I Like

Am aware of a dearth of purely lighthearted blog entries from here at "The Palace" of late (perhaps, for some time now). As I seem to be the only blogger in residence for an even longer time (my compatriots have their reasons and I shall remain circumspect regarding their absence), the culpability, I confess, rests completely on my shoulders. In honor of leap year (and February 29th's special place in our folkways as a quirky, semi-rare date that involves, if I remember, a kind of Sadie Hawkins Day mindset: gals proposing to guys today or some such anomalous social behavior) and the desire to provide a reduction of a shortfall of goofiness, here are my offerings, both sweet and sour but hopefully all worthy nuggets of some degree of chuckle-osity or, admittedly, maybe just plain sentimentality on the subject of likability.

I like Ike. Or rather, I did like Ike when I was six years old and everybody else seemed to like him. He was the 34th President of these United States in case you just breezed in from Pluto or were born after 1980, which means most of you hairless and not so hairless apes out there in cyberland. Ike's smile was almost unavoidably endearing and we all seemed to want to like him even before we knew a lot about him (hey, he helped save Western civilization and speaking of hairless: wow…what a chrome dome), except certain "eggheads", shaggy or shorn, who remained cool to the five star general and just didn't catch the drift of what the 1950's were all about or rather, what they were not all about: self-criticism, navel gazing or ponderous intellectualism which were, you see, definitely "out".

I like Tom T. Hall (his big country/pop hit "I Love" is part of the reason). Seemingly simple guy talkng/singing about simple things in this world that he loves…not why he loves them, but just trusting that you'll concur by thinking about your own experiences of so many "little" things... animal, mineral or vegetable: an admirable and soothing valentine to life.

I like gals who dress with a certain sense for the masculine but are not themselves mannish; a certain independence is involved here but one imagines an undercurrent of irresistible feminine vulnerability and power conveyed by the person, and not just through her clothes. These ladies often seem to possess artistic hands; their bird-like flutterings of which, are liked as well.

I like to tell a story and to do the voices of the characters in the tale. I like to make a listener laugh as these characters, hopefully brought to life by my vocalizations can permit this mirth quicker than any dry punchline or cerebral presentation of incongruous facts.

I like to reflect on certain personal memories and how I felt, the smells involved, the sunlight or the shadows in a room: like the moving silhouettes of elevated subway cars on the walls and ceiling of my grandparents' apartment while trying to sleep in their sofa bed during weekend "adventures" as my Mom first described these sleepovers. I like thinking of the ineffable atmospherics of many a long gone time and place and the love that was shared. I like thinking of the immutability of these moments and how nothing can harm them.

I like remembering characters, usually customers of my Dad who gave color and warmth in exchange for Dad's abundance of the same: guys like "Eddie Underworld", his life's work perhaps or perhaps not involved with shady deals and shady persons. A chubby man, Eddie was swarthy and quite vertically challenged in his natty fedora and perhaps bespoke suit. He seemed more earnest than menacing as he explained his life's travails and triumphs patiently and in great detail to Dad. My father, amazingly and adroitly, always managed to reciprocate the patience despite multi-tasking in profusion while easing any cares of other customers waiting their turn.

I like ruminating upon so-and-so, his name lost in the mists of time but his image before me: big, tall and broad; he wore a light short sleeved white summer shirt and khaki shorts with knee length thick white socks and he cheerfully thanked Dad for his change after a purchase of fruits and vegetables. He then always proceeded to seem to mind his own business, going on his way while scratching his balding pate. In an instant his shorts had dropped to his ankles and he excused himself profusely as lady customers shrieked, children giggled, with Dad accepting, what for him was a now predictable phenomenon as much like a patron of his store who may have had an idiosyncratic twitch or a touch of Huntington's chorea. The man was, to be sure, a jokester, but it was an age in which no humorless cop would dutifully appear to run in this "Dropping Trou" "troublemaker" (an exceedingly popular word at mid century) who was just doing his "thing." No "flashing" occurred here, except the smiles of the local cognoscenti or of the startled newcomers who asked "Sally" (my Dad) to explain after the eccentric's departure. "That's just the way he is" Dad always simply replied.

I like remembering a tall raw boned German-American lady customer, her skin nearly the color of carrots, explaining every detail of her purchases to Dad and carting away shopping bags crammed with, unsurprisingly…. carrots, their green tops spilling out over the top edges of each sturdy brown paper bag. She had had a bad menopause it was explained to me years later, but I remember her with great curiosity and amusement, not fearful or aware of her emotional maladies.

I like "pictures of my friends" (to borrow from Mr. Hall's song) and of my family, old movies uninterrupted, the stillness after a rain, folks who are on time, the rare times when reckless drivers get their just desserts: a cop who actually appears when needed to issue a citation or make an arrest.

I like talking to men who have served their country and are willing to tell their experiences: pencil pushers as well as combat veterans. All of their stories interest me.

I like observing intelligent and well-behaved small children talking and interacting with each other. Listening to them gives comfort about the future.

I like people who can feign a buffoon's outrage or insanity. There's nothing so delightful as to witness a loving theatricality through the masquerade of a villain or a loon. Zero Mostel and my late Great (and great) Uncle Frank were masters of this comedic art. The former's "real" life scenes included his genius for delicious mischief on display one evening at a four star restaurant. Ensconced behind the whitest of tablecloths, immaculate linen napkins and elegant stemware, Zero ordered more butter for his bread with his usual zany impresario-like flair. Each time the waiter came into view (wherever he appeared in the room), or each time Mostel had finished buttering, he would thunder "more butter!" He buttered and he buttered. After all the breadsticks and the sliced bread, he buttered his own hand, then his shirt sleeve, next his suit's sleeve, his shoulder, his lapel, his tie…all the while demanding "MORE BUTTER!" Uncle Frank's talent, like all of ours, was God-given. His heart of pure gold came through especially when teased. One summer's day my fun-loving cousin Bob and I and our families came to visit Frank and his. Bob had purchased a small box of "loads." These were straight from a novelty store and they were tiny little white sticks that each contained a minute amount of gunpowder. Frank was fond of fragrant cigars that he smoked often and down to butts as short as he was able to handle. Bob, of course, wasted little time and secretly managed to insert a "load" into the last fresh stogie in Uncle Frank's pack. We waited for what seemed like an eternity for him to light up. At last, he did. The tension was intense. One puff, two, three…a pause..nothing happened. A big draw by Uncle Frank and then, like a misfired party favor, his olive drab cylinder of tobacco and nicotine expanded at its tip and it shredded weirdly without any noise or flash. He knew something had happened and he knew we had been up to no good. He wheeled toward us, his "tormentors" and was determined not to disappoint us. In his heavily accented Italo-Americano English he fumed "Whadda you do? Whadda you do? Amma gonna get youse guys!" Mock anger was never so light hearted and affectionate. His imminent "assault" culminated in hugs, tickles and playful wrestling and was one of the earliest of a lifetime of golden memories courtesy of one of the sweetest of hearts, unafraid of playing the fool.

I like old automobiles. I like an original vehicle, imperfections of age and its upholstery reeking of the admixture of various odors of its ancient interior with gasoline fumes seeping since Day One through the porosity of its perhaps now metal-fatigued chassis.

I like(d) "Smokey Stover", a comic strip of long ago that required time to read and enjoy. The eccentricities and artistic details of the drawn characters and their surroundings are special. Cartoonist Bill Holman's "Foo Fighters", endless puns (from the mouths of characters or from signs hanging on walls) and other weird visuals, including huge gloved hands serving as headrests or ashtrays, all made for a unique, unforgettable strip.

I like(d) "Crax and Jax" too. Howard Sparber, I believe, was the artist. Very hard to find (still looking on the internet). Remember the shortness (three or four panels) of the strip and the inevitable last scene in which Crax's wit (or was it Jax's?) is so potent that it causes the other character to be driven up and backwards into the air because of the force of the joke. That's the kind of world I wish to live in: merriment that allows a perhaps somewhat spiritually poor man to effect a sub par levitation: "Nearer my God to Thee", however humbly.