DAMN IT, JOYCE

My Mamma, who will be 73 this summer, is five feet of fireball. She is a quasi-retired algebra teacher who still subs at a local high school. My Mamma don't take no crap off of any young punk and "politically correct" is not in her vocabulary. And you had best answer her with a yes or no ma'am. Whenever I happen to run into one of her ex-students and they realize my mother was THAT math teacher, I see a gamut of emotions fleet across their faces. Usually, the grimace of horror is quickly replaced with a polite, "I didn't know she was your mother!" Ahh, yes. "Hmmm, did you know she was the only teacher that ever flunked me?" I usually just nod in sympathy.

In the summer of '72, Dad (who worked for a local defense contractor) got a temporary job assignment in Las Vegas for a couple of months. I was fresh out of high school, had a summer job and was in love. Mom half-heartedly tried to get me to go with her and my younger brother to Vegas to spend a month with my dad. Of course, if I stayed, the family pets were taken care of and the house was not subject to be burglarized. So, she did a very weak sales pitch. I was estatic with the thought of a whole month in the house alone, a big adult now at 18. So, off they went to Sin City. Upon their return, Mamma tried to convince me of all the fun I missed. "Why, we even saw a big rock star perform!", she brags. "Oh, ( my interest sparked) and who was it? Was it James Taylor?" Nope. "Was it Neil Diamond?" Again, a shake of the head. "How about Peter Frampton?" Shrugging her shoulder, she tells me to ask my brother, he will remember. I go into my brother's room. "Okay, what 'rock star' did you get to see?" I ask, plopping down on his bed. He gets a confused look, then the trademark upbrow crooks up ( my dad, my brother and I all have this great facial quirk) and he gets a smirk on his face and cockily shakes his head, " You will be so jealous... we saw Rootin', Tootin' WAYNE NEWTON!" Together, we fall onto the floor roaring with laughter. "Oh, THAT big rock star," I say loudily so mamma in the kitchen can hear. She says a few chosen words our way to let us know we aren't too old for a whupping.


Now, Joyce is an equal opportunity believer. She believes in God, UFO's, ghosts, ESP, deja vu, and anything astrological. Before any game of chance is played, be it bingo or the lotto, the daily horoscope must be consulted for lucky days and numbers. Once, when my folks had moved a little further west of Cowtown, Dad pulled a really good joke on her. Just off the interstate near their house is a local small airstrip. Atop a particularly tall radio tower is a bright blinking light. One night while coming back from dinner and probably a few glasses of wine, my mom sees this blinking light for the first time. It is still in the distance when it catches her eye. She leans foward, closer to the windshield to get a better look. Shakily she asks my dad if he sees it too? Ever the jokester, he says in all seriousness, "Yes, and it doesn't look like anything manmade!" Since he worked in the aerospace industry, my mom was sure he was an expert in all things that fly. "It must be a UFO!" Dad really had her going for a while, and in the retelling of the story, he would have tears rolling down his face from laughter. Anytime Mamma would come up with some farfetched, hairbrained story or idea, my dad would always respond in his custom fall-back retort, "DAMN IT, JOYCE!" and sometimes prefaced with a little blasphemy for extra good measure. And, his eyebrow would do the little twist upward to emphasis it. "Damn it" became her first name whenever any of the family wanted to gig her, mimicking my father's voice.

Remind me later to tell you the family story about homemade wine and beer. It will blow your socks off, literally.