My parents were full of family history stories while down here.
Like the one about my mom’s maternal side of the family dispatching their backyard chickens for sale to various people and outlets in the Chicagoland area. The local rabbis wouldn’t buy from them because their methods weren’t kosher. Uncle Bob bothered to learn appropriate orthodox butchery methods and earned, for his troubles, the eternal family nickname “ABE.” “They never called him anything but ABE after that….” Presumably this nickname was derived from such common humour as “Abie, Izzy, Ikey, Sam, we’re the boys who don’t eat ham.”
Or the one about my dad’s Uncle Larry, a notorious town drunk about Vicksburg who lived next door to my parents for a few years early in their marriage. Uncle Larry would hock anything to a one GIB LANE, who would apparently buy anything, including: Larry’s front door, parts of Larry’s furnace, Larry’s bathroom door, etc., which would then allow Larry funds to purchase him some liquor. One day Larry came over crying to my father an insisting that his wife was starving, and he couldn’t stand to see her that way, and couldn’t my dad help him with some money. My dad refused, because he knew larry very well. He offered to BUY larry some groceries, which infuriated the Uncle, who stormed off in a huff about interfamilial mistrust and what a shameful thing it was. Later he came back all hangdog, insisting again that his wife was NEAR DEAD with hunger, and that he’d take my dad up on his offer. “Well, I found out later he hauled them groceries off and sold ‘em to Gib Lane and, well, you can guess the rest.”
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My family is boring.
By the way, I purchased some blueberries from North Carolina, against my better judgement. They are not as sweet as I like my blueberries, and they do not make you closer. But I bought them because, hey, I know people who live in North Carolina!
Awwww.
Sentiment has misguided your judgement! And your logic is ruining my craft! I haven’t even seen local blueberries sold around here yet, so I don’t know what those flim flam artists were trying to sell you, buddy!
Hmm, I’m trying to think of more family stories. My apologies for the rather flat-footed telling of the above—I;m off my writing game!
My dad also said that he worked briefly for the notorious Grampa Schmidt at Grampa’s machine shop, while off on strike from GM. During the workday, Grampa’d wander outside with some whiskey and a box of fireworks and M-80’s and set them off. Nobody else was allowed to knock off work to enjoy the show. “You’d just hear Andy out there blowing stuff up and laaaaaaughin’ all by himself. He could still come in and figure stuff in micrometers without using a measure no matter how long he’d been out there though.” GERMANS.
I may have previously mentioned that the fire department still had to be called to Grampa’s house once or twice a year to quell grassfires begun by mysterious means when he was in his 70’s. Ahem.
oh yeah...
I’ve mentioned this on facebook, and surely I must have told some of you here about how Grampa Schmidt liked to throw dynamite in his pond, insistiing that it would only kill “The goddamned carp.” He also referred to bluejays as “YA GODDAMNED BLUE BASTARDS!” or, alternately “GEDDOUDA THERE< YOU CHINAMAN!”