Cantankerously Yours
“That’s Nothing!”
By Wendell Abern
Dear dads (and moms who dare to intrude on us macho dudes),
We moved to a Chicago suburb called Highland Park in 1967. And for the first time in my life, I found myself commuting to work on a train.
My first day, I decided to let all the other riders know I wasn’t some kind of city slicker and that I could talk suburbanese as well as they could. So, after boarding my first train, and before taking my seat, I shouted out, “Peat moss!”
In the uptight white collar suburbs north of Chicago, that little stunt instantly branded me as a rabble-rouser, a weirdo and a Democrat. Even worse, it kept me out of the daily bridge game for one full year.
But I finally established my bona fides when a steady player went out of town on a business trip and the game needed a fourth. After that, I essentially rode the bench until one of the other guys moved to New York and I became a regular.
In those days, few women rode the train. Whenever I took my seat in my car (the “bridge car”), I felt like I belonged to a men’s club.
It was during those early commuting years that I discovered a secret that all men know – that all men have known for 50,000 years – and that no one has ever divulged. At the risk of being ostracized by ever father in the world, I am revealing that secret here for the first time:
The very thing we yell at our kids for … we brag about to each other.
This became clear the first time I joined the bridge game as a permanent member. Morrie, my partner that day, kicked off the festivities.
“Well, my daughter had her friends over to study last night. By the time they left, I thought an army of ants had raided the kitchen. All they left me were five potato chips and a tomato.”
Mel, my left-hand opponent, said, “That’s nothing! Your daughter isn’t even in the prince’s league.” (Mel always called his son, “The prince.” I was never sure of Mel. He called his wife, “Hitler.”)
“The prince’s LPH is up to four,” Mel announced.
“What’s LPH?” I asked
“Leftovers per hour.”
Manny now enters the fray. “That’s nothing!” he says.
“Oh, here we go,” Morrie interrupts. “We’re gonna hear about The Neanderthals.”
“The what?” I ask.
“Manny’s twin boys. Huge kids. He calls them The Neanderthals.”
“Yeah,” Manny says. “Dinner is like trough time at the zoo. But until now, I’ve figured out how to save leftovers and snacks for myself. I keep potato chips in my sock drawer, and leftover roast beef in my tool box.
“But now I don’t know. The Neanderthals are trying out for football this year. Fifteen years old. Maybe five foot ten. Have to weigh at least 250 each. And guess what? They wanta beef up! They wanta play offensive line! I just don’t know. My food bill now would feed Bulgaria.”
One day, we settle in to play bridge when Morrie says, “Can any of you explain to me how you can lose one shoe?”
We all recognized the question as rhetorical. Morrie usually began diatribes against his daughter with a question.
“My daughter is running around the house like crazy this morning, looking for a shoe. She looks everywhere. After listening to her frantic pleading – and getting a ‘don’t-be-so-lame-dad’ look for proposing she simply wear another pair – I go back to drinking my coffee and reading the paper. She never found the other shoe! Finally left wearing her Nikes.
How do you lose one shoe?”
I’m now feeling like one of the gang, so I settle back with a smile and say, “That’s nothing!”
They all turn to me, expectantly.
“My son,” I announce proudly, “has constructed an igloo-sized mound in his bedroom!”
“Consists of clothes, even clean ones, paperback books, magazines, notebooks, old newspapers, a few board games, a baseball mitt, a hardball, a softball and a Backgammon set. The mound comes up to my chest.”
It wasn’t a bad entry for my first offering, but was instantly topped with shouts of “That’s nothing!” from Mel. Seems the prince had used dirty clothes to build a replica of Sears Tower. Then Manny bemoaned his Neanderthals, who were turning his garage into a garbage dump.
I gave our quartet of bridge players a name. I called us The Four M’s: Morrie, Manny, Mel and Me. We had one daily kibitzer, who sat in the seat behind us and we named him “Fat Frank” because he was so skinny. Six-foot four, couldn’t have weighed 120 pounds, with a shock of black hair that stuck out all over. When he turned sideways, he looked like a hatrack.
One day, Fat Frank initiated the bragging. “When you guys bid today, please speak up a bit. My daughter had her stereo on so loud last night I can’t hear out of my right ear.”
Manny, my partner that morning, said, “That’s nothing! You know that new noise abatement program they have at O’Hare for incoming airplanes? My daughter’s room has been denied permission to land at the airport.”
But nothing got the juices flowing like discussions about driving and using the family car.
One Monday morning, Mel said, “The prince had to have the car Friday night. Saturday morning, I inspect it and find two new nicks on the rear fender. I ask the prince what happened, and guess what? Didn’t even know the nicks were there. The prince sees no evil, hears no evil and speaks only lies.”
Morrie says, “That’s nothing! Highland Park Body and Fender Repair has submitted my daughter’s name to the Body Shop Hall of Fame.”
Fat Frank jumps in. “That’s nothing!” he shouts. “You know what I’ve got in my back yard? A floating tree stump! Every time one of the kids backs the car out of the garage, the tree stump attacks!”
* * *
Those were halcyon days for me. And I often wonder if today’s commuter dads brag about their kids as much as we did.
Cantankerously Yours,
Wendell Abern
Wendell Abern can be reached at [email protected].