My father always said the worst thing about getting old was watching
your friends die. Second worst was diminished distance off the tee.
Now that I’m over sixty, I can attest he was right on both counts.
Nonetheless, even death and the rituals that accompany it, somehow
never fail to offer up a little comic relief. On the other hand,
there’s nothing funny about losing yardage.
Of course, the memorial services for friends in show business
are always filled with laughter because on those occasions you have
talented, funny people telling stories about other talented, funny
people. However, non-pro deaths offer their own moments of black
comedy. As cases in point, I offer the following two examples.
After my mother died, my father, my sister, her ten-year-old son and I
went en masse to buy her tombstone at a place called Swink Monument. I
have no recollection exactly why we picked them, but price may have
been involved. Their office was in a mobile home surrounded by a
concrete slab, on which various markers were displayed. (In case you
haven’t guessed, this is in North Carolina). My father, following
through on his philosophy to the end, picked neither the grandest stone
nor the plainest. Then, we went inside to fill out the paperwork,
except for my nephew who remained out doors, skateboarding through the
monuments.
Dotsie Swink, the heavy-set woman who was assisting us, took down the basic information, then asked a question I’ve never heard before or since: You want slick on top?
Back in the days when evening television was interactive family entertainment, when Ed Sullivan and "College Bowl" were on, my family used to gather in the TV room. In our house, that was the bar. It had a Fleetwood television built into the wall, with the controls built in next to the silk-covered sofa on which my mother would always lie, on her back, her head propped up by four pillows.
The happy childhood goes like this: My mother unwraps the silver boxes
of cream cheese as if they are presents. She beats the soft cheese –
the crack of eggs, a dust-storm of sugar – into pale snowbanks in the
bowl while she lets me crush the graham crackers with a hammer. I sneak
a few butter-laced crumbs and, later, watch the cooling cheesecake with
that wistful ache children can have about certain foods. Such moments,
repeated through the years, transform simple favorites into profound
emblems.
I have a 1932 copy of The Joy of Cooking that’s being held together at the spine with duct tape. The book, like so many things my mother gave me or tried to impart to me, has become a cherished item only years after her death.