Rudolph Giuliani, former mayor, new multimillionaire, and Presidential wannabe, admitted yesterday that he is fundamentally a worthless sack of s***. This was not news to the hard-working firefighters or police officers of New York City who have watched him milk glory from his photo ops for the last seven years.
The Mayor of 9/11's hopes of support from the firemen and cops of NYC were on the rocks as the ex-Mayor inserted his foot into his mouth once again.
Giuliani admitted Friday on Mike Gallagher's syndicated radio show that he misspoke when he said he spent more time at ground zero— exposed to the same health risks—than the clean-up workers after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
"I think I could have said it better," he told the radio host . "You know, what I was saying was, 'I'm there with you.'"
The former New York mayor struck a very raw nerve with firefighters and police officers when he told reporters at a baseball game in Cincinnati this week "I was there working with them. I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I'm one of them." Fire and police officials responded angrily, saying Giuliani did not do the same work as those involved in the rescue and cleanup from the 2001 terrorist attacks, which left ever-rising numbers of those workers sick and injured.
Unless I misjudge what I saw at ground zero last month, it appears those workers actually did more than put on hard hats and stern faces, pose for photographers, and issue pithy sound bytes.
This latest Giuliani imbroglio makes you wonder about the Republican Presidential field's prospects. The first tier of Thompson, McCain, Giuliani, and Romney all appear to be faltering, in either fund-raising, support, or both. How long can it be before Newton Gingrich holds his nose and wades into the fray? ---o0o---
Two days ago, I wrote a brief piece detailing the summer of 1973, and my friend Scooter's couch surfing and imbibing at the Sundowner. Now Scooter wrote back (See italicized text below), and brought up a fact I had forgotten. I am usually the victor in these memory wars, over Scooter and Keelin Curran. Scooter trumped me this time, with a memory that is now crystal clear, but never would have bubbled to the surface without this cue. However, in retaliation, I challenge him once again to remember his friends, the painter, Fred Birchman, and his lovely wife Paula!
Jerry Melin developed an almost foolproof system for forging Washington State ID's. I think the reason this slipped my mind is that I never actually had Mel make one for me. In his comments, Scooter pegs this to my having a girlfriend and being on a diet. However, it was something deeper than that I think. In those days I was never a particularly meticulous law-abider, but for some reason I don't ever remember going to a bar until I was 21. And I never attended a day at the Sundowner, as far as I remember. I don't know why, but it worked out OK in the end. I was able to spend plenty of nights in bars after I turned 21. However, to this day, I very rarely go to bars, and when I do, it almost always involves music. I always preferred a party at someone's crib to a bar. On the other hand, some of the craziest times I had in NYC were, naturally, in bars. Like the time we bumped into Allen Ginsberg at the Grass roots Bar on St. Mark's Place. We listened to a recitation of his latest poem and chatted, and he gave Mel a big, wet kiss on the forehead.
I remember Mel, sitting for literally, hours, working as Scooter details below, to alter a license. He was changing one digit in the birthyear, and it took hours to get the perfect letter and get the registration just perfect. Even cops would miss the alteration. So, Phil, "schubert," Spurge, Kevin, Mike Thies, etal, would have these nearly foolproof licenses. After I turned 21, I joined them in the bar wars. Still, we were college students, trying to live on $200 a month, so there were limits to how much we could even go out to bars at all, except for jazz night at Pete's, where you could bottles of wine for $4.99 and listen to jazz,
Mel would labor the same way to produce these fantastic Blake-ean drawings of ethereal winged, adrogynous angels. . .none of which I still have. We wrote a lot of poetry together in much the same fashion, taking hours to build up poems, usually focused on America, the police state, art, drugs, philosophy, sex, jazz, and rock and roll. And when he was serious about school it was the same thing: he would study for 12 hours straight, and whenever he decided he wanted to apply himself, he would pull straight A's. Jerry/Mel was the smartest person I ever knew who was constantly on academic probation. There was nothing like seeing him utterly engrossed in whatever project was at hand: art, poetry, forgery, calculus, economics. We would sometimes spend an entire night reading one of Blake's work's like America or Jerusalem, aloud, with endless bowls, digressions, and sidebars.
Needless to say, I miss Mel, still. A few stories about Mel:
Scooter here, usually I am happy just to sit back and enjoy the show at All This is That but Jack, we called him Johnny in 73, got me thinking. He says that I may have been depressed, maybe/maybe not, but I did have a lot of time to kill that summer and, as he points out, very few dólores to fund any meaningful diversions.
I had gone from tending dogs to the dogs in two summers and had nearly depleted my savings account after paying for freshman year at WWSC and my share of body work to repair Mel’s parent’s Pontiac Le Mans after Phil K, Kev & I put it into a ditch during a night of carousing while Mel prudently elected to ride shotgun.
Mel misdesignated drivers to his advantage on more than a few occasions in those years and when he didn’t the cops usually learned about it.
I remember that Kev played softball for a local men’s team in Kent that summer but he always joined me at the Downer on Thursdays. Mel and Phil K would come by regularly too but Johnny less frequently because he had a job and a girl friend and I believe adhered to a fitness regimen then that frowned on 12 hours of brews guzzling. Anyway, all of us, with the exception of David Fuller (RIP) were still underage in 1973 but we never, I mean never, had a problem gaining entrance to drinking establishments.
In the early 70’s WA had begun to roll out a new state photo ID that replaced the bifurcated WSDL and State Liquor Photo ID cards that folks had to carry previously. The new ID/DL used a process that impregnated a dense fibrous paper backing with the licensee’s vitals and photo and then sealed the face with a fine but durable laminate overlay. This new photo DL quickly made the State Liquor Card obsolete. While some youngsters purchased faked up generic out-of-state IDs from shops along Seattle’s 2nd Avenue they would only pass muster at skid row dives, so we relied on Mel’s obsessive compulsivity to create nearly perfect WA State issued DL’s with modified birth years.
For a few years Mel would periodically cook up some tea and then patiently scour magazines, novels, textbooks, trade and professional journals, telephone directories, and newspapers in search of the perfect pica/font to match the DOB stat on the WADL. He had assembled an impressive file of matches by 1973.
His strategy was simple. He instructed us to make a claim to the DMV that we had lost our license so that if we had a real run in with the heat we could always present a valid DL. Once the replacement DL was in hand he would set up shop. He worked at a brightly lit table fitted with a square of picture frame matting. He always used medical implements instead of paste up tools. I had had access to scalpels and hemostats from my year at the veterinary clinic and Mel had built a fairly extensive kit of medical supplies for this and other endeavors.
He affixed the license to the matting with two hemostats and set about altering the last figure in the birth year. He was a master in this procedure by the summer of the Downer. He would cut a tiny square around tiny figure, taking exquisite care not to pierce the backing of the card. He extracted the character and a slight layer of backing leaving a void that read 195 . He then embedded a perfectly matched “”0”, “1” or “2” into the void. Once the card was relaminated even we had trouble detecting the alteration. By the time we reached majority age most bartenders had learned that shining a flashlight through the back of the card would highlight the incision around the altered birth year so the jig was up by 74 or 75 but I don’t remember the cards failing any of us, ever. How about you, Jack?
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
scooter said... Oh, it's important to note that none of us could grow a respectable moustache until our thirties and most of us could have passed for high school students until our mid 20's. That's a fact and it proves the mettle of these IDs. To watch a bartender or bouncer go from scowling disbelief to incredulous befuddlement whenever we presented the ID for the first few times was priceless. No body believed to see us that we were of age but the cards didn't lie. And after we were established in the bar Downer or otherwise they never asked again. ---o0o---
Geraldine Beasley has been charged with murder after blowing away a homeless man who asked her for a quarter. Donald Francis, who police think was homeless, stood outside the Marathon station at Eighth and Linn streets in Cincinnati Monday night, panhandling.
Chief Tom Streicher said "he asked her for a quarter," and that annoyed Geraldine Beasley so much, she shot and killed Francis.
Beasley, 62, of Walnut Hills, complained to someone else at the scene about the panhandling, Streicher said. Then, according to Chief Streicher, when Francis asked Beasley for money, she pulled out a gun and fired. "That's apparently all there was to it," the chief said.
1973 stands out in my mind among many of the years I have stomped through. Life was very good. I was in my second year working as a full time volunteer at a community center, for $40 a week, mostly doing draft counseling, writing some grants, working on the crisis/help hotline of The Sixth Chamber, handholding people on bad acid trips, referring people to doctors, and talking people out of committing suicide until they could actually talk to someone who knew what theywere doing.
I was living at a new apartment complex east of Kent, Wash., with another fellow worker at The Sixth Chamber. He was on public assistance, and had a welfare aparment--two floor, two bedroom. We split the subsidized rent of $37.50 a month. Although I did kick in my $18.75 a month, along with me came my dearest friend, Scooter. Scooter was broke, jobless, probably depressed, and parked himself on our couch for the three months between college terms.
Scooter didn't work that summer, but somehow scraped by. Once a week, however, there was an escape. The Sundowner Tavern, virtually located within our apartment complex, ran a special on Thursday: all the draft beer you can drink for $2. The doors opened at around noon, and the special continued until closing time (2 A.M.). You can imagine the potent forces that coalesced sometime around midnight. A gigantic welfare complex where no one worked, and a fair number of the denizens were on "mental disability." Endless beer, virtually free, and wackjobs with time on their hands, and a grudge against the world. Considering how bad it could have been, I don't remember that many fights or arrests, and the ones I do remember usually involved another friend of ours, Mel. Somehow Scooter survived the couch, the lack of mon and food, and still succeeded in having at least a couple of girlfriends on the line. He would serve one more term surfing my couch in utter poverty--in the fall of 1978, when he joined us in New York City, a city where he still rests his bootheels.
I am hoping Scooter is lurking here and can amplify this story. I know it has to be better than I am telling it. There must be some juicy anecdotes that have slipped my mind...
. . .but this afternoon, is not so bad. I was in the pool fifteen minutes after landing. I swam for a while hit the hot tub, and then worked for a couple of hours, and now I am off to walk to a great Mexican grill a mile and a half from here (the dreaded NB Radisson). They grill snapper, squid, and these incredible fat, juicy shrimp marinated in lime and herbs and serve them with a fantastic jicama-radish-mesclun salad, perfect chipotle beans, a stack of fresh, warm corn tortillas, and salsa that is on a par with those at La Carta de Oaxaca. Oh, and ice cold Pacifico on tap. The last time I was there, dessert was grilled pineapple sprinkled with lime and a sort of turbinado sugar that carmelizes with the lime. When I come back I can work on some poetry. Life could be worse. If my family was with me, it might even be living. ---o0o---
A mother of five who married another woman while still married to her husband was given a suspended prison sentence today. Suzanne Mitchell, of Shrewsbury, pleaded guilty earlier to breaching a British Act, which allows same-sex couples to “marry”. She admitted lying about being single to enter a civil union with Caroline Beddows last year. At Shrewsbury Crown Court, Judge Robin Onions said Mitchell repeatedly lied in pursuit of the partnership, and her offence was one of “cruelty and deception”. Handing Mitchell an eight-month prison sentence suspended for two years, Judge Onions said jailing the 30-year-old would have had a damaging effect on her children.
A Dutch man accused of having sex with a sheep got off the hook yesterday because the animal was unable to testify. The Dutchman, from Haaksbergen, in Holland, was arrested after a farmer caught him having sex with one of his sheep. The case, however, was thrown out of court as the sheep could not testify about consent or that it had suffered emotionally.
Under Dutch law, bestiality is not a crime unless it can be proved the animal didn't want to have sex.
Other recent beastiality stories appearing on All This Is That:
Abram came to a place later known as Bethel Where, as usual, he built an altar and prayed to the Lord Lot, Abram's nephew was with him on the range
Abram's shepherds quarreled with Lot's shepherds There was not enough grass for both their flocks There was not room for them all in that place
Abram said to Lot: "Let there be no quarrel Between you and me or your men and my men We are like brothers to each other
You take the land on the right hand And I will take the left or if you choose The left hand, I will take the right."
Abram, was the older and could claim the first choice And God had promised all the land to Abram So he might have said to Lot "Go away, this is all mine"
But Abram showed a kind heart And gave Lot his choice of the land Lot looked over the land from the mountain
Where they were standing And saw down in the valley the river Jordan Flowing between the rich soil of the green fields
He saw Sodom and Gomorrah out on the plain Near the mouth of the Jordan Where it flows into Dead Sea
And Lot said "I will go down yonder to the plain" He took his tents and his men and flocks of sheep and cattle Leaving the land on the mountains to Uncle Abram
Lot may not have known that Sodom Held the wickedest people in the land But he went to live near them
And gradually moved his tent closer and closer To Sodom until he was living in that wicked city After Lot separated from Abram, God said to Abram:
"Lift up your eyes from this place, and look East and west north and south All the land that you can see
All the mountains and valleys and plains I give to you and your children And their children and those who come after them
Rise up, and walk through the land--it is all yours" Abram moved his tent from Bethel and went to live Near the city of Hebron in the south
Under an oak tree Where he once again Built an altar to the Lord. ---o0o---
Rudolph Giuliani is reportedly in a snit over the fact that Jeri Kehn Thompson's photos have been appearing all over the internet and blog world. Until those photos began appearing, Giuliani's photos in a gown had been far more prevalent. "OK," Giuliani said on the phone to an All This Is That stringer, "yeah, people in the south and the flyover states didn't like my pictures in drag, but let's face it, they weren't going to vote for me anyhow. " Giuliani then characterized Fred Thompson as a person who has relations with barnyard animals.
The ex-mayor continued: "I look at it like they say, all publicity is good publicity. But these Jeri Kehn photos, man, they're chiseling away at me. And in my favorite picture, I have a Vera Wang on!"
Since over 100 of you come here daily looking for Jeri Kehn Thompson photos, we try to accomodate you. Other recent photos of Jeri Kehn Thompson on All This Is That:
The Grateful Dead perform Birdsong at Radio City Music Hall in 1980. Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia wrote this song about Janis Joplin—not long after her death. I'll put the lyrics following the video.
Bird Song
By Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter
All I know is something like a bird within her sang, All I know she sang a little while and then flew on, Tell me all that you know, I'll show you snow and rain.
If you hear that same sweet song again, will you know why? Anyone who sings a tune so sweet is passin' by, Laugh in the sunshine, sing, cry in the dark, fly through the night.
Don't cry now, don't you cry, don't you cry anymore. Sleep in the stars, don't you cry, dry your eyes on the wind.
All I know is something like a bird within her sang, All I know she sang a little while and then flew off, Tell me all that you know, I'll show you snow and rain. __________________________
Fourteen years later, in Las Vegas, on 6-26-94, the Dead perform Peggy O a/k/a Fennario. Jerry's voice is fragile, but he plays an excellent solo on this moving tune, and even his delivery adds to the tenderness of the song.
Peggy O - American folk song
As we rode out to fennario, as we rode on to Fennario Our captain fell in love with a lady like a dove And called her by a name, pretty Peggy-O.
Will you marry me pretty Peggy-O, will you marry me pretty Peggy-O If you will marry me, I'll set your cities free And free all the ladies in the are_-O.
I would marry you sweet William-O, I would marry you sweet William-O I would marry you but your guineas are too few And I fear my mama would be angry-O.
What would your mama think pretty Peggy-O, What would your mama think pretty Peggy-O, What would your mama think if she heard my guineas clink Saw me marching at the head of my soldiers.
If ever I return pretty Peggy-O, if ever I return pretty Peggy-O If ever I return your cities I will burn Destroy all the ladies in the area-O.
Come steppin' down the stairs pretty Peggy-O, Come steppin' down the stairs pretty Peggy-O, Come steppin' down the stairs combin' back your yellow hair Bid a last farewell to your William-O.
Sweet William he is dead pretty peggy-O, sweet William he is dead pretty Peggy-O, Sweet William he is dead and he died for a maid And he's buried in the Louisiana country-O.
As we rode out to fennario, as we rode out to Fennario Our captain fell in love with a lady like a dove, And called her by a name, pretty Peggy-O _______________________________________
The Dead perform Eyes Of The World at Giants Stadium 0n 6-17-91, almost a year after Brent Mydland's death. Bruce Hornsby joined the band for the next year or so, helping to break the new pianist Vince Welnick (R.I.P.) in. The breaking in never worked, but it was always wonderful to see Bruce in the band, and many of their late shows became great due to the interaction between Hornsby and Garcia. Bruce knew his way around the Steinway.
Eyes of the World by Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter
Right outside this lazy summer home you ain't got time to call your soul a critic no. Right outside the lazy gate of winter's summer home, wond'rin' where the nut-thatch winters, wings a mile long just carried the bird away.
Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world, the heart has it's beaches, it's homeland and thoughts of it's own. Wake now, discover that you are the song that the mornin' brings, But the heart has it's seasons, it's evenin's and songs of it's own.
There comes a redeemer, and he slowly too fades away, And there follows his wagon behind him that's loaded with clay. And the seeds that were silent all burst into bloom, and decay, and night comes so quiet, it's close on the heels of the day.
Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world, the heart has it's beaches, it's homeland and thoughts of it's own. Wake now, discover that you are the song that the mornin' brings, But the heart has it's seasons, it's evenin's and songs of it's own.
Sometimes we live no particular way but our own, And sometimes we visit your country and live in your home, sometimes we ride on your horses, sometimes we walk alone, sometimes the songs that we hear are just songs of our own.
Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world, the heart has it's beaches, it's homeland and thoughts of it's own. Wake now, discover that you are the song that the mornin' brings, But the heart has it's seasons, it's evenin's and songs of it's own ---o0o---
One of my favorite sites for UFOlogy is the UFO Review, edited by Stuart Miller. They cover a wide range of paranormal and UFO, and cover the skeptics as well as the fanatic believers. They even link to All This Is That when we publish an article in the Alien Lore series, or art on the UFO or Grey phenomenon. In an editorial yesterday Stuart Miller wisely addressed the UFO wars here on earth:
"My criticisms are directed to those who are convinced science is the answer to the subject of UFOs. It is if we’re dealing with natural phenomena; it isn’t if we aren’t."
It's Seafair week in Seattle. When I was young, this was the event of the year: The Torchlight Parade, The Greenwood Parade, The Pirates landing at Alki Beach, and, of course, the hydroplane races, and, in later years. the appearance of the Blue Angels flying all over town in formation.
This is the week the Navy arrives too. You still see sailors walking around town once in a while, but during Seafair, the fleet comes in, usually several ships and submarines, and you see hundreds of sailors in dress whites looking for------------well, who knows what? Seeing one of the big ships reminds me of this folk song we used to sing in school and Boy Scouts. I doubt if it is much sung anymore due to political correctness considerations.
What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor
What Shall we do with the Drunken Sailor What shall we do with the drunken sailor What shall we do with the drunken sailor What shall we do with the drunken sailor Early in the morning?
Hoo-ray and up she rises Hoo-ray and up she rises Hoo-ray and up she rises Early in the morning
Shake him take him try to wake him . .
Shake him take him try to wake him . .
Early in the morning
Give him lashings with a rope end .. Bathe his wounds with salty water . . Sling him in the long boat till he's sober . . Pull out the plug and wet him all over . . Put him below until he's sober . . Get a hose and wet him all over . . Shave his tummy with a rusty razor . . Send him up the crow's nest until he falls down . .
That's what we'll do with the drunken sailor That's what we'll do with the drunken sailor
Because of my past And because of my present Because who knows what might come out Because I will say almost anything for a laugh Because who has the time to raise $200 million Because I would work to repeal the 2nd amentment Because I would also work to repeal the 22nd amendment Because much of my platform begins "mass involuntary _____" Because I would mandate mandatory music at least five hours a day Because we could never build enough holding tanks, prisons, camps, and islands of exile ---o0o---
Since I am on the road today, it's time to heat up some leftovers... /jack in Eugene, OR
Not long ago, I wrote here about my Great Uncle Guy Huber, his visits to Kent, Washington, and, of course, his wooden leg. I also wrote about my Grandpa Dell, last year, and how I teethed on his hook arm when I was a baby...
Grandma Vera Galvin was Uncle Guy's sister, and Grandpa Dell was my Grandma's third, and final, husband. Alas, I don't have many tales to tell of my Grandma. She died in either 1961 or 1962. My mother is not all that forthcoming about her exploits, and wouldn't answer several questions I posed (or said "please don't write about that"), sticking mainly to the bare biographical facts. This was much different than when I pumped her for information on Uncle Guy. In fact, I don't have a lot of memories of her either.
Grandma Galvin is pictured in this photograph at a bar she owned in Carnation, Washington. Carnation was a small village in 1949, when she bought the bar on the town's main street. She owned it for about ten years. Also in the picture, with his one hand on the register, is Grandpa Dell Galvin. They must have been about my age in the photo.
All my life, I've been fascinated by her owing a bar. When I was a kid, women seemed to rarely even go to bars, let alone own one. But then again, most grandmothers didn't get married three times either, or drink beer. There must have been some vein of iconoclasm in the family, since my mom ended up being a Rosie The Riveter during WW II, and eventually a U.S. Marine.
The bar is a little spooky. . .but that's mainly the taxidermy I think. . .there is definitely a stuffed owl, and I'm not sure if the other birds are pheasants or wild turkeys. . .or what? They look too small for grouse. Aanother critter at the left end of the bar could be a porcupine, a marmot, a wild baby boar?
When I knew her, Grandma drove a grey 1948 Plymouth. I remember several occasions sitting next to her driving somewhere. I also remember there was a "church key" for opening beer cans on her dashboard. I don't remember ever seeing her without a can of beer wrapped in a paper bag. She lived in a cottage (my mom calls it a shack) in Carnation.
She started the coal stove every morning--fat lumps of greasy coal kindled with tissues. The house had plumbing; I well remember the houses that didn't--and the cold treks to a fantastically rank outhouse. One of my only other memories of visiting her in Carnation was having breakfast with one of Del's daughters, who also lived in Carnation. She gave me half a grapefruit. I don't think I'd ever seen one before. I know I hadn't eaten one. They squirted. I liked it.
Dell died of a brain tumor in the late '50s, and Grandma sold her bar. Or maybe she went broke. Grandma Galvin was now retired, and was just about to move in with my family in Kent, when she went into a diabetic coma and died in about 1961. I remember my dad telling me one morning that she had passed away.
It was years before I could really tell the difference between passing away and passing out. Passing out from drink was not unheard of in my circles and yet even then, at say, the age of nine, I could smell a whiff of it--you sense the people passing out are treading an tenuous chasm between being numb and being gone. --------o0o--------
Posted by Jack Brummet at Thursday, January 26, 2006
________________________________________________
7 comments: Kev said... The 50's are becoming a long time ago, aren't they? I love the photos almost as much as the reflections they accompany. This pic is a particularly great one. I am struck at how small the bar itself was. How many stools, 10 or 12, do you think? Carnation had to have been a speck of a town when your grandma owned the bar. Does your mom remember its name?
You must have heard that Frank Colum Curran owned and operated a bar in or around Hillyard in the the 30's, I think. The story is nearly mythic in the annals of my family. As Tony told it, Frank, with garrulous charm, was building so great a following that he threatened the livlihood of a well connnected rival before he was run out of business. The rival called in some political favors and had Cheery Frank's hounded for bogus operating infractions, such as serving alcohol to a minor when it was still permissible for youngsters to accompany their guardians to the gin mill. Though WA, unlike NY, made distintions between taverns and bars and stricly speaking your grandmother's Frank's establishments were taverns and restricted to serving beer and wine.
Anyway Frank was popped so frequently by this cabal of evil Hillyardians that it put put him of business. The paranoic streak runs deep among some in our family, as you have witnessed frist hand.
There is a more prosaic story to explain Frank's failure in the bar trade; Grandma Helen didn't approve of the comapany nor the hours he kept while barman and threatened to leave him. For sure, Tony's story doesn't square with the curmudgeon Frank became but Hillyard must have been home to many malcontents whose only explanation for their choice in domicile was the sprocket of Great Northern rail track that concluded their in a jumble of hardship. They couldn't have found a more sympathetic ear for their disappointments than the flinty Donegal orphan and runaway from the PA coal mines. Irish Cheer, indeed!
Keep up the Betty and Jack Chronicles, there's a gold mine there, Jackie.
Thursday, January 26, 2006 Jack Brummet said... Hey Kev - Yeah, it had to be pretty small, just judging by the size of the backbar...my mom couldn't remember the name for sure, but thought it was "Pete's Place."
I indeed know about FC Curran's bar. I've been there. In fact, I think Pete and I shot some video footage there, on the same day we shot the house in Morgan Acres, and some other sites of Curran interest.
I have heard a little of the powers that be harrassing Frank out of the business. I have also heard it was, as you alluded to, Helen...
I have heard of the dark side and the light side. I met him numerous times over the years, and he was always in a mood ranging from bemusement to outright hilarity. I remember him introducing himself--and he had to be at least 85-90 at the time, as the family homosexual. I remember him dancing at our wedding when he had to be 90. I have read his fabulous blarney-filled letters to Keelin and others. And I have heard hints from Uncle John, Aunt Maureen and others of the darker, angrier Frank.
On the whole, though they keep the legacy petty upbear and chipper. Just as my mom would not discuss certain episodes and aspects of her mom...
There is no doubt more to the Frank Curran story than we know.
Thursday, January 26, 2006 Kev said... I had forgotten, but howled, at your reminder of Frank's boast about his sexual orientation. I believe he made this comment at your wedding, too.
I have a vivid memory of him ca 1974 or 1975, summertime. Sean, Tony and I went on a drive in Tony's pickup to see Grandpa. We spotted Grandpa Frank striding, I mean really charging, along a gritty commercial street on the southeastern edge of Hillyard. We persuaded him to hop in and he then insisted on heading to the bar.
It was early, probably around noon, when we started drinking. He drank straight shots, Tony had whiskey on the rocks and I was swilling Millers. Our approximate ages were 83, 46 & 21. We left Sean in the truck outside. Frank grew more and more ornery with each shot and had begun to smart off to Tony and this 30ish bar hound who seemed to genuinely hate him. When Grandpa dropped his tam and asked the young guy to pick it up, the fellow shot back "pick it up yourself, old man".
Anyway Sean had an American Legion ballgame to play and he went off in Tony's truck after we arranged to borrow Frank's 53 Chevy so that we could attend Sean's game later. I ran to Grandpa' and got the car and returned to the bar. We told Grandpa it was time to go and balked. He insisted on staying but Tony wouldn't let him because Grandpa was already pretty lit up. We carried him to the car and boy did that piss him off. You know, even stoop shouldered at 80, Frank was well over 6' though rail thin. As we carried him up the steps to his house he was hopped up like a wet cat. We left him at home and went to Sean's ballgame.
The next morning I got a call from Grandpa. He asked, "when you return my car will you stop at the bar to pick up my glasses?" I thought he had lost it. I said "Grandpa you had your glasses when we dropped you off at home, they couldn't be at the bar". He insisted, so I stopped by that Sunday afternoon and the bartender reported that he had found the glasses in the alley. Apparently Grandpa had returned to the bar and continued his harnangue and had gotten into a a scrape with somebody in the alley behind the bar. When I saw there was no mistaking that. He was pretty battered up around the ears and and the side of his face. He didn't make much of it but did acknowledge that someone was making trouble for him and he went to settle the disagreement outside.
Friday, January 27, 2006 Jack Brummet said... That is such a great story! At 83, he was still putting up his dukes.
Of course this story should end
"You should have seen the other guy!"
Friday, January 27, 2006 Cuz said... Johnnie I'm pretty sure that is how the story did end. My recall is that the next day Grampa Frank did say "you should have seen the other guy" I remember because it's a classic line but that was the first time I heard it.
Friday, January 27, 2006 Jack Brummet said... I'm glad! It really did have to end that way...
Friday, January 27, 2006 Al Arntsen said... This is really no fair. Why do you get all the great relative stories? I couldn't come up with anything about my family like this.
Monday, January 30, 2006 Post a Comment
Links to this post My Elementary School Teachers, Part 1: As The Twig Is Bent "As the twig is bent the tree inclines," Virgil wrote. Schoolteachers do just about more twig-bending than anyone. Mine were no exception. In elementary school, the teachers were mostly benign; I didn't get into the real sadist, misfit, ... Posted byJack Brummet atThursday, February 22, 2007 Growing Up & Having Grown-->True Tales from *All This Is That*
Rudolph Giuliani, former mayor, new multimillionaire, and Presidential wannabe, admitted yesterday that he is fundamentally a worthless sack of s***. This was not news to the hard-working firefighters or police officers of New York City who have watched him milk glory from his photo ops for the last seven years.
