The Answer, My Friend, Is Blowin' In The Wind
Like a lot of my friends in the early days I spent a great deal of time with my grandparents. I think it was because my parents wanted to get rid of me for the weekend.
Little did my parents know that I loved going there to help my grandmother in her kitchen. Also loved to help my grandfather out in the garage or in his basement workshop.
During the school year, I looked forward to Fridays because that was the day my father and mother drove me to my grandparents house for the weekend.
I would spend all day Saturday working around their house, and then Sunday morning I’d go to church with my grandmother. When we got back from church we’d start to prepare for Sunday dinner which was served promptly at 1 o’clock.
On Sunday, like clockwork, my parents and older brother would pull up to the house with bread, flowers, and usually something my mother baked for dessert.
We’d spent the rest of the day at the dinner table, talking and eating until around 6 o’clock. I would then go upstairs, take a bath, and put my pj‘s on. After that, I’d get ready to watch The Wonderful World of Disney but only after my grandfather finished watching a gladiator movie and Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.
Once I dozed off on the couch, it was time to go. My brother was old enough to drive, or at least start the car. He always asked my father for his keys so he could warm up the car in the driveway.
It was a 1963 Ford station wagon, and it was a beaut.
If you know anything about Italian goodbyes, even with jackets on, it still takes another forty-five minutes before you actually leave. Once outside, my brother and I climbed into the back seat of the car, heat at full blast. My mother was next into the passenger seat, with my father last to enter the car.
But this night, my father decided to pass wind just after he stepped into the car. It was not just any fart, it was the kind of fart that clears a room, brings tears to your eyes, and peels paint off the walls,
It was the kind of fart that lingers, and if you got it on your skin, you couldn’t wash it off for days.
Once inside the car, my father stepped into the car, he slammed the door closed, which forced this green fog to waft through the car.
“Oh Jim,” my mother screamed at my father, “couldn’t you do that outside the car?”
My brother and I gasped for air in the backseat as we struggled to get the back windows open.
Just then, my father turned to mother and, with a sly grin on his face, said “Jesus Christ, how did I know it was gonna smell?”
God bless my mother, but my father was funny.
