prologue:

Mom: no, no, not another post about yr father and i!

me: why not?

have u not a hint of shame?

ALOT, but what does that have to do with it?

james mark, stop this. i am gonna get yr sister to stop you. mark my words, here!

marked, mom.

ah, why did you use that picture of me? i look ..heavy.

 mom, you are the heaviest woman i ever met, and i have met..uh, many...at least seven!

oh you and yr nonsense! well, at least yr father looks good...

............................... 

Once again I have babysitting duties for Georgie Puppy.

Sister went off with New Guy  for some camping at the beach.  She is a 63 yr old widow who has worked her entire life in the insurance industry to live up to the injunctions our mother and father put upon her way back in the 1950’s and 1960’s, before the well known cultural revolution that affected many of her generation: respectability, hard work…make something of yourself &make us proud.

She served 40 years reviewing people’s medical records, as an ‘underwriter.Her medical knowledge came in handy when Mom  and Dad started to decay from old age and the effects of alcoholism. The hospital staff who were entrusted with our parents’ care were faced with  a formidable advocate in Sister, indeed.

In me too. Sister taught me the intricacies of how alcohol destroys the body and mind. That was helpful, for I was at Ground Zero,playing  the ‘Lost Child’ role in the family melodrama. I added a few interesting twists to it, I think. 

Like being the “entertainment director”, as Dad dubbed me.

dad in hawaii!

I chose the tv and the movies they would watch after dinner, and although I tried to respect their 1950’s sensibility, I often strayed into what for them was unknown territory. Movies that showed how the culture had evolved, after they had ceased to.

Mom loved the Nora Ephron films.

 mom in hawaii!

Dad did too, because he always insisted on the boy getting the girl. Mom knew it was not as simplistic as mz. Ephron showed us, but still, she loved a happy ending in her entertainment , for she knew that her life would not have one. She was envious of what she dismissively labeled “modern women” with their ignorance of “real love”, engaging in “sex sex sex, that is all that generation was about.”

……………………………………

They would complain at the profanity in some of the movies I showed them. Also, I must shamefully admit, Dad did not like films that told the stories of  African Americans . “Ach, a black film, Jim? Oh …” he would grumble. Mom would protest the explicit sexuality . And of course the naughty words. 

“Do you enjoy this kind of language, James?”

“Mom, it is true to life , it’s real. “

“Doesn’t make it right, young man! No need for that. Just  trying to get attention, I say.”

“You may be right, mom, but fuck it, these words are ‘power words’.  Don’t you fuckin get it?”

“Jim!” Dad.

“Very clever. But you will never convince me. You! And your generation!  Oh..”

“Mom, listen, I am not of my sisters’ generation. They are old enough to be my mothers! Get yer generations straight, would you?”

“Jim, I am trying to watch the movie,” Dad would say. “I wish you and your mother would stop mumbling to each other while I try. Good movie, Jim. I like it. “

“George, this movie would appeal to you! Those high school girls out in the woods, half naked, with those werewolves all around. You are sick. And you have made our son sick.”

“Oh Eleanor, cmon. Those werewolves? My gosh, how do they make such a movie? How do they get them to do that, Jim?”

“What?”

“The werewolves. How do they get them to do that? “

“Uh, they train them. Werewolf trainers. You know Hollywood, Dad. “

“Ja ja.”

Dad would deflect Mom’s sociological musings for me. He and I were a team. “Frick and Frack,” mom dubbed us.  Typical men. A dirty word in mom’s lexicon. Men….

………………………………………………………………………………..

I won’t tell you about their reaction to the lesbian movies I once in awhile snuck into the evening entertainment…

……………………………………………..

Georgie is stirring.

“What are you doing, Uncle?”

“Georgie, I am spilling all the family secrets. On the computer. On os.”

“Oh! Tell them I am having a good day.  Tell them I am ok, even though I am not sure about the new man yet. Tell them you are trying to teach me why this New man is good for momma.”

‘Ok, I will. Want a walk?”

“I would rather have some of your pizza.”

“Dream on, motherfucker’’

````````````````

Epilogue..

Dad: This dog, he is named after me, is he, jimbo?

Me: well yeah dad. What other George do we know/?

Well, I dunno. Such an honor, indeed! But..discipline problems, yes, with this damned dog?

Uh, some.

Well , you know what is best with these goddamned dogs. A newpaper!

He doesn’t read yet.

Ah, huh?

No dad that is not the way we do it these days.

Ah, you know best.