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?
“Named for the mythical winged horse that carried thunderbolts for the Greek God Zeus, Pegasus Café has a classic pristine feeling.”
Three years ago my father remarried, had a baby and moved to the suburbs. He went domestic in a way only my father could. He is from Israel; his wife is from Poland; and the suburbs previously mentioned are Harrow, right outside of London. She has a brilliantly Goth 16 year old daughter from a previous marriage, he has three cynical Los Angelian children (including me), and the baby, as of now, speaks only Polish with a slightly British accent. Last weekend I went to London for my birthday. On my last night there, his wife and her daughter baked me, of all things, an apple pie. We all sat at the table and I stared out the window past my post-nuclear family to their white picket fence as Don McLean played in my head. Bye Bye Ms. American Pie. The pie was fantastic.
As my birthday approaches I can't help but think of my sisters - I'm the middle one - and my maternal grandmother. My sisters and I are born two years apart, with our birthdays all in the last week of September. If you do the math, I guess one can blame the joyful spirit of the holidays on the closeness of the timing.