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Crazy Country Club

By Ken Thompson

“A Rabbi, a priest and a midget with a parrot on his shoulder walk into a bar…”

“I heard it.”, I tell him.

“I didn’t get even near the punch-line and already you can tell me you heard it?”

“The punch line is `… and the angel says to the parrot `Okay cutie, take off the boa and I‘ll show you what I can do?’’” “Dennis, you just can’t tell jokes funny. Give it up.” Dennis was a nice guy but like a Spaldeen plucked from the sewer, the High-Bounce wasn’t there.

I always liked jokes and funny stores. Even when I was very young and didn’t understand the joke I watched the others and if they laughed, I laughed louder. I always said I should write them down to remember them but never got around to it. One think I absolutely do know is that jokes and story telling was the best in Brooklyn and the city than in anywhere else in the world; even the Bronks.

As a kid, say twelve or so, I used to sit with my Dad as he watched evening television. He really liked the variety shows, Ed Sullivan, Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle; particularly those with the female singer and the male comedian acts. He would always say that the comedians were better in night clubs in Manhattan than on TV ‘cause on TV they had to be more careful of what they said and did or the censors wouldn’t allow them back and they wouldn’t get paid.

The comics were always very funny (using their “A” material) but I knew I had friends that were even funnier and who would get us all rolling on the floor with stories and jokes that were often vulgar, obscene, sexist, racist, and generally grossly offensive. But to a Brooklyn kid, at least me and at that point in time and not knowing about political correctness or any better, they were funny, terribly, if not wonderfully, funny. Not funny like to tell at the Thanksgiving Day dinner table but funny like to cause a super-surprised, wide-eyed look and announcement “Oh my God, I can’t believe he said that?” This partially explains why my friends and I didn’t get many second dates or even first ones.

After I turned drinking age and could go to bars and into clubs legally, we would go to different places and catch comedy acts to see what they could really do. Some were atrocious and some good. Even VERY GOOD! Even the ones that weren’t famous. They could put anyone in their place and they had a million lines and come-backs. The material was always almost new though each comedian had a particular approach or target area. Once in a while we’d hear a joke that some other comedian had used but we’d attribute it to flattery rather than stealing.

Anyway, one of the guys in our group, Dennis, who couldn’t tell jokes good, told us about a place his uncle had recommended called the “Crazy Country Club”. It was supposed to be a riot not only in terms of the comedians but also in terms of everything about it. Since it was Dennis’ suggestion, we didn’t rush to go. After he kept telling us how great his uncle said the place was we decided to give it a shot.

The place was out in Bay Ridge, across from Dyker Golf Course on Seventh Avenue, I think. When we drove up the first thing we saw was the sign saying “Warm Beer, Lousy Food”. We all laughed about the place as at least being honest. It had evidently gotten its name in the late 40’s when it put out a sign with serious mis-spellings and the neighborhood people came to see who the jokers were that couldn’t spell.

Getting into the Club wasn’t easy not because of a “captain” or such controlling entrants but because the front door didn’t work and you had to in a back way. The inside of the club was very eclectic. It had signs for air-raid shelters, subways and busses, traffic directions, beers and liquors, Coney Island, military souvenirs, Brooklyn Dodgers, and just about anything else you could hang on a wall or ceiling including toilet seats, clown stuff, Bikini tops, briefs, rubber toys, pictures of old-time bathing beauties, and golf stuff. Lotsa neon and electric signs. There was almost too much to look at.

It definitely wasn’t the Club Eleganté on Ocean Parkway or even Ben Maksik's Town and Country.

We got to the place about 9:30 and a few of the tables near the front were taken. Since we were four guys alone, they put us near the back and off to the side. A waiter took our order for beers, 7 & 7’s, and peanuts in the shell, and we kept looking, watching, and listening. I remember the cigarette smoke haze beginning to form over the entire club. The place was really outlandish except for the three bouncers who looked like “you-better-not-piss-me-off” pea-brained giants.

The emcee, chief waiter, and center piece for the Club was a bald headed guy who went by the name Uncle Fester and he was a walking riot. His mouth never stopped and he was so adept at putting down any customer who tried to come back at him. There were a couple of musicians and the drummer was able to accent everything Uncle Fester said, usually with a rim-shot. Other acts would come out and perform but the star of the Crazy Country Club was definitely Uncle Fester.

By ten o’clock the place was full and the tempo had picked up. The smoke haze had gotten thicker. Uncle Fester’s tongue was getting sharper, faster and definitely more cutting. Nothing was sacred including sex, size, attractiveness, race, clothes, ancestry, and anything about you. By 10:30 some of the up-front tables which were already picked on and offended were being vacated and other customers were taking their place.

Paulie, one of our group, whispered to us that the secret was not to engage Uncle Fester in any dialogue where he could use his lines on you. If you didn’t come back at him two times in a row, no matter what he said, he would avoid you ‘cause there wasn’t any entertainment for the rest of the audience. It became obvious that unless you could take major league abuse you shouldn’t engage the Uncle.

We did get caught once when we asked for napkins and they threw us a roll of toilet tissue and he reamed us about why REAL men would ever need NAPKINS.

Uncle Fester was seemingly merciless on girls who looked like they would go along with the schtick. He mimicked their mannerisms, the way they spoke, and the way they walked. Everything.

When they went to the powder room he would turn up a microphone and speaker so you could hear what they were saying. When they came out he would ask them knowingly about their conversation. Also, in the ladies room, evidently, there was a picture of a man with a fig leaf over his privates and it one of the visitors lifted it to take a peak there would be a loud whistle and when you came back out he would ask you about the fig leaf. The last element of the routine was to send a long blast of air up the girls’ skirts, a la Steeplechase, as they returned to their table.

A couple of times we saw the bouncers escort a table out, usually when the repartee with the Uncle got really foul or when the fellow realized his date was a truly offended lady on the verge of tears, and he came to her rescue. Usually the glassware was picked up along with the larger items from the table and the rest swept with a towel to the floor making the table immediately ready for the next party of paying targets.

At about 12:30 the cigarette haze was dense and we had had one beyond our drink limit and Dennis began getting a little loud. Uncle Fester gave it another shot saying in our specific direction “How’s date night for the four queers in the corner? Are you only holding hands (making quote marks with his hands) under the table?” It took a minute for Dennis to have it sink in and then he yelled out “We’re only here ‘cause your sister had the rag on otherwise she’d be doing us.”

Uncle Fester, without missing a beat and in a low voice, replied “My sister died last month.” No rim-shot and a deep silent pause. “She committed suicide ‘cause she couldn’t face the thought of seeing you again.” There was an immediate rim-shot, a roar from the audience and Uncle Fester had won. As Dennis aggressively stood up, the bouncers were right by his side and pushed him back into his seat. Paulie told him to shut up or he’d probably get beaten to a bloody pulp.

Dennis was seething and the bouncers could see it. Without fear or his brain engaged, Dennis came back “Yeah? Oh yeah? Well at least I’m not going bald!”

The worst audience come-back of all time. I was so embarrassed for Dennis. I shifted to the side a little to avoid the fragmentation when the Uncle exploded him. Dennis had absolutely set up Uncle Fester for a far too easy kill.

The Uncle came back, “You’re right I am balding. I had a choice to go bald or to look like a hemorrhoid. I see which option you took with that greased rats-nest on your head.”

Dennis started to babble and start a litany of expletives. We were escorted out to marching music from the band.

Our first night at the “Crazy Country Club” came to an end and it was time to get some real food.

As we were leaving, Uncle Fester was challenging a young woman about the authenticity of her above her waist – below her neck appendages.

The place was fantastic, crude, raunchy, and a riot; and we had memories that would last a lifetime. We went back one or two other times but once was really enough.

I believe that as time passed, the Club continued to change to meet the tastes of the audiences. I had heard that it relocated to a bigger building at 7th Ave and 64th Street for awhile and that the house comedian was Andrew Dice Clay. Later on the building catered to head-banger music aficionados.

The "Crazy Country Club" continued to change as did Brooklyn.

A new rendition of the "Crazy Country Club" with a different name has opened in Staten Island and is still touting “Warm Beer, Lousy Food”.

[end] © Copyright by Ken Thompson - 2003.

"A Neglected Anniversary"
by H. L. Mencken

(from the New York Evening Mail, Dec. 28, 1917)
---------------
Mencken's introduction (for A Mencken Chrestomathy, pub. Alfred A. Knopf, 1949): The success of this idle hoax, done in time of war, when more serious writing was impossible, vastly astonished me. It was taken gravely by a great many other newspapers, and presently made its way into medical literature and into standard reference books. It had, of course, no truth in it whatsoever, and I more than once confessed publicly that it was only a jocosity... [snip]

--------------------

[snip]

Bathtubs are so common today that it is almost impossible to imagine a world without them. They are familiar to nearly everyone in all incorporated towns; in most of the large cities it is unlawful to build a dwelling house without putting them in; even on the farm they have begun to come into use. And yet the first American bathtub was installed and dedicated so recently as December 20, 1842, and, for all I know to the contrary, it may still be in existence and in use.

Curiously enough, the scene of its setting up was Cincinnati, then a squalid frontier town, and even today surely no leader in culture. But Cincinnati, in those days as in these, contained many enterprising merchants, and one of them was a man named Adam Thompson, a dealer in cotton and grain. Thompson shipped his grain by steamboat down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans, and from there sent it to England in sailing vessels. This trade frequently took him to England, and in that country, during the '30s, he acquired the habit of bathing.

The bathtub was then still a novelty in England. It had been introduced in 1828 by Lord John Russell and its use was yet confined to a small class of enthusiasts. Moreover, the English bathtub, then as now, was a puny and inconvenient contrivance -- little more, in fact, than a glorified dishpan -- and filling and emptying it required the attendance of a servant. [snip]

Thompson, who was of inventive fancy -- he later devised the machine that is still used for bagging hams and bacon -- conceived the notion that the English bathtub would be much improved if it were made large enough to admit the whole body of an adult man, and if its supply of water, instead of being hauled to the scene by a maid, were admitted by pipes from a central reservoir and run off by the same means. Accordingly, early in 1842 he set about building the first modern bathroom in his Cincinnati home -- a large house with Doric pillars, standing near what is now the corner of Monastery and Orleans streets.

There was then, of course, no city water supply, at least in that part of the city, but Thompson had a large well in his garden, and he installed a pump to lift its water to the house. This pump, which was operated by six Negroes, much like an old-time fire engine, was connected by a pipe with a cypress tank in the garret of the house, and here the water was stored until needed. From the tank two other pipes ran to the bathroom. One, carrying cold water, was a direct line. The other, designed to provide warm water, ran down the great chimney of the kitchen, and was coiled inside it like a giant spring.

[snip]

The thing [bathing in bathtubs], in fact, became a public matter, and before long there was bitter and double- headed opposition to the new invention, which had been promptly imitated by several other wealthy Cincinnatians. On the one hand it was denounced as an epicurean and obnoxious toy from England, designed to corrupt the democratic simplicity of the Republic, and on the other hand it was attacked by the medical faculty as dangerous to health and a certain inviter of "phthisic, rheumatic fevers, inflammation of the lungs and the whole category of zymotic diseases." (I quote from the Western Medical Repository of April 23, 1843.)

[snip]

After (this) medical opposition began to collapse, and among other eminent physicians Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes declared for the bathtub, and vigorously opposed the lingering movement against it in Boston. The American Medical Association held its annual meeting in Boston in 1849, and a poll of the members in attendance showed that nearly 55 per cent of them now regarded bathing as harmless, and that more than 20 per cent advocated it as beneficial. At its meeting in 1850 a resolution was formally passed giving the imprimatur of the faculty to the bathtub. The homeopaths followed with a like resolution in 1853.

But it was the example of President Millard Fillmore that, even more than the grudging medical approval, gave the bathtub recognition and respectability in the United States. While he was still Vice-President, in March, 1850, he visited Cincinnati on a stumping tour, and inspected the original Thompson tub. Thompson himself was now dead, but his bathroom was preserved by the gentlemen who had bought his house from the estate. Fillmore was entertained in this house and, according to Chamberlain, his biographer, took a bath in the tub. Experiencing no ill effects, he became an ardent advocate of the new invention, and on succeeding to the Presidency at Taylor's death, July 9, 1850, he instructed his secretary of war, Gen. Charles M. Conrad, to invite tenders for the construction of a bathtub in the White House.

[snip] ... the contract was presently awarded to Harper & Gillespie, a firm of Philadelphia engineers, who proposed to furnish a tub of thin cast iron, capable of floating the largest man.

This was installed early in 1851, and remained in service in the White House until the first Cleveland administration, when the present enameled tub was substituted. [snip]

President Millard Fillmore
January 7, 1800 - March 8, 1874

By Ken Thompson
It is probably not an issue that is often brought up but the 13th President of our United States had a birthday anniversary on January 7th.

It most communities, it passed without notice but because of my deep and sincere interest in Brooklyn History, as well as Nostalgia, Memories and Thoughts of Brooklyn, I celebrate the anniversary each and every year with a small, intimate gathering of people, much like myself, who appreciate the profound impact Millard Fillmore had on our nation and the influence Brooklyn, in his home state of New York, had on him.

Millie, as the ones who know him refer to him, came from a harsh frontiersman upbringing where he was able to overcome adversity and to live the American dream.

As a student in what was to someday become the greater New York Education and Fish Hatchery Service, Millard excelled until he entered the class taught by one Miss Abigail Powers. Millard was totally infatuated with her an insisted on passing her “love notes” during class. When the circuit riding school psychologist finally reached Millie’s school there was a full blown scandal regarding the two of their behaviors and relationship. After the cases were presented, the psychologist realized that there was a severe shortage of teachers so he took Millie behind the school and full thrashed him for his “deviant” behavior. Note that it was not that Millie was “slow” that he was only two years younger than the teacher.

When Millie continued to shout his love and un-requited passions, the psychologist gave Millie the address of a brothel near the Gowanus Expressway in Brooklyn where young Millie could give vent to his passion and lustful thoughts of Miss Powers. The trip would get Millie out of the locale and feelings would have a chance to heal.

Three other area female teachers lodged protests that their male students did not pass them love notes nor make inappropriate, though wanted, advances. Nothing came of these.

The census of 1820 for Brooklyn noted an inordinate increase in young children in single parent households with the last name Fillmore. This is historically viewed as a Millie contribution that is most often noted by a footnote.

Millie and Abigail had become engaged in 1819 as a matter of propriety. Their engagement was long and distant.

Upon his return to hometown of Locke, NY, Millie threw himself into the study of the Law and was admitted to the NYS bar in 1823. After putting out his shingle, the business slowly failed and he had to move to Buffalo. The issue of his relationship with Miss Powers continued as a hot topic and seemed to discourage possible customers in Locke. That Millie chose to specialize in immigration law and HMO malpractice also contributed to his lack of clients. Millie supplemented his earnings as a teacher and mailman.

His migration to Buffalo again took him through Brooklyn where he opened a brothel reference service which had to close after only three short days. Millie’s insistence that he fully test and evaluate all brothel services before being willing to make a referral caused exhaustion and a rare malady. The rash he acquired took two years to semi-heal after extensive treatments with Listerine Mouth Wash and Duct Tape.

Upon his arrival in Buffalo his short comings and narrow field of specialization was evident so he was encouraged to enter politics where he was highly successful, though pretty incompetent, in spite of his rash. With his success and prosperity, Millie sent for one Miss Sally Livingston-Utrecht-Thompson of Brooklyn for employment as a housekeeper and personal attendant.

When she arrived with three children all bearing the last name of Fillmore, Millie immediately sent them to boarding school in Wyoming. Millie also realized that the habit of calling Miss Sally by her initials was cute in Brooklyn but drew unwanted attention in upstate New York. Based on her old habits and employment she had to be retrained in what it meant to make a bed. Miss Sally brought with her fine skills as a personal attendant but not many for being a housekeeper.

Millard, trying to seek an appropriate identity of his own became very active in the Anti-Masonic movement believing that wood built homes were good enough for upstate New York and that the use of masonry would result in taller buildings that would only fall down. Millie was charming, dignified, physically imposing, and had a both a way with women (with his tight cut trousers) and with men (with his ribald stories).

Miss Abigail Powers, on a spring-break vacation shopping trip to Buffalo, renewed her relationship and engagement with Millie and convinced him they should marry shortly providing Millie dis-employ Miss Sally from any and all personal and professional services and responsibilities. Millie broke the news to Miss Sally after a very personal engagement in the upstairs chamber, giving rise to the expression “laid off”, and compensating her with $300, his favorite bath robe, and a one way ticket back to Brooklyn.

Millie continued to succeed as a member of the Whig party and in 1848 he was elected Vice President of the United States with Gen. Zachary Taylor as President. The two did not get along.

It cannot be confirmed but it is reported that in the election, the County of Kings cast 3,798,214 votes for Millard. The campaign of “He’s One of Us and A Stand Up Guy” seemed to have worked miracles. The “Sons, Daughters, and Friends of Fillmore” got the vote out for Millie. Election results were not audited.

In July 1850, Millie became the 13th President with the passing of President Gen. Taylor.

Millie’s wife, Miss Abigail as he referred to her, passed in 1853 hardly having any time to redecorate the White House in her favorite “modern, pre-antebellum, humble, plantation” motif. Millie was discouraged and even admonished from taking any further trips to Brooklyn to visit old acquaintances no matter his need. A young personal assistant was retained. It was coincidental that she was from Brooklyn and her surname was Fillmore. For the sake of propriety she was referred to as Miss Dumore.

Millie’s time in Office was extremely turbulent. The fact that Miss Sally insisted on a position as page and Civil Servant in the White House distracted him. In a move that to this day is considered clever and Machiavellian beyond dreams appointed her as Ambassador to Welfare Island in New York’s East River and proceeded to instructed the Navy to terminate all nautical services to the island upon her arrival and to torpedo ANY vessel that were to approach the island. The island became a stop on the underground railroad so the need for nautical access was eliminated.

As Ambassador SLUT, she declared the Island to be abandoned and to be annexed by Brooklyn for use in building a trans-East River crossing. The proper paperwork to affect this has apparently been lost. The fact that Welfare Island was distant from Brooklyn did not deter her actions. Miss Sally died in gloriously pining for her true love, Millie. It is believed her three sons took up residence in Utah and changed their last name to Smith.

Millie married wealthy widow Caroline C. McIntosh in 1858 at the encouragement of Millie’s friends who were tired of trying to explain Millie’s variety of garish female accompanists at official functions. That the Apple Princess, as Millie called her, was rich was a distinct plus. They honeymooned in Brooklyn where the new Mrs. Fillmore, having been forewarned, NEVER let Millie out of her sight.

Millie is best known for:

- Having California admitted to the Union as a free state.
- Settling the boundary claim Texas had on what would become New Mexico land.
- Having Federal Officers assist slaveholders seeking fugitive slaves.
- Eliminating slave trade in the District of Columbia.
- The White House's first library, bathtub and kitchen stove were installed by the Fillmore’s.
- Fillmore refused an honorary degree from Oxford University because he felt he had "neither literary nor scientific attainment."
- Unsuccessful attempts to develop a reusable penile implant.

The Whig party came into disarray and was pretty much absorbed into the Republican Party. Millie did not follow the crowd but rather joined the Know Nothing Party. He ran for President based on his record but was soundly defeated carrying only the state of Maryland.

Millie returned to upstate New York where his wife had a very successful chain of “bed-and-breakfasts”. He became active in issues of health, education, and welfare.

Millie died in 1874 of a stroke. The remnant rash was hardly noticeable.

The “Sons, Daughters, and Friends of Fillmore” lobbied to have Millie interred in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery but were denied the privilege. Mrs. Fillmore dismissed the campaign simply saying “The Brooklyn period and connection for President Fillmore is best forgotten.”

[end] © Copyright by Ken Thompson – 2003.

Happy New Year!

Road Apples
By Ken Thompson

We called him Sarge.


I didn’t know his real name. I knew he was Nicky’s grandfather but he didn’t have the same last name as Nicky. Nicky, together with his brother and sister, his parents, his Aunt Louise, and Sarge lived in a big house on East 5th Street between Avenue “C” and Beverley Road. This was all I knew about him though I learned other things over time.


Nicky didn’t say much about his grandfather and seemed to be embarrassed by him sometimes. I think that’s the way teenagers are with grandparents sometimes. I didn’t know this personally, since my own grandparents had died years earlier.

With the passing of time I found out from my Dad, who would talk with Sarge once in awhile, that he was a World War 1 vet and had been in the cavalry when the cavalry meant horses. My Dad figured Sarge was about 25 when he went in the service in 1913 so he was about 69 or 70 when I came to notice him more.

Sarge’s wounds in WW1 didn’t get him a discharge so he stayed in the cavalry with the horses till around 1937. Just after he mustered out his wife died and he came to live with daughter, Mrs. Romano, Nicky’s Mom, and her family. His pension wasn’t much so he got a job as a guard at the Greater New York Savings Bank on Church Avenue and worked there till they forced him to retire saying he was getting “too old and slow”.

Sarge didn’t have “friends” as such but everyone seemed to know and like Sarge. Sarge didn’t bother anyone, he used to just walk his block or through the neighborhood, sometimes muttering to himself and reliving conversation either in his past or yet to come. Once a week or so he would stop into the Sportsmen’s Pub on Church Ave. and have a single short beer. Someone would always pick up the tab if Sarge would tell a story about being in the War. Evidently he had lots of stories and was pretty good at telling them and pleasing himself in the process.

Weather permitting; Sarge would work on the plants in the front yard of their house. Nicky said his grandfather used to tend the flowers and vegetable plants in the backyard too. One of the plus things, Nicky told me, was that his family had the best pomodori (tomatoes) in the whole world; thanks to his grandfather.

Another piece of Sarge’s routine was that twice a week he had an outing that seemed to give him particular delight. On each of these days he would take the same old pail and a small shovel and head off to Ocean Parkway. As he shuffled across the Parkway at Beverley Road, he often had to hold up his hand as a stop sign or caution to the lanes of traffic ready to go. He just couldn’t get his ol’ body moving fast enough to get to the other side of the Parkway without the lights changing and the horns blaring.

His goal those days was to shovel any “road apples” on the bridle path into his pail and to take them back for his bushes, flowers and vegetables. It was an effort of love for him. It would take about three hours to get to Cortelyou Road on the bridle path and then back to the house.

Sarge was not an object of study for me. He was just one of a number of local characters that came with the neighborhood. If I passed him on the street and said “Hi Sarge” I would get a small wave back and a “Hirumf.” out of him. If Nicky was with me he’d want to go somewhere else different… different than where his grandfather was heading.

My Mom had a technique for the dinner table that was smooth and kept us all in good spirits and gave us practice the art of conversation without having it degenerate with griping. She would simply ask “Ginia, what went well at school today?” or “Roy, do you have anything interesting to discuss with us about sports?” The rest of the meal was spent telling funny or interesting stories, discussing news items, or talking about what was happening in our own small worlds.

Once I brought up the story on Nicky’s Grandfather collecting horse poop on Ocean Parkway. I was cut off quickly with the explanation that it was called manure and that it wasn’t a subject for the dinner table.

After the meal, my Dad asked me about the story and I told him what I knew. He too was interested, having been in the cavalry as it was becoming mechanized, and said he would learn what he could if he bumped into Sarge.

About a week later my Dad told me he’d talked with Sarge and that he was a really interesting man.

Sarge’s walks on the bridle path were to collect manure for the garden but they were more than that. They gave Sarge a chance to relive a more exciting time in his life and to enjoy a reverie of his youth and his horses. As he walked along the path he’d remember friends, events, striking uniforms, loves and parties, places and things that were him, his life, and a time gone by. He said that every time Sarge bent with his shovel the manure and the scent would take him back to another time… another wonderful memory.

In the years that followed my Dad would sometimes tell me “Sarge stories” that he had gathered. Three particular ones come to mind.

Once Sarge tried to walk through the trolley tunnel on Church Ave. that went under Ocean Parkway. Sarge figured that the tunnel would allow him to get to the bridle path without being harried by cars on the Parkway jumping the light. It didn’t work out. Evidently Sarge had gotten a third through the tunnel when he realized the tunnel was very uneven, not for people, and that he was more than just unsteady. Rather than turn back, he continued on, figuring he had to get to the other side anyway. When he finally exited there were three trolleys behind him, and two had been stopped from entering the tunnel coming towards him. The police took Sarge home that day.

Another time, Sarge had a particularly good haul from his bridle path walk but upon entering his daughter’s house, tripped, lost his balance, and spilled his bucket of “apples” on the floor and onto the living room rug. Hoping to save the day he quickly announced “I’m okay, don’t anybody worry, I’ll be alright once I get up, I’ll shovel it all up, these will definitely make the flowers bloom. Anybody see who pushed me? Happy is the house that has flowers and road apples.” It worked in part… Aunt Louise sat him down, gave him a shot of whisky, and then told not to bring his apples through the house but to take then around the side to the gardens. She helped him clean up.

The third was when he came into the Sportsmen’s and had his gifted beer. Rather than just then leave, as was his custom, he asked for another. When it was served, a few patrons gathered ‘around and asked what was the matter. Sarge sorrowfully spoke of learning of the passing of two war buddies, lamented the decline in horse droppings on the streets and on the bridle path, decried the increase in his aches and pains, and lastly spoke of not being understood by his family and grandkids.

Sarge stayed at the bar a few hours never having more than the two beers plus one shot and half a thick corned beef sandwich with a pickle. While the bartender called his daughter and told her he was okay and not to worry, the regulars took turns sitting with him and listening to his stories.
Everyone felt better.

As time went by Nicky, Sarge and I went separate ways and I didn’t see much of Sarge… then he just wasn’t there anymore. I don’t know exactly when I came upon it but years later I found out that Sarge’s real name was John Francis Josephson.

As I look back through the rear view mirror of my life, I lament the lost opportunities to listen to all the Sarge’s and their stories. We missed a tremendous opportunity. I also lament not being asked for my stories.

[end] © Copyright by Ken Thompson – 2003.