Cantankerously Yours
Chuckles From an Old Guy
By Wendell Abern
Dear Readers,
I am now well into the first month of my 82nd year. And relishing the use of my age as license to do most anything:
I dole out huge doses of unwanted advice. I quote obscure authors for no reason at all. I reminisce frequently, shamelessly injecting hyperbole into all of my tales … which grow taller each time I repeat myself. Which I do endlessly. So if some of you remember one or two of these incidents from previous columns, live with it. I’ve also become impervious to criticism. To wit, some funny moments:
1 – As spectator.
Someone once asked me who my three favorite stand-up comics were. Easy. Woody Allen, Bill Cosby, and Reverend Bevels.
Few have heard of the latter. He was one of Martin Luther King’s closest aides. We went to hear him give a lecture a few weeks after the five-day march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965. He spoke for an hour on avoiding “side issues.” Never cracked a smile. We never stopped laughing.
“The whole idea of the march,” he said, “was to insist that everyone had the right to vote. Anything else was a side issue. You break your leg on the march? A side issue. You limp into Montgomery, make sure everyone has the right to vote. Now do you all remember ‘the highway incident?’”
Of course we all remembered. It had made every newspaper in the country, and every late-night comedian’s stand-up routine.
“The highway incident,” Reverend Bevels said. “A side issue. We get into Montgomery the night before, on March 24th, and camp out about ten miles outside of town. Six o’clock the next morning, I get awakened by my staff to face a whole army of reporters.
“’Reverend Bevels,’ one of them said, ‘there are reports coming into Montgomery that there are people out here, fornicating on the highways. What do you have to say to that?’”
Reverend Bevels said, “People fornicating on the highways have the right to vote!”
The next morning, that anecdote was splashed over every newspaper in the Chicago area. Just imagine if the Internet had existed.
2 – As perpetrator.
My poor mother. She had a wonderful sense of humor, Admittedly, I often took advantage of it. And, just as often, she threatened to kill me.
She lived in Minneapolis, and flew to Chicago every year at Thanksgiving. I would drive her to and from the airport.
One year, I settled her into her airline seat on her return flight home, then went to talk to the stewardess. Winking at her, I said, “Don’t let my mom see the captain when he comes aboard. My mom sees a man in uniform, she goes bananas. She’ll be all over him. Could be very embarrassing.”
Just then, a Marine lieutenant came aboard. In full uniform. He sat down in the aisle seat across from my mom. The stewardess winked at me and went over to my mom and said, “Now please try to contain yourself.”
“What do you mean? Contain what? Wait! What’d he tell you?” Mom was shouting. “What’d he say? I’m ‘onna kill ‘im! I swear, I’m ‘onna kill ‘im!”
She eventually recovered from that. But the following year, we had a big party for mom, celebrating her 80th birthday. About 20 minutes into the party, mom came bursting through a crowd like a running back pushing aside tacklers, and shouting, “Where is ‘e? Where is ‘e? I’m ‘onna kill ‘im!”
I had told everyone my mom was hard of hearing and to speak up when talking to her. With people shouting at her since they’d arrived, she asked why. They all ratted me out.
As victim, 1.
For my 60th birthday, my wife threw me a surprise party. We walked into a popular restaurant in suburban Chicago; I looked around, and suddenly realized I knew everyone who was there, just before everyone shouted, “Surprise!”
Then I was told that this was not merely a surprise dinner party, but a roast.
And for almost two hours, they tore me to shreds.
Especially Jerry. My good friend, Jerry.
Jerry had been needling me about my height since I’d been a senior in high school, when he said, “So who you taking to the prom, a munchkin?”
Jerry opened his roast by looking at me and saying, “Why aren’t you in your tree, making cookies?” After ten minutes, he said, “I’d like to read to all of you from a recent newspaper article.” There was a respectful silence for a moment. Then Jerry read the headline … “Dwarf-tossing ruled illegal.”
The article was mercifully short. Play on words intended.
As victim, 2.
We had decided on a “work session” with our client. Work sessions happen when an advertising agency’s creative department comes up with many good ideas, the agency “suits” disagree, and everyone misses a deadline. That’s when we call the client to have him come and “work with us.”
I had assembled all of my writers and art directors along with a half-dozen “suits;” four clients had joined us. Roughed-out storyboards had been strewn across our huge conference room floor; scrawled-out theme lines tacked up on the corkboard; shirtsleeves were rolled up, ties yanked down and battle lines drawn.
That’s when Rudy suddenly appeared in our doorway. Rudy had been a former Creative Director. Hadn’t seen him in twelve years. I was nonplussed.
Heads turned. Conversations stopped. A palpable silence descended on the room as Rudy walked in and stared at the rough sketches on the floor as he stepped around them; then ambled slowly past the theme lines, nodding. He walked back to the door, turned around and said, “I don’t think we’re ready yet, Wendell.” And left.
That night, Rudy called and apologized. Said he was downtown and decided to pay a visit. He’s still laughing.
Cantankerously Yours,
Wendell Abern
Wendell Abern can be reached at [email protected].