Tag Archives: family

Soundbites From My Father

17 Nov

November 17, 2018

With the Holiday Season™ upon us, I’d like to share a pair of quick tales of my father, whose wisdom never fails to guide me. It may occasionally guide me into a snowbank like a bad GPS, but it guides me nonetheless.

CHARITY DURING THE HOLIDAYS

During this time of year, with Thanksgiving upon us and Christmas around the corner, many of us are in a giving mood and want to help the less fortunate. My Dad felt no less charitable himself, and he often enlisted my brother and I to deliver food to needy families as part of his lodge’s outreach. We carried many, many boxes and bags of canned goods, meat and vegetables, and all kinds of staples to up and down stairs to needy families who truly appreciated our efforts. It was touching.

One day, after one of these deliveries, my father and I were approached by a homeless man asking for change. My father refused. You’d think that after doing a day of charity work and seeing the needy up close, Dad would have been a little more forthcoming. I asked him why not and he said to me “Son, never give money to someone who is wearing better sneakers than you are.”

FAMILY GATHERINGS

Holidays are a time for sharing the love of friends and family. One year my father took my brother and I out to dinner. My brother, bless his heart, asked who was paying. Dad said the meal was on him. We went out and enjoyed dinner and at the end of the night, I turned to my brother and said that we should leave the tip. “No,” my brother replied. This is a free meal. I’m not leaving the tip. “Free is free.” While my brother was the one who coined the phrase, It was Dad who turned it into a family mantra.

There you have it. Holiday wisdom, from Mr. Blog’s family to yours.

 

 

 

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Mom Loves Netflix

30 Jan

January 30, 2018

I was spending a nice evening at home with my mother, I wrote, knowing that she may read this. It was a Saturday night but hey- do I have anything better to do? No I do not.

We were watching TV. More accurately, we were not watching TV. It was on but I was at the computer where I may have been one of the last humans on the planet to finally see an episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. It stars some Jerry Seinfeld fella you may have heard of. Mom was reading the newspaper.

Reading the daily newspaper is a lost art, one that frankly deserves to be lost. Think about it. The paper gets printed in the morning, full of stories written about news the night before. It gets bought in the late morning then sits around until afternoon or evening. By the time you read about a bank robbery, the crooks have already been caught and are planning their escape. Many is the time, and this is true, I’ve said to Mom “wow that was some horrible tragedy yesterday” and she’d say “yeah, the Mets lost again.” Meanwhile I was talking about the latest natural disaster in which 287 Sumatrans died when their village was flattened by a hurricane.

But the plight of the poor Sumatrans is not what we’re talking about here. (Honestly, I say if you can’t stand the heat, get out of Sumatra.) It is the sorry state of television. There was nothing worth watching on TV that night, unless you want to see the 697th rerun of The Big Bang Theory where Walowitz gets shot into space, or an episode of Redneck House Flippers Live!

I asked Mom if maybe there was something she wanted to see on Netflix. She said that Netflix has all those good TV shows she’s been dying to see. How long has she been dying to see them? For about eight years, which is also about how long she has had Netflix. (In case you haven’t figured it out yet, she has no idea how to access Netflix. “What time is the Netflix on? Does it come on after Judge Judy?”)

Well this was her big chance because I actually know which button to press to get Netflix. HINT: It is the same button you press to get everything else. So, Mom, what should we sit down and watch?

“I want to see Orange is the New Black.”

 I was thinking more in the line of the new Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Me to Mom: “You want us to watch a show about women getting beat up and sexually assaulted in prison?”
Mom: “I heard it was good.”

So I did what any good son would do. I watched another episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (guest: Joel Hodgeson) while Mom watched Walowitz getting shot into space.

 

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