DON’T FORGET TO SIGN THE SIGN-UP SHEET
Some of us who write books will do almost anything to try to attract attention to our work. That includes going to open mic sessions at libraries, coffee shops, car washes, wherever. The organizers usually schedule two or three published writers to read before offering the mic to anyone in the audience.
At times there will be a couple of poems or stories that hit home, but these outings are not always free of pain. For example, four years ago:
One featured reader was a short, energetic lady. After offering several poems, she turned on a music player and started dancing, both on the small stage and down the main aisle of the room. There were people clapping in time to the music and laughing. Larry McCoy was not among the clappers nor the laughers.
Dressed in black slacks and a flaming red blouse, she did pelvic bumps with her arms extended in front of her as though her nails were wet. I had signed the sheet to read but wasn’t aware I was expected to dance too.
Another scheduled reader was an interesting young man who began by saying he was a big fan of Beowulf, who I believe was a distant relative of Wolf Blitzer. The guy had some good, sharp poems, meaning I could understand them. He closed with a song—a chantey, he said—lasting about as long as the final two minutes of an NBA game. In other words, when the chantey began you could have put a roast in the oven and by the time it ended your supper would have been ready.
After a break, the open mic part began. One of the first up was a guy who had been at previous readings with poems I don’t understand because I’m unfamiliar with about every other word in his vocabulary. But he’s forceful and has a good delivery. He closed with a poem he said he had written that day. He started reading, stopped, read to himself and then said, “Ah, yes” and resumed reading to the audience. While he had his “ah, yes” moment, I haven’t a clue what the poem was about.
Next to step forward was an older woman who sang “The Way We Were,” stopping occasionally to clear her throat. The song was followed by a recitation of several of her medical problems and a story or two about her mother.
I was waiting my turn, worried that I was unprepared with no dance routine or song ready to go. Hell, I didn’t even have a list of my medications to share with the crowd or perhaps a touching story about the time I set my mom’s hair on fire.
A middle-aged fellow who writes funny poetry read some and then sang “Deep In The Heart Of Texas” with lyrics he had written about Donald Trump.
Another open mic participant was a young man who read everything off his cellphone. He was sort of the Dennis Miller of poetry, using lots of obtuse and underused words. (Underused words are probably underused for a reason, no?) He writes short pieces and numbers them. “Pick a number between one and 109,” he asked his audience and scrolled on his phone to whatever number was called out.
As far as I’m concerned his most impressive feat came before he started talking. While still in the audience, he took his right arm and extended it way down his back. As someone who had two torn rotator cuffs, I found this both wonderful and painful to watch.
When my name was called, I read something from my book about grandkids—a chapter about a grandfather who can’t behave in restaurants and embarrasses his grandkids by insisting they play games, such as sticking the paper covers of straws under your nose to make a mustache. To be honest, I was disappointed that no one there seemed authorized to immediately buy the movie rights to this epic.
Although the library allotted two hours for this event, it lasted two hours and 40 minutes. It seemed like two days and 40 nights.
There was another open mic session a month later, and, by golly, guess who showed up and was among the first to sign the sheet to read?
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Book review of “Grandma Told Me to Never Believe Anything Grandpa Says”:
“McCoy offers a collection of funny stories about spending time with his four grandchildren….His sense of humor is self-effacing and sweet.”…(Although the reviewer wasn’t in love with the chapters written from the viewpoint of a teenage grandkid)… “Still, the stories in this collection will charm the author’s family and other grandparents who treasure time spent with their grandkids.”--_Kirkus Reviews
“Sweet?” I don’t think anyone has ever said that about me before.
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60 YEARS AND COUNTING
On Saturday, July 2, 1960, Irene Kristoff and Larry McCoy were married at the Hungarian Church in Whiting, Indiana. Sixty years later here is a transcript of a recent interview with Larry.
60 YEARS AND COUNTING
Interviewer: Hello, Mr. McCoy. Thanks for giving us some of your time. Come July 2nd you will be married 60 years. That’s quite an accomplishment.
LMC: I have? What’s quite an accomplishment?
Interviewer: I was warned you would make jokes and wouldn’t be serious.
LMC: Who are you again? Did you say 60 years?
Interviewer: I’m Jim Kellogg of Happy Couples. Yes, 60 years.
LMC: Jim, huh. 60 years. Man. You need to cut out the booze and the crack or something. You look a lot older than 60 years. Tell me again, what is it you do for a living?
Interviewer: I work for Happy Couples. We do a television program once a week. I’m hoping that somewhere along the line you will get into the swing of things and give us some insights about your long marriage.
LMC: Television? Does Rachel Maddow work for your station? I swear to God if she was telling us about the Gettysburg Address it would take her the whole hour to get beyond “Four score and seven years ago.”
Interviewer: No, no. Rachel Maddow works for MSNBC. I work for Happy Couples.
LMC: Why’s that?
Interviewer: It just is. Let’s see if we can get started. What do you think is the secret of a long, happy marriage?
LMC: Credit cards and alcohol. In that order.
Interviewer: Seriously?
LMC: Okay. If you don’t like that order, make it alcohol and credit cards. Is that better?
Interviewer: I’m going to just keep trying here. Do you and your wife Irene share chores around the house?
LMC: Well, because of this COVID horseshit we try to stay IN the house as much as we can. Hanging out AROUND the house is a no-no in our book. You wanna know what I think causes this virus?
Interviewer: Well, to be honest no, but tell me anyway.
LMC: Newspapers. The plastic bags those bastards put the newspapers in before they throw them in your yard. Did you ever hear of COVID-19 before they started wrapping newspapers in plastic bags? Hell, no, you didn’t. Why doesn’t anyone report that? What the hell is your name again?
Interviewer: Jim. Jim Kellogg. I’m a determined cuss, and I’m going to keep trying here. Let me approach this a different way. Do you help your wife in the kitchen?
LMC: No, she usually gets there on her own.
Interviewer: Okay, but do you do some of the cooking or help Irene cook?
LMC: Who’d you say?
Interviewer: Irene. Your wife.
LMC: Ah, damn. That’s her name! I was trying to think of that the other day and simply couldn’t come up with it. I’ve been just calling her “You” for weeks now. May I borrow your pen? I really ought to write that down so I don’t forget it. You said Irene, right?
Interviewer: Yes, Irene. Once again—do you cook?
LMC: Yes.
Interviewer: Okay. What is it you cook?
LMC: Foods and meats and salmon. The wife—you said Irene, right?—doesn’t particularly like salmon so I try to put some in the oven at least once a week.
Interviewer: Why would you do that if she doesn’t like it?
LMC: Because it gives us something to talk about during Jeopardy where we don’t even understand the questions let alone the answers.
Interviewer: Who handles the money? You or Irene?
LMC: Listen, if you are going to ask rude questions, you can just get up and leave. You hear?
Interviewer: I hope I’m not being rude. Are you handy? If something needs fixing—say a dishwasher or a vacuum cleaner—can you fix it?
LMC: Yep.
Interviewer: Mind elaborating.
LMC: Well, when I look at something that isn’t working properly, I don’t waste much time on it. Let me just say when I fix something it stays fixed. And then we go to the store to buy a new one.
Interviewer: I see. I’m guessing you lose your temper easily.
LMC: You’re not a very good listener, are you. What’d I tell you when you asked about the secret of a long marriage?
Interviewer: Alcohol and credit cards.
LMC: Exactly.
Interviewer: Well, we plan to ask Irene the same questions about longevity in a relationship when we interview her.
LMC: Wanna have some fun? Do you?
Interviewer: Well, yes, I guess.
LMC: Okay. After you interview Irene, pretend you are leaving and then look back and you know what you’ll catch her doing?
Interviewer: No, what?
LMC: Trust me on this. She will be rearranging the sofa pillows you were leaning on when you interviewed her. That, Mr. Smarty Pants, is the secret of being married 60 years. Not laughing, not saying a damn thing. Keeping your trap shut when she does all that fussing with the damn pillows. That’s the secret.
(Posted June 26, 2020)
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MY LIFE LAST WEEK
Root canal would be a good place to start. It had been about 10 years since I last saw this endodontist who used to shoot hoops with me at the gym. He never had much of a shot and now, in his early 60s, his hearing is going.
I had to say everything twice, and this is before they clamped something in my mouth that resembled a coffee filter with tongs attached to one end. Once this thing was installed he stopped asking yes or no questions. “Who’s your favorite Knick player?” was one of his questions.
“Problubblub Dablubburr Debloomburlug” was my answer. “That’s a good choice,” he responded. Like hell he did. He didn’t react to my answer and moved on to talk about the importance of the two-party system. I refrained from expressing any political opinions, a wise move I figured when you’re around someone with needles and pointy tools.
Many people dread root canals. Maybe it’s the “endo” part of “endodontist” that adds to the uneasiness of sitting in their chairs. This guy is good at what he does, and there’s very little pain or discomfort.
His office called the morning after the procedure to ask how I was doing. In another sign of my stumbling into old age, I said, “I’m fine.” Not all that long ago, I would have had a little fun with the call and told the lady, “I’ve never seen so much blood. Is that normal?”
Who knows what normal or even the new normal is during these days of the pandemic. Heading for my morning coffee the day after the root canal, a woman 40-50 years old was running in the street. Not on one side of a fairly active street, right in the middle, right along the yellow stripe. The sidewalks were clear as were the sides of the street. What the hell was she doing?
I seldom use my car horn but did this time. The woman raised her palms upwards, a gesture I took to mean “What am I supposed to do?” See a psychiatrist would be one suggestion.
Ah, but if you type “running in the middle of the road” into Google you find a Facebook page called exactly that with the claim that it is a “community.” There’s also a Send Message box. My message would be the same as the one above, see a psychiatrist.
Earlier in the week during my morning walk I saw a man probably in his late 20s walking a dog about the size of an ear of corn. I thought that was pretty odd until I noticed his footwear. (The man’s, not the dog’s.) He had on women’s house shoes, with open heels and little heaps of what resembled mashed potatoes on top.
How sad. If his father is still alive, maybe there will be time this Father’s Day for a pop and son conversation about what a dog should look like and what constitutes proper footwear for a sane, responsible human being. Then again, maybe not.
(Posted June 15, 2020)
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Stuck At Home With Memories
Cabin fever has set in at this address. We cancelled a trip to South Carolina last month because of COVID-19, and now I’m itching to go somewhere—anywhere—even if it’s only two hours away from home and a one-nighter. While we wait for things to improve, I entertain myself by remembering some of the bumper stickers and signs we’ve seen over the years while traveling.
“Summer People
“Summer Not.” - Pickup truck on Shelter Island, New York, November 5, 2007
“Koch Eye Associates” - Sign on a van in Kennebunkport, Maine, August 1997.
“If God had wanted Texans to ski, he would have made bullshit white.” - Sign in a market in San Antonio, December 1984.
“I don’t care how you did it up North.” –Bumper sticker in Marco Island, Florida, area March 1989.
“Welcome to Florida. Now go home.” – Bumper sticker in Marco Island, Florida, area March 1989.
“The number one man in the number two business.” – Sign on the back of the cab of a septic tank cleaner. Wilson, North Carolina, August 1989.
“Driver carries no cash.” - Sign on the side window of a station wagon with New York plates on our way to South Carolina, August 1989.
“Keep Judge Bruce Black.” Political poster, Santa Fe, New Mexico, May 1992.
“Four Holes Baptist Church” – Signs near Four Holes, South Carolina, May 1994.
“When I get old, I’m going to move up north and drive slow.” – Pickup truck in the Hilton Head, South Carolina area, July 1995.
Signs for Dave’s Mexican Restaurant and a Thai place called Thai This” – On drive along the Pacific Ocean, October 1996,
A bus spotted in Weston, Vermont, with “Celebrant Singers” painted on the side and in the destination slot on the front “HEAVEN.” – October 1998.
Bumper sticker “OK the joke is over. Bring back Bush.” – Portland, Maine, area August 1999.
Sign outside general store, ‘Good food, friendly atmosphere, slow service.’ ” – Orr Island, Maine, area September 2000.
Bumper sticker on a snazzy red car “So many pedestrians, so little time.” – West 57thStreet, Manhattan, June 11, 1988.
Sign at a mall – “Frankly Fake has moved and is now Inspired Creations.” (I think they were selling jewelry.)--Hilton Head, May 2006.
T-shirts at a store “Every time I hear the word exercise I wash my mouth out with chocolate” and “Tired of the good life? Call my wife. ” – Hilton Head, June, 2007.
Bumper sticker “The more I find out, the more I love my dog.”—Manchester Center, Vermont, July 2003.
Sign in store window: “So it’s not home sweet home. ADJUST.” – Kennebunkport, Maine, September 2007.
Sign outside restaurant “Pedro O’Hara’s Mexican Irish American Cuisine.” – Freeport, Maine, September 2007.
Man in T-shirt that said “Bank of Dad.” –Hilton Head, June 2004
Sign on truck door “Perfect Couiers.” (I keep saying to myself, U sure R.)—Manhattan, May 1985
Back in May 2005 on a visit to Savannah, I spotted a T-shirt in a window: “I used to be schizophrenic but now we’re okay.” A short time and a short distance later Irene and I stopped for lunch, and twice the waitress asked, “What can I get for you two?” And twice I answered, “There are three of us.” She didn’t blink, didn’t respond. Just ignored me as any smart person would do.
Hard-working servers probably thought they would never miss smart alecks like me. If the lockdowns go on much longer, they may change their minds. Let’s hope when they do get back to work, on the trip there or back, they spot a bumper sticker or sign that amuses them.
(Posted May 26, 2020)
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I FINALLY MAKE IT TO YALE
Since we’re supposed to stay home as much as we can these days, I reminisce about trips to favorite places—the Arlberg in Austria, Hilton Head, Kennebunkport, and Bloomington, Indiana. You’re invited to go on a trip with me to Yale, a visit so long ago Joba Chamberlain was still pitching for the New York Yankees, and I was still playing basketball regularly.
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When you go to a state university, as I did, and get mostly Bs and Cs, as I did, you picture Yale as a very elite, intimidating school, a center of immense challenge and achievement, where wise guys and dimwits aren’t allowed. Ha!
At the age of 71, a mere 49 years after I got my degree from Indiana University, I finally walked the halls of Yale and couldn’t believe what I was being asked to do.
Irene and I along with two good friends went to the Yale University Art Gallery on the campus in New Haven and headed straight to a special exhibition, “Grand Scale: Monument Prints In The Age of Dűrer And Titian.”
Minutes later I found myself staring at a print by Erhard Schőn who lived in
Nuremberg, Germany from around 1491 to 1542. To my eyes the print was a mess
of lines with only a few people and buildings distinguishable, but near the bottom there was a question in German, “What Do You See?” According to a plaque on the wall, if you looked at the print at eye level from the left hand corner you could see a peasant defecating.
Marvelous. Two minutes after I get to Yale there’s a pop quiz. I’m supposed to discern someone taking a poop. So this is the Ivy League!
Naturally, lackey that I am, I positioned myself over by the left hand corner and looked and squinted, bending my knees this way and that to change my eye level. Nothing. I could see no pooping, or as they might say in broken Deutsch, ich kann nicht pooping sehen.
After several tries, I gave up and moved on to another room where I caught up with my friend. “Hey, did you see that one on the wall back there,?" I asked. He retraced his steps to the other room, went to the print, read the plaque and started looking for the pooping peasant. Once he thought he spotted something but decided, no, it wasn’t what we were looking for. The friend mentioned the print to his wife, and she tried. Another strike out.
Next up was Irene. She of little patience for such nonsense demanded “A what? I’m looking for a what?” Irene didn’t see anything either and left the three of us standing there. Another gallery visitor, a young man in his mid ’30s, also had a go at it, but he too failed to see a peasant with his knickers down.*
I thought later that Herr Schőn was probably having a good laugh. Nearly 500 years after he thought up this little jest, he had five people with a combined age of more than 300 years leaning and crouching, hoping for a glimpse of a peasant taking a dump. Once you start looking you hate to stop, to admit defeat because you have spent so much time and looked so silly doing it. Score one for Erhard Schőn.
Stimulated by my trip to Yale, I did some research that night. I came across the word “anamorphic,” which has to do with an image that is distorted unless you look at it from a particular angle. A Dutch Web site mentioned a Schőn print with a man and woman in the left hand corner, which if viewed from the right side shows the “couple doing a little more than kissing.” Ah, old Erhard was not only clever, he was horny.
He did hundreds of illustrations for books and a couple hundred woodcuts, and all these years later he’s still entertaining us. Rather than give myself an “F” for my Yale visit, I took an “Incomplete” and promised to continue my research until I developed the skills to clearly spot squatting and fornicating peasants. It’s hard to think of a more worthy goal.
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* In re-reading this piece, I realized I had made an assumption, always dangerous. Perhaps the peasant’s knickers weren’t down.
(Posted May 7, 2020)
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Review of my latest book, “Grandma Told Me to Never Believe Anything Grandpa Says”:
“McCoy offers a collection of funny stories about spending time with his four grandchildren….His sense of humor is self-effacing and sweet.”…(Although the reviewer wasn’t in love with the chapters written from the viewpoint of a teenage grandkid)… “Still, the stories in this collection will charm the author’s family and other grandparents who treasure time spent with their grandkids.”--_Kirkus Reviews
“Sweet?” I don’t think anyone has ever said that about me before.
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YOU’RE NEVER TOO OLD FOR ICE CREAM
Every April my wife catches up with me. I don’t mean Irene finds out I’ve been doing something I shouldn’t have, but that her age matches mine. In a few days, we’ll both be 82.
I don’t buy any of that nonsense that 80 is the new 70 or even the new 79. Eighty two is pretty old and honestly I’m surprised I’ve lasted this long. I smoked a pipe for almost half a century. While most of us accept that smoking isn’t good for you, it’s been good for all the periodontists, endodontists and dentists I’ve seen over the years. All that clenching of a pipe can damage teeth and gums. The dentists and various dontists I see all drive fine cars, and I’m partly responsible for that, so I don’t understand why I thank them after a visit. They should be thanking me.
My diet as a teenager wouldn’t earn the endorsement of the Mayo Clinic. As a paper boy, I spent much of my collection money on approximately 1,400 small fruit pies. All washed down with a soda with peanuts stuffed in the neck of the bottle. There were no unsalted peanuts in those days, or if there were I didn’t know it. This period of my life could be described as the Days of Sugar and Sodium.
In my adult-working years, I became a yogurt junkie, eating yogurt almost every day for lunch, and bombarding the white stuff with—what else?—peanuts, unsalted ones this time. In place of fruit pies, I substituted an orange or an apple.
Approximately five years ago a heart doctor said I should stop drinking or at least stop having a bourbon or two every night. He said it in a hospital setting so there was some incentive to think he was serious. In the good old days, l had a couple of bourbons after work. If Irene and I went out to eat on a weekend, there would be bourbons to start followed by a bottle of red wine. When we got home. I would try to resist, more often than not unsuccessfully, pouring myself a brandy.
Sipping brandy always left me with a headache the next morning, an event that seemed to arrive hours earlier than it should. I pause here for you to recall the word Al Einstein used when talking about doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.
Before you hit your 60s, I recommend that you find a doctor who has the same passions as you do. I have gone to at least three guys with medical degrees who love to ski. Every time I see one of these fellows the conversation always ends up focusing on ski plans. This is an effective strategy, I think, to distract them, increasing the chances they won’t find some new condition in my body or mouth that needs immediate fixing.
Irene and I have pretty healthy diets these days, I think. We eat little red meat, have fish once a week, fruit every day and lots of salads. We get an A for our main course selections. It’s the course after that where we get straight Fs. There’s always at least one container of ice cream in our freezer, and, regardless of which one of us gets up to dish some out, the portions served are twice as big as they should be.
For my money, neither Irene nor I is the culprit here. It’s our bank. They gave us two enormous coffee cups a few years back—in lieu of paying any decent interest on our savings, I guess—and we pack those cups with vanilla or chocolate (or both), and sometimes chocolate chip, or butter pecan. The many scratches on the bottoms of the cups reflect our devotion to ice cream.
One of our bank’s competitors uses the slogan Life Is Better When We’re Connected, and that’s exactly the way Irene and I feel about out big coffee cups and ice cream.
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(Posted April 23, 2020)
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Review of my latest book, “Grandma Told Me to Never Believe Anything Grandpa Says”:
“McCoy offers a collection of funny stories about spending time with his four grandchildren….His sense of humor is self-effacing and sweet.”…(Although the reviewer wasn’t in love with the chapters written from the viewpoint of a teenage grandkid)… “Still, the stories in this collection will charm the author’s family and other grandparents who treasure time spent with their grandkids.”--_Kirkus Reviews
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