Cultivating wierdos

I was trolling for ideas just now and I came across an article in Writers’ Digest Online suggesting that a momentarily artistically bereft writer such as myself should ‘Cultivate wierdos.’

I get what they’re suggesting – put yourself in the proximity of strange or at least interesting people and sooner or later, assuming you’re paying attention something worthy of writerly scrutiny will pop up. And this would be simple to do since my office is located in downtown Seattle, wierdo capitol of all four hemispheres (yes, four - don’t protest, just look at a globe). All I have to do is establish myself in an appropriate vantage point overlooking Westlake Park or 3^rd Ave between Pike and Pine or anywhere near the public market at Pike Place and sooner rather than later someone is going to do something writable.

I’ll definitely do that. But not today.

Today, I’m off on a flight of fancy stirred by that same title but deriving from it a somewhat different prompt. Because if I’m honest, the idea to ‘cultivate wierdos’ does not bring to mind denizens of Seattle’s downtown. It actually made me think of my family.

You see, for a member of family mine, ‘cultivate wierdos’ is simply a more casual way of saying ‘embrace your heritage.’

This is not to say that I don’t honor and love my family – I do. Well, except maybe my grandfather on my mother’s side. But that’s a story for another day. Or never, let’s go with never.

So, I do love and respect my family as much as can anyone whose sixty-year old brother can recite the entire alphabet whilst belching.

You see, we’re not exactly anyone’s idea of high class folk. We don’t always hold our pinkies out when drinking tea. And an invitation to one of our soirees is like as not to consist of a phone call at the last minute asking why you didn’t remind the host to invite you and can you bring chips. And maybe an avocado. Yeah, an avocado would be nice.

But we love each other. Well, except when we’re pissed off enough about something inconsequential to not be speaking to each other. Not that this ever happens. Lately, anyway.

My mother used to spend the better part of two days tying up the Christmas tree so each branch would fall exactly right, then stand guard over our application of ornaments and woe betide the McD child who hung tinsel crookedly or in what Mom called ‘clumps.’ In our family clumpage was a crime and creation of a clumpitudinous tree was an outcome to be avoided at all costs.  Better to fart loudly during midnight mass than to be observed applying tree tinsel without the proper balance and alignment.

I loved my mother but she could be a real nutter about the Christmas tree.

Dad had two hobbies: avoiding yard work and singing songs guaranteed to drive a station wagon full of road tripping McDs to their wits ends. He once sang “George Washington Bridge’ (those three words constituting the lyric in its entirety, by the bye) nonstop from Missoula, Montana to Sheridan, WY. Swear to Gawd, that’s how I remember it. The only thing that stopped him in Sheridan was he needed to sing the Wyoming state song. Yup, the man knew the state song of every single state of the union and he would sing them as we entered and again before we left each sovereign entity.

My dad wore the most god-awful greenish plaid walking shorts atop blindingly white legs with black socks jammed into brown loafers and a white, vee-neck tee shirt capping the ensemble. In public. Around people we knew and would actually have to, you know, see again.

And then there’s my sainted Uncle Bill who used to tell all the assembled cousins the most ridiculous lies about his time in the paratroopers. How he used to be able to raise his hands all the way over his head (demonstrating) but since he was wounded could only raise them halfway (again, demonstrating). We loved Uncle Bill and we loved – and believed - his tall tales. ‘Course, being little snappers we didn’t know at the time that he was going through what we would today call PTSD and that Aunt Alice would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night to find him standing on the bed, reaching overhead to handle the risers as he relived for the nth time that night drop into Normandy.

My other Uncle Bill is the best teller of jokes I’ve ever known. Doesn’t matter ‘tall that his repertoire is a bit moldy. Hell, his laugh alone will split your gut. His wife, my Aunt Bobbie used to torture me singing the polka-dot bikini song or the Purple People Eater while all I wanted to do was get my cereal eaten and escape her vocal ministrations. Which prompted her to sing more loudly.

Cousin Joanne loves the way her husband Butch tells funny stories. So much so that after prodding and cajoling and pouting until he finally gives in and starts one, she jumps in and finishes it for him. I don’t believe the man has ever told the punchline of any story solo.

My Uncle Johnny was a wheeler dealer his whole life and toward the end of it drove his second wife (his former high school sweetheart) to distraction after he took a retirement job running a storage outfit, one of those places where you can rent lockable space to keep the stuff you don’t want around but can’t bear to get rid of. Now, most operators of storage outfits really like to get paid every month. Not Johnny. Johnny lived for walk-aways. A hundred and twenty days plus a midnight after the last payment, he would gleefully wield his bolt cutters to find out what true treasures his former tenants had abandoned to his loving care.

Of course, Mrs. Uncle Johnny wasn’t all that thrilled when he brought home all this stuff that total strangers hadn’t bothered to take with them. But Johnny could see the value in Oswald’s broken bowling trophy. Didn’t matter one whit that he had not the vaguest idea who Oswald might be. And I liked that about him.

Well, it’s getting late and I’ve told enough of my family stories.

If there’s a moral, I suppose it’s this: I don’t need to cultivate wierdos – I was raised by them.