother so she just asked that no one would get arrested that day.
Grandma was chugging the beer and laughing at mom, mom was driving a little fast to get home before Grandma pulled another beer out or the police pulled us over and we were about to pee ourselves from laughing from Grandma's entertainment.
Grandma finished her beer and told mom to pull over so she could dump the can. Before mom could make a decision, Grandma told her to "hit the damn gas now JoAnn! What the hell is wrong with you?" Without thinking, mom did and Grandma leaned way outside of the passenger door window to the point of almost falling out and made a perfect underhand throw-into the back of a newspaper truck as we sped by! The back doors were open and the drivers were not around or so we thought. As we sped by, the can bounced off of the inside of the trucks windshield and landed in the startled drivers lap. It was a perfect throw and we saw the whole thing.
Grandma is laughing, we're in the back seat laughing, stinking and peeing and mom is just beside herself with disgust for all of us. There was nothing else to do so mom turned down our block hoping that the nightmare was over at last. Grandma noted that we had forgotten to make one special errand so we went right back onto Sheffield Ave. towards the newspaper truck. Yes it was a rouse because Grandma thought that is so much fun.
Quick as a wink, Grandma opened another can of Meister Brau, chugged it dry and attempted to repeat the same feat. The driver saw it coming and closed his doors so the can bounced off to who knows where. There was a lot of cussing as we sped away and some of it came from my mother.
Air conditioning was not something that we knew of personally although we had heard rumors that such a thing existed. My two brothers and I were always outside digging in the dirt, playing with the water hose, annoying the neighbors dog and in general, being what some little boys always seemed to be-pigs. And we enjoyed it too. We never really thought about air conditioning let alone soap and water. Shampoo? Forget it!
Mom was bound and determined to make us clean so on Saturday night, we would line up and take a bath. Mom always swore that she needed Linco Bleach just to have an even chance of seeing clean kids. Then we would go off to church with my mother's younger sister to a fire and brimstone Pentecostal church. It didn't take.
My mother was a "boy" mom. She knew how to handle us pigs and we accepted that if she was mad, that we may have had something to do with it. She was a shorter woman but she had the strength of voice that could have a car park itself out of fear for her. Her step-mother raised her from the age of 11 so her Aunt Edna became our Grandma Edna. Grandma Edna was strict with my mother and her twin brother when they were growing up but the grand kids could do no wrong to my mothers dismay.
One fine, sunny and very hot day, Grandma Edna and Grandpa Joe came by for a visit. Mom and Grandma got into the car and we three pigs got into the back seat and went along to do some errands. Now, Grandma Edna loved her Meister Brau beer. These were the days when you needed a church key to open a can. So we're driving north on Sheffield Ave. and Grandma pulls a cold beer from her purse and pops it open. Now that was funny to us boys because we knew that mom ordinarily would have passed scratching and clawing kittens but this was her mother so she just asked that no one would get arrested that day.
Grandma was chugging the beer and laughing at mom, mom was driving a little fast to get home before Grandma pulled another beer out or the police pulled us over and we were about to pee ourselves from laughing from Grandma's entertainment.
Grandma finished her beer and told mom to pull over so she could dump the can. Before mom could make a decision, Grandma told her to "hit the damn gas now JoAnn! What the hell is wrong with you?" Without thinking, mom did and Grandma leaned way outside of the passenger door window to the point of almost falling out and made a perfect underhand throw-into the back of a newspaper truck as we sped by! The back doors were open and the drivers were not around or so we thought. As we sped by, the can bounced off of the inside of the trucks windshield and landed in the startled drivers lap. It was a perfect throw and we saw the whole thing.
Grandma is laughing, we're in the back seat laughing, stinking and peeing and mom is just beside herself with disgust for all of us. There was nothing else to do so mom turned down our block hoping that the nightmare was over at last. Grandma noted that we had forgotten to make one special errand so we went right back onto Sheffield Ave. towards the newspaper truck. Yes it was a rouse because Grandma thought that is so much fun.
Quick as a wink, Grandma opened another can of Meister Brau, chugged it dry and attempted to repeat the same feat. The driver saw it coming and closed his doors so the can bounced off to who knows where. There was a lot of cussing as we sped away and some of it came from my mother.
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