“Abraham Lincoln was the drollest man I ever saw. He could make a cat laugh.”

From William Eleazar Barton’s 
The Soul of Abraham Lincoln
(NY: Bart H. Doran, 1920).  

Introduction 

The stories you are about to read are not in chronological order. This book is designed to be read as a group of standalone tales without any consideration of time. When one reads the Andy Potter books or The Catcher in the Rye or Lake Wobegon Days, the time frame is unimportant, but the moral or humor within the stories are the elements that make them memorable and identifiable to the reader.

This is a time when people need laughter. More than booze, a cigarette, or toilet paper … um …maybe not more than toilet paper. But they sure as hell need laughs.

John Wayne once said, “Going through life without being smart is difficult. Doing it without humor is a sonofabitch.” On second thought, that might’ve been from Lewis Black.

Smart folks, like Robby Yates, absorb humorous facts that make their journey a smoother ride. Essential fun facts like these: Your mom is the only one of your uncle’s sisters who isn’t your aunt. Being a nun is not hereditary. Circle geometry we learned in grade school has an actual application in real life and has taught us that a 16-inch pizza has four times the area of an 8-inch one. Even the Vikings endured many failures until they learned new facts. After fifty years of doing things wrong, the dunderheads found out it was a far more worthwhile strategy to rape and pillage, and then burn the village.

This book follows a boy, Robby Yates, growing up in post-WWII America who remembers life with humor and poignancy as he endures too many school transfers and an adult world filled with ugly confrontations, humiliations, and failures worse than the inventions of nasal floss and solar flashlights. Yearly relocations, from Maine to California and from Michigan to Florida, undermine his psychological stability. He learns that, when you go to more than twenty-six schools, fights are inevitable. But if you’re funny, you can save those traumatic uppercuts and make tough guys into friends with a single boffo phrase. And when they double up with hilarity, pound the boogers out of them.

It has been said that anyone can make you cry. Only a special person can make you laugh. A particularly good one can laugh at himself. Robby’s grandfather encouraged him with sage advice like this:

“People don’t need a lot of stupid information from talky assholes on TV. Be funny. Make ‘em laugh. Too much information gives monkeys the shits.”

Without further information, go to the first chapter and take a journey with Rob. I think you’ll find it way more fun than reading today’s newspapers or watching CNN.

Chapter 1 

Changing Classes in Arbutus 

Just when kids felt comfortable with their elementary school, its teachers, the locations of the best bathroom stalls, the principal’s threats of penalties, and what cafeteria ptomaine to avoid, they transfer you to a different school. The seventh grade school in Arbutus, a southwestern suburb of Baltimore, would be a one-year stop in my educational advance toward high school. Beside the fact that there would be new students to become acquainted with and others to avoid, this would be the first year we changed classes to learn about math, science, art, and the latest torture devised by the new sadists running the physical education department. We now had a “homeroom,” complete with a pedantic teacher you spent half your school day with as she brow beat you into diagramming sentences on the blackboard, forced ridiculous poetry down your medulla, and promoted her twisted version of history. I mean, who says crap like “Do not go gently into that good night?” And who diagrams sentences to look like a bad road map with streets that shoot off at odd angles. A stick figure of a fallen tree in an art class would make as much sense. Don’t get me started about teachers who tell you that Davy Crockett was a prejudiced, imperialistic terrorist who killed the righteous Mexicans at the Alamo because they played boring music on fat guitars.

Don’t get me started.

Miss Deming, a.k.a. Cruella De Vil, was the homeroom teacher I drew in a bad random lottery. She made you think her opinions were etched on the walls of the National Archives and pelted us with her offhand comments like: “Abe Lincoln was an extremely homely man.” I wondered if she ever owned a mirror. But these early observations were overshadowed by the realization that none of my pals from the sixth grade were in Miss Deming’s Stalag 7. Not one. Where was Fraze and Tiny, and Bazooka? Turns out they were all in Miss Jones’ homeroom. I was the lone student formerly from Maiden Choice Elementary’s sixth grade who was plopped in Cruella’s homeroom. Who makes these decisions? The Selective Service? The National Ouija Board Society?

My homeroom, I soon discovered, was teeming with rich kids. Children born into privilege from families with lawyers, corporate nabobs, political figures, and doctors of every specialty. Not only that, these Richie Rich dorks were smart. Very smart. All the more reason to question why I was in their midst. Somehow they had determined that my IQ was markedly higher than the scores of my sixth grade friends… but wait a minute. We never took any IQ tests. How did they arrive at these conclusions? Was there a brain analyzer that scanned our noggins when we were examined by our health lady? Was there intelligence information on our report cards? My grades were okay, but no one would credit me with special smarts after reading the comments that always accompanied the grades on my take-home report cards: “He seems to be in a world of his own.” “Doesn’t pay attention at times.” “Doesn’t always follow directions.” These are not words you want to include on your résumé.

This strange misplacement mistake made by the education administration continued to irk me, but it became dramatically evident on a walk home one afternoon with Fraze and Bazooka.

“Did your homeroom assign “The Most Dangerous Game” story in your reader?” I asked.

“Most Dangerous Game?” Bazooka said. “We don’t have that story in our book.”

“What?” I said. “Look, it’s right here on page 27,” I said and showed them my reader’s table of contents.

“None of those stories are in our books,” Fraze said and held up his open book.

Not only were the stories listed in my reader totally different from those in the one Fraze had shown me, but the type size was larger in theirs. The covers of both of our books were identical with one small exception. At the bottom of the spine was a single letter painted in white. Their letter was an “S” and mine was an “A.” Other than that, the binding of our books were exactly the same.

This troubling revelation was a mystery that my parents would later unravel with a trip to the school’s principal, Miss McGonagal, a very senior lady we had sensitively nicknamed “Old Wrinkles.”  The simple solution to the conundrum was that the “A” stood for “Accelerated,” while the “S” denoted “Slow.” My parents were appalled by this overt display of discrimination. Fraze and Bazooka read several stories in my book with little difficulty. So why didn’t we all have the same reader? The lame answer from academe was that most of the students exiled to Miss Jones’ homeroom would indeed have trouble interpreting words and subtle meaning in the more advanced reader. The letter justifying the position the school board had taken was mailed to our house and was discussed by my parents. My father expressed his feeling about the school board in two terse words … um…well, maybe I better not repeat precisely what he said, but one word was a verb and the other one was a pronoun.

Miss Deming, in her devious enjoyment of human distress, assigned the study of limericks as a recognized form of humorous, and often rude, poetry. We read and discussed many of these little five line gems originated by the British and Irish in the 17th century. Not all were poets. There were many we were not allowed to read because of their content. I was certain the one I overheard my father telling his poker players, which began with a man from Nantucket, was not going to be on our approved reading list.

Cruella then forced her class to actually write a limerick, for which we would be graded. The usual brainiacs in the class expressed rowdy glee for the assignment while I contemplated ways to contract pneumonia for the duration of the task. Rhyming words was for advertisement copywriters, not me.

While absently thumbing through an old Boys’ Life magazine I found salvation. Some kid had written a limerick using near perfect form. If I could’ve done a back flip, I would have whipped one up right then and there. Figuring that no one associated with my homeroom class would even know that a Boys’ Life magazine existed, I went forward with my planned plagiarism. I did make some tiny edits on the original limerick in order to assuage my conscience about stealing the damn thing out of whole cloth. The result went like this:

There once was a boy named Saul

who went to a masquerade ball.

He thought he’d risk it,

and dressed as a biscuit,

but a dog ate him in the hall.

I turned my little beauty in with expectations of receiving high praise and an “A” grade. My expectations soon dwindled to suspicions of being expelled. Cruella found my poem bawdy, erotic, and appealing only to prurient interests.

“What!” I screamed. “I wrote nothing of the kind.”

“A dog ate you in the hall,” Cruella said, her left eyebrow raised. “That’s a reference to a sexual act.”

“Eating is sexual?” I said. “I have never chomped down a cheeseburger and wished I could see a naked girl.”

Later in life I learned that a fine dinner with some adult beverages at a nice restaurant could very well be the prelude to an evening of carnal fantasy, but at age thirteen, not so much.

I got an “F” for my penned artistry and plodded home that day and wondered what I’d have to do to qualify for the Witness Protection Program. I thought northern Montana would be a nice place to live. While I mused about that possibility, my mom, who had laughed at my limerick, asked how it was received by my class and Miss Deming. When I told her what happened she had a complete nuclear meltdown. She charged into my dad’s den and yanked him from his recliner. No small feat since I didn’t think ten pounds of C-4 could blast him out of that chair.

“Miss Deming says Robby’s limerick was a dirty, sexual poem and gave him an “F.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” my dad said. “It was just wholesome humor. There was nothing dirty about it.”

Needless to say, my parents, with me in tow, stormed the school the next morning and burst into Crualla’s homeroom with eyes that could ignite an igloo. Miss Deming quickly excused herself from the room and led my parents and me to her office and closed the door.

“What seems to be the problem here, Mr. and Mrs. Yates?” Cruella asked.

“You think this limerick is dirty?” my old man said holding up my paper six inches from her face and pointing to its prominent red “F.”

“I thought the reference paralleled a well known sexual convention.”

“You think ‘the dog ate him in the hall’ was tantamount to saying ‘Why don’t you eat me?’”

“Basically…” Cruella said lowering her head.

“Here’s what I think, lady: You have perceived two very different meanings in a way that has dishonored my son’s innocent work. Perhaps it is your perception of sex that needs to be revaluated.”

Deming took the paper from my dad, crossed out the failing grade and replaced it with a large red “A.” She extended the amended paper to my father, who grabbed me by the arm and led the family out of the office.

I never got to read my limerick aloud to the class, but that might have conjured up a new problem. Three of the wunderkind in my homeroom were currently in the Boy Scouts. However, justice … well, almost justice, had been served. Cruella couldn’t back up her sexual opinions about my limerick, but she could’ve nailed me on the plagiarism if she was as smart as most of her students.

 Chapter 2 

The J. M. Barrie Halloween

Halloween parties in my twenties were big affairs. Dressing up in outlandish costumes was considered mandatory and the best of these could win ridiculous prizes and long term bragging rights. Many years after the All Hallows Eve dress-up craze died out, the stories endured and would often begin with:

“Do you remember when Jake Packer came dressed as huge pimple and his wife was a tube of Clearasil?”

And …

“How about the night Jenny Grafton and her husband bought Scottish kilts with all the trimmings? They even found bagpipes. But the killer was that they didn’t wear anything under their kilts and the more they drank, the more they flashed everyone. Two of the best photos made it onto the post office bulletin board. Talking with their children about modesty and sexuality could never be discussed again.”

One particular Halloween found me dating a cute pediatric nurse named Kathleen, but all the kids in her hospital called her “Keenie,” and the nickname stuck. Keenie was an accomplished seamstress and made a lot of her own clothes, so on this pre-Halloween week she decided to wear a costume she fashioned to portray Peter Pan, complete with a belt that held a wooden knife and a Robin Hood style hat with a long feather. She asked me what I intended to wear, but I had yet to decide. I simply told her that whatever I chose would coordinate with her outfit and theme.

Word got back to me that Keenie had revealed to her family her guesses as to what I would put together. She leaned heavily toward Captain Hook or the crocodile. I liked both of those ideas, but I really wanted to pull off a surprise and not arrive in a predictable costume.

It was soon after that decision that I went off the deep end.

I would go as Tinker Bell.

*     *     *

A two hundred pound man, who lies about his weight, should never attempt to dress up as Tinker Bell, even in the privacy of his own bathroom in the dark. But at the outset, I was oblivious to the dangers.

I began gathering the intricate pieces of my costume at my dentist’s home office, where I shared my Halloween plans. Nelson, the good doctor, had two grown children and a wife, Carol, who was well acquainted with high school ballet. She had a trunk full of long unused items that I badly needed and could borrow. Her son had worn black ballet shoes, size 10, which not only was my size but only required the addition of a couple of white pom-poms to complete Tinker’s footwear. Carol also had a blond pixie wig that fit my head perfectly and, of all things, a fluffy white tutu. Three of the most difficult items I had to acquire were handed to me right where I got my plaque removed. I could hardly believe the luck.

Almost everyone has a Martha Stewart clone to call on to find out how to keep the fruit cocktail from sinking to the bottom of the Jell-O, or to tell you where to buy left-handed scissors. My personal aide-de-everything was Margo Powers. I knew absolutely zero about where to buy dance tights and industrial grade panties, but Margo sent me to the notions section at a popular department store. Once there, I was to ask for “lady’s large” tights in white. The clerk brought me a cellophane parcel the size of a package of Kool-Aid.

“Uh … these don’t appear to be big enough for my legs,” I said. “May I take them out of the package?”

“Of course, sir, but they will stretch to fit.”

A couple of women in line behind me were certain they had seen me on RuPaul’s  Drag Race TV show. Another woman said, “Oh, to be a fly on the wall when he puts those on.”

I opened the package and held up the tights, allowing the two tiny feet to dangle eight inches below the waistband.

“These are large right?” I said.

“They will fit you just fine.”

I paid for the tights I was convinced were made for a Cabbage Patch doll and hurried out of the store. I still needed the panties, but I was not about to go through another session of lingerie humiliation. I’d pay Margo to get me the top I needed and the panties. I’d throw in lunch with drinks.

Margo sewed tiers of frilly lace across the back of the panties and added small jingle bells under the lace to conceal them. I could waggle my tush and make Tinker Bell sounds. I mean, her name was Tinker Bell, wasn’t it? My top was a sleeveless cotton underwear shirt and Margo dyed both pieces a nice Tinker Bell green. Lastly, she made me wings out of coat hanger wire and thin bubble paper and a wand with a Styrofoam star covered with some glitter. A bit of make-up and I was ready for prime time.

Halloween day arrived and I raced home to get ready for the party that night. I had not revealed to Keenie anything about what I was going to be as her date. I hoped she liked what I’d come up with.

The critical dressing challenge would be tugging on those tights, so I tackled that first. I looked at the miniature white leggings and shook my head. I had to begin somewhere so I sat on the edge of my bed and forced my right foot into a leg of the tights. At first my hoof filled the entire leg, but the more I pulled, the more the fabric stretched to accommodate my complete leg up to my crotch. I was astounded at my success, but the left leg of the tights dangled from my genitalia only down to the middle of my thigh. No matter how hard I tried to hoist my left foot up to the opening of the tights, the more frustrating it became. There was no way. It was time to call Margo.

“I got one leg on all the way, but I can’t get my other leg started. “

“You don’t put tights on that way, Dummy,” Margo said and chortled. “Slide into both legs at the same time and pull up the waistband enough to cover your fanny.”  

“You stay on the phone while I try that.”

I followed he directions exactly. When I snapped the waistband over my butt I noticed a tiny problem:  There was a space between my legs from my crotch to my knees. I could smuggle a basketball and a 10-pound sack of flour in there. I waddled over to the phone.

“Margo, there is a large void between my legs.”

“No, there is a large void between your ears. Take your open hand and Karate-chop from your knees upward until everything fits snugly.”

“Karate-chop toward Skippy and the twins? Are you crazy?”

“Just do it. What’s a little pain on Halloween?”

Minutes later, when she regained control, we climbed into my car and sped away. I had promised to show Nelson and Carol how I had made such good use of their loan, so we drove to their house first before we hit the party scene.

Carol answered the door and collapsed under her baby grand piano. It took several minutes before she could speak. If this was the reaction Keenie and I were to expect, I wanted to arrive at the party as late as possible to maximize our effect on the other partygoers.

As we rolled down the Baltimore Beltway Keenie stared at me and said, “You know if you get stopped by the police I will have to be put in intensive care where I work.”

The very thought made me slow down and repeatedly check my rear view mirror. The last thing I needed was a state trooper giving me the sobriety tests because he believed only a drunk or a crazy person would be driving in an outfit custom made for the Gay Pride parade.

The party was fantastic with everyone fully decked out and in character. Keenie and I snagged the prize for best costumed couple. Several men I didn’t know came up to me and placed an arm around my shoulders as their dates took photos of us. Somewhere all over Maryland those photos are shown to people every Halloween with this typical explanation:

“These two people came as Peter Pan and Tinker Bell. Oddly, the girl was the guy and the guy was the girl, but they made it work. This is my husband with Tinker. I have no idea how the guy went to the bathroom in those tights.”

On the late night drive home, I encountered a growing problem. Tinker had to tinkle and the only place open that late was a huge truck stop on Pulaski Highway.

I went into their barroom and strolled over to the bartender and his house full of wide-eyed teamsters.

“Where is your men’s room?” I asked.

“Down that hall,” he said pointing. “First door on your right.”

As I headed where he directed, I paused and overheard one of the men at the bar say, “I guess they let any kind in here anymore. O’Casey’s Bar two block down would’ve thrown ones like that out in the street.”

The bartender responded as I began to round the corner of the hall.

“I don’t know about you dudes, but I ain’t scufflin’ with no 200-pound fairy.”