Contagious Deportments
Since Pop takes naps, I take naps. Since Pop pisses a lot, I’m pissing a lot more. On the bright side, his house has two toilets. No, not side-by-side. One’s upstairs, the other’s downstairs.
Since Pop drives slow, I’m driving slower. I find myself asking other drivers, as they pass me, “What’s the rush?” I need a bumper sticker that says, “I believe in the speed limit.” Thing is, Pop and me, we’re the only two such believers in town.
Since Pop grunts when he sits, I grunt when I sit. And each time I grunt, in my head, I ask myself, as I sit and grunt, I ask, “Why am I grunting?” I don’t have back pain. I’m too young to grunt like Pop grunts.
Beyond that, he and I, we have very little in common.
He reads business periodicals. He’ll read them all day long. Me? I read plays and novels. Pop won’t touch ‘em. At night, he watches whatever’s on TV. He watches Wheel Of Fortune, he watches The Bachelor, he watches Dancing With The Stars, he watches Deal or No Deal.
Me? I limit myself to Peter Jennings. If it’s Sunday, I’ll tune in for Alias.
Pop’s active at two temples. He’s a founding member of both. He’s not religious, but, in nature, he is ritualistic. He’s also very sociable. Pop goes to temple because the American Jews he grew up with and worked with didn’t go to bars. You went to bars if you wanted friends; you went to work if you wanted money. That’s how you pulled yourself out of Depression-era Humboldt Park.
Nobody ever asks, but, more and more, to me, it seems like religion is the best, most enduring, most indestructible con game ever invented. Not always, but more and more. Maybe my views will change when (and if) I hit Pop’s age. He turns 97 this month, two weeks before I turn 27.
Oh, and, since Pop’s memory sucks? Yeah, my memory, it’s sucking a whole lot more than it used to.
My hearing’s going, too. Pop’s? His is LONG gone.
7 June 2004