It Only Hurts When I Laugh

By Doug Opalski

Remove your shoes and wade in for fun and nostalgia. Do you like sports, boilermakers, champagne, and cruising? It’s a smorgasbord. Enjoy random, quirky flashbacks. Plunge in for pleasant episodes. Drift from radio to iPad. Take what you like and leave the rest.

Fun and a few tears are stirred and served.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781662409875

Book preview

1

Pat Mitchell’s Funeral and Other Shenanigans

Aunt Annie told a tale of Pat Mitchell, who passed away in the family hamlet of Croagh Hill, County Galway, Ireland. A turf digger opened a shallow grave. Relatives carried Pat to his ancestral plot on a cold, wet, windy day. Despite maneuvering, Pat refused to be coaxed in the hole. This expressed his mighty avoidance of the eternal horizontal. An outside debate would result in mass pneumonia but welcome company for Pat. Mourners scurried uphill to Morgan’s Pub for fortification and to mull Pat’s predicament. Get a proper hole dug. Hire an experienced gravedigger. Who in their right mind would shovel in lashing rain? The expedient retreat left Pat clinging to purgatory, between heaven and hell. Hmmm! After gulping more Guinness because it’s good for you, a Yank, who’ll remain anonymous, suggested that Pat be planted upright. He was a stand-up guy. A costly tombstone would be avoided, and Pat would look great on All Hallows. A semi-sober neighbor said, Don’t be daft! Bring Pat in, for Jesus’s sake. He should hear his fate debated. But the pub was uphill from the plot, and pallbearers had terrible thirst and unsure footing. Lubricated mourners would surely stumble. And it would be unseemly for a deceased, nonpaying pioneer (a nonalcoholic) to mingle among lively, thirsty Yanks, unprepared for an Irish wake. Pat’s presence might dampen business. Then Annie’s longsuffering arthritis was cured altogether by pub blarney and blather. Her recovery matched those at Fatima, Knock, and Lourdes! She said, Surely Pat stinketh, like Lazarus resurrected. Glory be to God, and bless you, Pat! All raised a pint to himself at life’s back door. May ye be in heaven a half hour afore the devil knows ye’re dead. Annie concluded that her neighbor had the last laugh at his own burial. Knocking was heard coming from inside the casket. His recorded voice implored, Help! Help! Let me out! Is that my priest I hear? Throw down a blessing and a pint. Laughter replaced lament.

2

The Old Sod

My wife, Helene, and I made our way to New Caledonia Hall for Saturday night jigs and reels, Miltown Malbay, County Clare. Uncle Marcus, eighty-seven years young, led an impromptu band with his sheepskin bodhran (tambourine) played with a sheep bone. He started a deep rhythmic beat that drew musicians and propelled a packed hall to their feet before fiddler, piper, and harpist struck a note. Marcus was the village pied piper and step-dancing champion of all Ireland. Guinness poured out of the heavens. Pints bounced atop tables. Brews sloshed like irreverent blessing. Rain pattered through holes in the tin roof. The floor was warped from years of beer, rain, and reels. Generations had worn the boards into a trampoline. Helene was familiar with the rhythm and steps. It was in her DNA. I responded as if to a Budapest cimbalom, Silesian dulcimer, Viking Skald, Macedonian bouzouki, and Florentine mandolin blended into ancestral mayhem. Feeble attempts at folkdance had me roundly adopted semi-Irish. Drinking and dancing went on for hours. The hall emptied into mist as the eleventh hour struck and broke the Cinderella spell. Otherwise, the constabulary would confiscate the liquor license and dampen the party. The proprietor found me lubricated in the men’s room and led me half-zipped outside by an elbow. Apologizing, he tossed a case of Guinness in my general direction with a farewell: "Slainte (health). We took the case to Delia Shanahan’s thatched cottage up the lane, where the ocean could be heard crashing on cliffs. A dozen revelers squeezed into her three-room cottage and settled around glowing embers. Turf aroma mixed with hot scones, fresh soda bread, tea, and jam. The cover charge was a song, story, or limerick. Delia held court and called on Martin, her eldest son and tenor, to sing in Irish. It was heartfelt. Then Bernie, Martin’s youngest sister, gave out with a storied lament, stirring and complex in ancient western Ulster style. Lilting lyrics displaced arthritis and warmed neighbors who doubled as audience. All paid dues, including my feeble attempt of the Yale drinking song: We’re poor little sheep who have lost our way. Bah! Bah! Bah!" Out of stunned silence, I was politely accepted.

Mr. Shanahan fished a small key from his vest, unlocked the cupboard, carefully extracted and uncorked a medicine bottle containing poteen (moonshine) as if it were nitroglycerin or consecrated altar wine. He blessed each glass with his version of communion. A vaporous spirit was released, distorted vision, and drifted in waves out windows. The village drunk picked up the blessed scent, stumbled in with momentum that propelled him through the cottage. He crashed nose down in Delia’s garden and snored softly in clover. We celebrated until dawn and made our way under a damp dusting, as Uncle Mike would call it. The Cliffs of Moher emerged through sea mist and across the bay, promising a day or more for recovery.

We returned to Croagh Hill and the family farm. Uncle Mattie, the eldest son, inherited and worked sixty acres of subsistence crops. He had a sheepdog answering to Sailor, a loyal donkey named Ned, numerous anonymous chickens, pigs, and geese. It was autumn harvest. Time to pile silage for winter larder. We pitched heaps in hot sun for a week. Hay steamed and reeked. Our young sons, Mark and Mike, rode Ned and chased chickens.

It was a task to pedal Mattie’s rusty bike with my Mike clinging on the rear fender to Morgan’s Pub for Lucozade (soda), cool Guinness, crop and livestock prices, some songs, village news, and blarney. The pub was the Irish equivalent of CNN, social club, town hall, and oasis. Returning, Mike balanced on the rear. His left foot slipped into spinning spokes and sounded like a play card flapping in the wheel. His heel was sheared to the Achilles tendon. He sat in silent shock. I wrapped his foot in my shirt, cradled him, and ran back to the farm.

Helene treated Mike as best she could. A makeshift ambulance arrived an hour later. It was a van filled with weekly wounded. We were driven to a distant clinic and solicitous doctor. Her brother was the Irish prime minister. She cleaned, dressed Mike’s heel, and prescribed sea soaks. Saltwater would draw out infection. Had we been home, antibiotics, surgery, skin grafts, pills, and medical bills would have piled high. Irish triage was more than sufficient. Helene, Uncle Marcus, and I carted Mike around Dingle Peninsula, County Kerry, and up to Dublin.

I asked a farmer the distance to the next village. He smiled and said ten miles but only five if I ran. Celtic humor could only take us so far. Mike began to heal.

Marcus appeared on Irish TV and was regularly heard on radio, in local pubs, roadhouses, and B&Bs (bed-and-breakfasts). Yet he never left County Clare until we chauffeured him out. His presence led to warm receptions and free drinks wherever we landed. Meanwhile, Mark spent time in Dublin with Aunt Annie, her three sons, Sean, Mort, Morgan, and two lovely daughters, Aishling and Caitriona.

3

A Proper Cup of Tea

Annie O’Kelly brewed a proper cup of tea. Water boiled until kitchen windows fogged. Annie methodically stirred and strained a viscous, rusty brew. Thin porcelain cups were filled with scalding water and made hot to hold tea steeped from leaves in an ancestral kettle. A cozy covered the kettle. Tea was served with soda bread, butter, jam, knife, spoon, plate, and napkin. Proper tea has everything to do with ritual, comfort, reflection, and banter. The leprechaun from Star Wars, Yoda, would say, Brew or brew not. There is steep only. It’s an Irish custom that’s long and loving. This allowed Annie time to release memories and spin gossamer tales with aroma and flavoring. She enriched the tea by slowing life, even reversing time. Her brew was quirky imposition on Yanks. Whereas Moses Hebrews it.

Our return flight quickly approached. I enjoyed Annie but aged impatiently as tea marinated, and Annie spun a constant stream of family fables. A master storyteller, she stood and wove imagination as if turning wool into yarn, yarn into shawls, and shawls over her dazed audience. She was captivated by her own gift of gab, while lavishing hospitality on us with woven words of comfort. We were delayed further with an Irish breakfast. A slab of bacon melted in Annie’s hand and slowly stretched toward the floor. The wall clock ticked faster, louder. Auntie, we’ll miss our plane! She stood tongue in cheek with feigned perplexity. We couldn’t take much more of her compulsive kindness and camouflaged amusement that slipped into torture. We excused ourselves with a dash of courtesy, piled into a rental, and sped toward the airport.

A lorry blocked us in Galway City. We maneuvered around buses and bustling students. We were about to miss our flight but broke through to a county lane. An elderly gentleman emerged through mist at a crossroad. He wore a rumpled suit, stained vest, worn cap, and tieless. Rubber bands kept a pant cuff out of a bike sprocket. He calmly straddled his rusty bike to relight his pipe in front of a directional sign in Irish. I slammed on brakes and skidded within inches of him, praying to avoid a hit-and-run for some directions.

Which way to Shannon?

Unruffled, he carefully considered the question between long, measured tobacco drags, inhaled, exhaled pungent puffs while squinting, lighting, relighting, and extinguishing a pack of damp matches. He must like tea too. Scratching his head with pipe stem, he began to point to the right fork. I floored the rental, spewed exhaust, and sent road chips flying. In the rear mirror, his shrinking figure faded in a cloud of exhaust. He shook his head with lips forming a word: Yanks.

We caught some road signs with a plane emblem that aimed at the airport. We sped, screeched, and lurched in front of the terminal. Helene grabbed the boys and scurried toward the ticket counter. I tossed luggage on the tarmac and abandoned the running rental, which may still be idling there. A colleen greeted Helene with warm smile: You must be the last of the Yanks. That sounded charmingly ominous. She radioed the Aer Lingus pilot, who had taxied toward liftoff. The pilot returned to the terminal. Unbelievable! This must be standard operating procedure. We boarded, relieved but disheveled in a lather and pool of sweat. Rousing applause erupted from Irish Americans who barely escaped relatives. Embarrassed, apologetic, and forcing return smiles, we collapsed as if heaven left its boarding door ajar. The plane was packed. We squeezed in second-class salvation, spent.

Once home we called Annie with, We nearly missed our flight.

Nonplussed, she replied, But surely you didn’t. Annie is completely incorrigible and puckish. She’s unapologetically Irish, as if already in heaven or expected there at her leisure. Many of us clamor at the Golden Gate.

W. C. Fields said he went to Philadelphia, but it was closed.

4

Gift of an Angel

Mattie Stepanek died at age eleven from muscular dystrophy, two years after Oprah Winfrey interviewed him. He said, I’ve so many close calls to dying and I’ve come through all of them. I’ve figured I have a purpose and I have to carry out that purpose. When asked for advice, he said, Remember to play after every storm. A champion does not mean you have to come home with a big golden trophy. A champion is the strength you have inside you. Was he afraid of dying? Mattie said, Heaven’s wonderful. I’ve been there.

Dying in his mother’s arms, Mattie asked, Have I done enough?

She answered, You are everything God created people to be, you are everything God created you to be, you’ve done everything you came here for, and I’ll be okay. And it’s okay to rest. I love you.

Faith leads to courage. A courageous child shares hope. When we receive hope, we grow an angel’s wing. Bonded in love, we fly.

5

Sons and Daughters

Peace occurred during eight percent (8.4%) of recorded history. That’s just 274 peaceful years since the Battle of Kadesh, 1,274 years BC. According to worldometers.info, there were 40.8 million people on earth, equal to Californians spread thin. Our specie is very good at division, subtraction, addition and multiplication. Sam Clemens said, Familiarity breeds contempt—and children.

The Population Reference Bureau (www.prb.org) estimates that humans are seven percent (6.9%) of all ever born. Since Adam and Eve emerged fifty thousand years ago or so, one hundred and eight billion (108,000,000,000+) of us arrived then promptly exited as a result of predators, natural disasters, accidents, fear, infection, genocide, suicide, murder, war, drugs, alcohol, smoking, obesity, etc. Many pick their poison. Old age finally claims us. Sons and daughters endure as a result of faith, hope, charity, and bonding. We cling to each other like politicians cling to taxes. We emerged through a muddled struggle, more or less as follows:

I was born in 1942 to join 134.5 million Americans. By 2019, the United States nearly tripled to 329.3 million. Then baby boomers arrived at an average rate of one every twenty seconds. (WWII veterans made up for lost time.) We need peace and space on earth. Or we could escape on the starship Enterprise speeding 6.4 times the speed of light for one hundred years to Proxima Centauri B, at a distant star. Someday we might time travel through wormholes like aliens. Are we sons and daughters of aliens? Are biblical researchers unsuccessful novelists?

The CIA World Fact Book reports that earth totaled 7.7 billion people in 2019, despite devastating wars, disasters, contraceptives, and pandemics. Natural increase resulted in an average of 78.5 million a year since 2000. A net daily gain today equals the world population in 785 BC, before the first recorded solar eclipse. Life is sexually transmitted. Women deliver the future. Men have a past; some become historians. Couples breed in the present.

Adam and Eve

Wikepedia.com notes that Earth was formed 4.54 billion years ago (BYA). It’s estimated that a day lasted 21.9 hours, 620 million years ago (MYA). Random space objects plowed into Earth leaving craters. A planetoid the size of Mars struck and scoured Earth, flinging debris into space. Debris coalesced to form our fledgling moon out of sand, lime, and aluminum. The moon shines and widens its Earth orbit, slowing our rotation, lengthening a day by two hours while providing an orbiting temporary shield from meteors and asteroids. Daughter moon circles mother Earth every twenty-seven (27) days at an average distance of 239,000 miles, or thirty times our diameter. She drifts 1.6 inches farther away from us each year. She appears half her initial size but still pulls ocean tides. Polar icecaps melt and swell seas. Calving glaciers, shifting water weight, continental drift, lava flows, and nuclear blasts wobble our world. It’s a carnival ride.

Politicians and arms producers warn of terrorists, foreign invasion, and alien attacks. Some insist preemptive strikes. Meanwhile, priests and prophets steer us toward peace. How did all this start?

Paleontologists date early humanoid bones, named Ardi and Lucy, to 4.4 and 3.2 MYA, respectively. Tools discovered in Ethiopia date to 2.5 MYA. Controlled fire is traced to Israel, 1 MYA. Human skeletons in Ethiopia indicate that bipedals gathered food and migrated as opposed to knuckle walking around a marsh for fallen fruit. Archeologists unearth human skeletons in the Awash Valley, Ethiopia. The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers drain neighboring Mesopotamia (Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Kuwait, i.e., the rocky cradle of civilization). Mortuary rituals were held there 276,000 years ago (YA). Flint spears were uncovered in South Africa and carbon date to 64,000 YA. Hunting and gathering gave way to plowing, planting, surplus food, and trade. Life settled like fallen fruit during the agricultural revolution, 10,000 YA, at Zagros Mountains, Iran.

If earth history were condensed into a single day, humanoids emerged one minute and sixteen seconds before midnight. But some biblical scholars date Adam and Eve to 5,500–4,000 B.C. They put our creation at one thousandth of a second before midnight. Scientists and biblical scholars have different perspectives based on different evidence and beliefs. They may get on the same page someday. We’re evolving toward understanding and civility at a glacial pace of two steps forward for every step backward. Life is a foxtrot.

How could Genesis be passed accurately by word of mouth then reduced to a credible record? Creation stories emerged over 1,250 years before clear communication and accurate reporting. It’s hard enough for three people to understand one another over dinner. I can’t remember who broke bread with me last week. Did God speak to Moses over matzo? Was the Lord understood? Were Moses and prophets hallucinating after fermented fruit and beer in a hot desert? Moses wandered for forty years between age eighty and one hundred and twenty. Did he suffer from sunstroke, dementia, deafness, or all three? He was lost without a compass. Genesis compresses creation into seven days. Is the Bible history, legend, allegory, or revelation?

One and a half millennium or more years after the Eden apple incident, Sumerians wrote cuneiform, 3,500 BC. Egyptian hieroglyphics appeared 3,100 BC. The Chinese invented block printing in 868 BC. Guttenberg printed Bibles in 1,445 AD. The Dead Sea scrolls are not fully found, partially pieced and teasing. Bible scholars and scientists may reconcile yet. What year did Jesus think it was, BC or AD? I need faith like doubting Thomas. The second coming of Christ would help.

Adam and Eve appeared as our first parents and happy breeders in a Garden called Eden, south of Babylon. It’s a floodplain in Mesopotamia. Mushrooms, prickly pears, pomegranates, grapes, figs, and citron grow there, not Macintosh apples. Levantine vipers coil around trees in pink, red, yellow, and brown skins. Adam and Eve must have plucked forbidden fruit carefully from the tree of knowledge that God declared off limits. For disobedience, our first parents were banished east of Eden to the land of Nod, now known as Oman, Saudi Arabia. The Bible also claims that swords of fire drove Adam and Eve from their soggy bottom to hot and sandy Oman. It was not Disney World. They did not need tickets.

Volcanologists date the Mount Toba eruption in Sumatra, Indonesia, to 74,000 YA. This is approximately 69,250 years prior to creation in Genesis. Toba was the most catastrophic volcano over the past twenty-five million years. It spewed an estimated six thousand million tons of sulfur dioxide and 190 cubic miles of hot ash worldwide. That’s equivalent to nineteen million (19,000,000) Empire State buildings vaporized into clouds of debris that enveloped earth. Solar warmth was blocked. Temperatures dropped. An Ice Age ensued and cooled our tiny planet. Toba was one hundred (100) times greater than the 1815 Tambora volcano in Indonesia that caused 1816 to be a year without a summer.

Toba caused ocean levels to sink 350 feet. Earth turned into an ice ball. Water froze, exposing continental shelves and linking land mass. Toba fallout descended on Eden as heaven sent swords of fire. Toxic ash rained down, destroying vegetation and food worldwide. Earth fell fallow. Most life was smothered. This caused a human bottleneck. Our progenitors were reduced to an estimated five hundred (500) breeding pairs desperately searching for food, water, and warmth. They were driven from Africa thousands of years before biblical scholars date expulsion from Eden. Neanderthals raped and ate escapees except entertaining clowns that tasted funny.

According to Genesis 9:7, God directed Adam and Eve to be ye fruitful and multiply, bring forth abundantly in the earth and multiply therein…and go upon the earth, and fill it. All right! The Bible reports that Adam lived 930 years (without Viagra) and sired Cain, Abel, and Seth. Were Adam and Eve incestuous? Did Eve have sex with her kids? Was sex better with her children than randy Adam or a Neanderthal? Did Eve conceive and deliver fifty-eight babies? That would be fruitful and abundant. Pregnant women are true body builders. The self-evident truth is that sex is more fun than logic but can’t be proven.

Eve lacked a father-in-law. Lucky Adam had no mother-in-law. They were reduced to wearing plants. Descendants like Lamech became bigamists. Rapists and kleptomaniacs started to take things. Evolution is chaotic, scrambled, and obscure. But some of our biblical origin seems possible.

Abel’s lamb sacrifice was pleasing to sister Aclima, whereas brother Cain’s prickly pears were repulsive. Cain lusted over beautiful Aclima. Shepherd Abel and Aclima bred like rabbits. Randy Cain was left with his less attractive sister Awan. Jealousy and anger drove horny Caine to murder brother Abel in the first reported case of fratricide. Dogs and cats lack sexual restraint too. God had to chop killer Cain, whose banished tribe of Cainites became nomads like feral animals on the prowl.

Early families were fertile, and some were sordid also. The Torah, Quran, and Bible agree on that. It’s material for a paperback novel or provocative movie. Brevity is the soul of lingerie.

What Adam and Eve set in motion became squalid practice. Incest is a crime covered over by family shame. Playing doctor and nurse invites sexual abuse. Curiosity, flirting, kissing, physical exploration, rape, and incest follow. Some older brothers sexually abuse sisters who prey on siblings. Few sexual victims topple the family apple cart where bananas inject into the tale. Loose blueberries become red strawberries. Mushrooms are used as small umbrellas, while walnuts wobble around like loose brains. And broccoli looks like a tree.

A boss asked a young employee what would happen if he had three apples and he took one. How many would the boss have left? The worker said that if his boss tried to steal any of his apples, he’d still have three. He protected his apples like forbidden fruit and stolen produce. Strikes, riots, rebellions, coups, and civil wars followed bad faith bargaining. Some gathered, negotiated, traded, or bought apples. Eve left the biblical orchard in order to visit the Big Apple. Others took a Macintosh or two or three from a forbidden tree.

Adam and Eve had an apple as the first Macintosh computer, with one byte, limited memory, but a good warranty.

Origins

Some call Cain a role model and Judas a true disciple. Others are proud to regard Abel a soul mate and privileged to have Jesus as savior. We’re mixed and muddled. The Tower of Babel produced incoherent chatter. Human history was scrambled and reconstructed through centuries of sign language. History is handy. Our origin was lost in translation, during natural disasters, wars, and migrations. Our roots are tangled, misconstrued, and reconfigured.

One of Noah’s three sons, Shem, is said to seed both the Jewish and Arab nations. These nations remain squabbling siblings. The misbegotten became mortal combatants, except for Jesus and a few others. Some say nobility started with Iranian tribes known as Samaritans.

Peasantry is traced to Ham, another of Noah’s sons, whereas son Japheth’s seed yielded Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and other warlords brandishing weapons, claiming and defending turf. Land grabs displayed the spoils of victory. Warlords shared pieces of the action with their supporting cast. Land became a sign of nobility more than God-given gifts to share. Nobles managed estates, cultivated farms, raised livestock, bred warhorses, and had sex with captives. Peasants and slaves filled plantations. Nobles barely accepted their own kin. Republicans and Democrats continue to squabble as descendants of Ham and Japheth.

A mortgaged home is an occupant’s castle, but the bank owns it. At least there are churches that provide sanctuary. American immigrants seek freedom, peace, plenty, and a new life from the ravages of war, genocide, and enslavement. Escapees to America find some stability when they make it over, under, through, or around immigration walls.

A red blood cell was asked if it would like to sit at the bar. It said, No, I’ll just circulate.

DNA

We emerge from DNA strands of T, A, G, and C. The color of our skin, eyes, hair, body shape, and brain ability changes when A, C, T, and G are scrambled. Some of us become astronauts, others become president or voters with C, A, T, and G. We perpetuate with mixed genes through time. DNA spelled backward is AND, as if we’ll return after passing.

Wikipedia.com identifies 1,600 nobles throughout the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, AD 1569. Nobles defended turf. The Polish province of Silesia fought 222 battles protecting fertile plains against Lovania Brothers of the Sword, the Golden Horde, Teutonic Knights, Transylvanians, Tartars, Turks, Fins, Mongols, Ottomans, Romanians, Prussians, Pomeranians, Czechs, Danes, Swedes, Saxons, Slovakians, Ukrainians, Bohemians, Bulgarians, Austrians, Czechoslovakians, Cossacks, Croatians, and Nazis. During an early war with Muscovy, the Opawa clan morphed into Opala then Opalski among 386 families around their embattled commonwealth. They bore the Orla (eagle) Coat of Arms against Russians and others.

Heraldry

My family emerged among eastern Slavic tribes known as Polans. They settled in the Silesian and Opolskie provinces of southwestern Poland, especially the Opoli part of Silesia under the medieval Orla Coat of Arms.

Orla heraldry comes from the Saszowski von Saszow family, with roots in Upper Hungary during the high Middle Ages. The Saszow family traces nobility to the Roman Empire. They arrived as warriors with branch scions in Poland to establish the Duchy of Silesia during the fourteenth century. This occurred under the Jagiellonian dynasty, AD 1386–1572. Five Polish families initially carried Orla armor, i.e., the Houses of Opala, Barski, Ligocki, Kolbowski, and Jor Ogniewski. They owned and defended land and pledged loyalty to the king and fledgling nation.

We learn to walk on two legs, embrace with two arms, understand with sound and sight, tongue and touch, and come to understand and love with heart and soul. Others duke it out.

Friends are God’s apology for distant relatives. Earth is full of bipolar inhabitants. We have protons, electrons, neutrons, and morons. Democracy is mob rule with taxes. A warm smile and extended hand shares bread and wine in peace. Life can be abundant with friends, family, and foreigners. It’s more than linear or a wonderful web. All is well that ends well. If not, it’s not the end.

6

Gypsies in a Village

Neanderthals raped and ate distant relatives escaping from Africa after the Toba eruption and fallout. They preyed as cannibals, rapists, and nymphomaniacs on escapees and had a hand or more in forming our specie. Homo sapiens have from one to four or more percent (1–4+%) of Neanderthal DNA. Lust is embedded like chocolate icing between layers of ethnic cakes. Fear and kitchen aromas reveal our roots. Time wounds all heels.

Eric Blood Axe and other Vikings thrust themselves into my ancestors and account for a quarter (25%) of my family DNA. Greeks from Macedonia, perhaps Alexander the Great, injected seven percent (7%). I like to believe that Renaissance artists like Michelangelo from Tuscany account for another three percent (3%). We may share two percent (2%) with Finnish composer Sibelius and Serbian film director Bogdanovich. This sums to thirty-eight percent (38%). Combined with ten percent (10%) from Hungary, most likely from Attila the Hun, a tumultuous amalgam of forty-eight percent (48%) seeps out. Chopin, Copernicus, and Kosciuszko from Poland balance and stabilize my family DNA with the remaining fifty-two percent (52%).

I’m a Pisces, born February 27, ruled by the sea god Neptune. I’m expected to exhibit love of water, adaptability, compassion, charity, determination, forgiveness, harmony, imagination, intuition, sensibility, solitude, self-sacrifice, strength, spirituality, subtlety, unpredictability, an art inclination, and a disregard for rules. These traits were assumed two thousand years ago in Babylon. It’s a load to keep afloat. I do like water, married a lovely Aquarian, and don’t like rules. As a Pisces, I’m expected to swim like Pacific salmon upstream in a school with John Steinbeck, Lawrence Durrell, Tony Gonzalez, Marian Anderson, Elizabeth Taylor, David Sarnoff, Ralph Nader, and Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black. Bizarre but good company!

Some from my hometown, Trenton, New Jersey, are notable, i.e., Molly Pitcher, revolutionary war heroine; Storm ’n Norman Schwarzkopt, commanding general during the Gulf War; Supreme Court Justices Scalia and Alito; bizarre basketball star Dennis Rodman; and Ernie Kovacs, imaginative TV comedian, wacky movie actor, and former neighbor.

I was born on a snowy Friday. Mom birthed me at Mercer Hospital, which took its name from a Virginia apothecary owner and continental colonel who fought British invaders at nearby Princeton. An ancient oak marks the spot where Mercer died from five bayonet wounds. The Brits were irked, like the obstetrician who rudely delivered me with forceps.

Another Pisces, General Douglas MacArthur, was my namesake. He couldn’t defend Corregidor but vowed to liberate the Philippines, saying, I shall return. Douglas is Scottish and translates to dark stream. Mom’s family name, Szabo, is Hungarian and means tailor. Opalski (originally Opawa, then Opala) is Polish for tanner. It also refers to a hamlet once part of Silesia, Poland, now within Austrian borders. All this confirms a healthy dose of Gypsy blood.

Dad joined the Navy during WWII. Mom kept our dairy business going. Grandparents Mary and Joe raised me. I spent a lot of time with Joe, who limped from a crushed leg. His disability was inflicted at the Roebling steel mill. There was no Office of Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to compensate Joe or any of eight thousand (8,000) immigrant steelworkers from Eastern Europe who toiled at blast furnaces, extruding hot metal into steel cable. Anything was better than foreign war. Oscar Wilde said, Work is the curse of the drinking class.

Johan August Roebling was a metallurgist who forged iron and carbon into steel rope. Joe and his clan fashioned cables that suspended bridges, including the Brooklyn Bridge in NYC, Niagara Falls Bridge linking America and Canada, the Cincinnati-Covington Bridge over the Ohio, the Allegheny Bridge, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, etc. These bridges are durable, elegant art, uniting people and allowing trade. They’re links and monuments to foreigners who built America with courage, strength, and skill.

My South Trenton neighborhood, or Burg, provides Janet Evanovich with a locale for her mystery stories. She describes the Burg as close-knit and blue collar. It runs on gossip, Catholic guilt, and pot roast. The Burg has a crime rate twice that of America and plenty of colorful characters, like Sam the Plumber. He ran a crime operation behind a plumbing store facade. Need a leak plugged? Johnny Bow Wow delivered bread and lead. We got along.

The Burg

Massive waves of European immigrants washed ashore along the mid-Atlantic, including New Jersey. They escaped invasion, war, and conscription. Many found work at the Roebling foundry. They had youth and drive to pursue a better life. They formed ethnic enclaves and built churches with Poles on Home Avenue, filling pews at St. Stanislaus and Holy Cross Church; Hungarians on Adeline and Beatty St. surrounding St. Stephen and the Reformed Church; Greeks praying at St. Mary Orthodox and St. Vladimir on Grand St.; Italians congregating at St. Joachim, Immaculate Conception, and Our Lady of the Angels around Chestnut Avenue; St. Mary Byzantine serving Greeks; Ukrainians on Adeline filling St. Josaphat Orthodox Church; and St. Basil saving Romanians. Faith was an antidote for war and want. Priests coveted their parishioners like shepherds herding sheep. They spewed guilt-laced sermons and passed collection baskets from pulpits. You had to pay to pray in the Burg.

Church bells clanged and clattered in a Sunday cacophony, waking all for mass and donations. With native tongue ethnic tribes dressed in Sunday best and paraded as families to pastors who promised peace now and salvation later. Just make weekly down payments. Bingo attracted women who exchanged gossip and recipes while gambling in church basements. Saturday night socials provided folk music, mayhem, marriages, and growing congregations. Parishioners were forged into friendly, protective neighbors, or else.

City water was tainted with bacteria and avoided. The Burg adapted with more bars per capita than the state and nation. It was boilermakers (a shot of whiskey dropped in beer) on weekdays followed by a chaser of consecrated altar wine on Sunday. The wine was for redemption. Beer cooled steel men and doused pain for fun and frolic. Immigrants clustered in churches to bond and fend off politicians. They were pioneers who circled church wagons to repel city Indians.

On April 14, 1851, the Burg was annexed and taxed by Trenton Mayor, William Napton. He expected tax tribute before you were allowed to play at City Hall. The mayor’s grave is nowhere to be found in the city’s twenty-nine cemeteries. Who whacked Napton?

Adam and Bertha

Granddad Adam Opalski escaped Russian-occupied Poland. At age eleven he was hidden in wheat fields from Cossack cavalry, who combed Polish plains for kids to fill the first wave pushed out of trenches toward German guns and bayonets. Kids like Adam were cannon fodder charging under a rolling cannon barrage. Instead Adam escaped on a Bremen ship to America.

Adam’s wife, Bertha, escaped German-occupied western Poland as a child. The Kuzniaski family adopted her in America. She was clever and a generous survivor who gave each of her grandchildren a dollar from a change purse carefully snapped open at Easter and Christmas. Bertha had a grandmother’s heart and an entrepreneur’s head.

Adam and Bertha shared sketchy recollections about our family roots. Focus was on survival, not history. Fortunately, DNA traced our origin.

Family Roots

Our original surname, Opawa, is traceable to southwestern Poland and the province of Silesia. Ancestors brandished the Orla (eagle) Coat of Arms and earned their spurs as warriors. They formed a ruling class, known as a burgrabia in Krakow, the former Polish capital. They were naturalized as Polish counts with administrative duties for the king residing at Wawel Castle on the Vistula River. Duties included bridge building; regulating passage through the land; maintaining law and order; collecting tariffs and taxes; providing cavalry mounts and soldiers from farms; forging armor and weapons; fortifying villages; repairing roads; caring for the needy; providing music and entertainment; and ensuring a supply of grain, beer, vodka, even water. During the fourteenth century, they played significant cross border roles with Saxony, Bohemia, Moravia, and the Tsardom of Russia. They were signatories of the 1573 Warsaw Confederation Act. This was the first act to provide religious tolerance in Medieval Europe. Descendants support health care, hearing, and vision for impaired children worldwide.

Vodka

Granddad Adam would leave a bottle of vodka glistening on the front windowsill. It had no label. A piece of straw in the bottle evoked Polish plains where aurochs and bison once grazed and potatoes grew for food and vodka. W. C. Fields said he cooked with liquor, at times adding food.

A friendly steelworker, Stash, needed constant lubrication and roamed watering holes such as Tony’s Tavern around the corner and Bickle’s Bar a few doors down. Stash often helped himself to Adam’s vodka. One day Stash took unusually long gulps to top his tank. Adam wondered what happened to his vodka. It couldn’t evaporate. It must’ve been Stash. Adam refilled the bottle with vinegar and waited in ambush. Stash stopped that evening, took a swig, wobbled while slowly examining the bottle for clarity and aroma. He helped himself to long draws then gulps. Licking his lips, he carefully replaced the bottle, leaned on the sill, and slurred, Adam, you been hide’n the good stuff from me fer years. Drink and eat well. Stay fit. Die anyway.

Adam drank to make people interesting. Jesus said to the blind man, Here’s mud in your eye.

Entertainment

One hot afternoon, our Romanian neighbor appeared in a red cape with a handful of knives. In a bathing suit, his wife rolled out a circular wooden tabletop that had four pegs with straps spaced equidistant along the circumference. Their son, Junior, strapped his mom to the top then spun it with his mom like a wheel of fortune on the Atlantic City boardwalk. Junior’s dad blindfolded himself and started throwing sharp knives across the yard in the general direction of his whirling wife. So long as she screamed, all seemed well. Who knew what death-defying entertainment awaited and paraded as undiscovered talent in the Burg?

Not to be outdone by his eccentric parents, Junior started a collection of TV antennas from neighborhood roofs. And we thought a late-night storm took ours down.

Mary and Joseph

Granddad Joe never mentioned why he left Budapest, Hungary. His situation must’ve been dire, perhaps suspect. Meanwhile, Mary, his wife, had a compelling tale. Her mother died in childbirth. Her dad remarried a woman who cruelly abused Mary. Being eleven and the oldest, she was shipped to America with her youngest sister. This reduced mouths to feed but devastated Mary’s father and siblings.

Mary and her kid sister spent two weeks in steerage. Eventually they found their godmother and secured jobs in the Burg. With nimble fingers, Mary rolled Cuban cigars, sixty hours a week for fifty cents, the cost of one smoke. Winston Churchill may have puffed on one of Mary’s coronas. After years of saving and scrimping, she returned to her father in Transylvania, the Hungarian section of Romania. The cruel stepmother greeted her with disdain and renewed rancor. Mary had no choice but to return to the Burg. She was resilient, courageous, and independent with a Gypsy spirit and large heart. She was a survivor and dreamer.

Granddad Joe was gregarious and generous when sober. But he turned surly after too much alcohol. He morphed into Mr. Hyde. Joe relentlessly teased me when I was a toddler. I let loose and gave him a shiner. He wore it proudly like a medal. With black eye, he paraded me to Tony’s Tavern and our reserved seats below the dartboard at bar’s end. He intended to brag on me to former coworkers as they changed shifts after twelve hours of toil. Thirsty steel men stumbled in for cooling, numbing brews. Milk money was being pissed away. Wives soon followed and beat on bar backs. It was bizarre watching hunched-over, immobile guys swilling beer while wives washed over them like waves wearing down shore jetties.

The Dairy

Joe got into the diary rather than bar business when Italian brothers were caught illegally brewing beer during prohibition in a large country kitchen. The still was hidden on a two-hundred-acre dairy farm. An enormous vat took up the kitchen. It sprung a leak and drained to a pond where cattle drank. A head of foam greeted the thirsty herd returning from a hot pasture, much like steel men stumbling into Tony’ watering hole. The herd liked the foam and got drunk. Tipsy cows decided to find a bull. They plowed through a fence and wobbled away. The feds traced cow brand to the farm, beer pond, leaky vat, and bootlegging brothers. The farm went on the auction block, lock, stock, and vat. Joe made the best bid of $6,500 for prime acreage. He took ownership of a large idyllic home on a hill, empty vat, foamy pond, peach orchard, geese, chickens, pigs, plow horse, barn full of feed, farm tools, fertilizer, and Guernsey herd with hangovers.

Calm cows clank neck bells rather than blow horns. They have hooves because they lactose and produce milk.

The family farm was down the lane from a ranch where the stallion Native Dancer was sired. That horse won twenty-one races but lost only one at the Kentucky Derby by a nose.

Mary and Joe befriended neighbors with picnics. They greased a piglet and let it loose for anyone to own if caught. A fat farmer chased and fell on the squealer with three hundred fifty pounds. The baby pig died of a heart attack. Roast pork was followed with fat drippings on rye bread as desert. All this was bizarre but delicious.

Granddad Joe loved his farm but realized that the work was too much, even for his Mary. They sold it, doubling their investment. Later the farm fetched over a million dollars from a housing developer. Timing is everything. Memories are priceless.

There were many more thirsty women and children in the Burg than husbands quenching thirst. So Joe and Mary established the Burg Dairy. By himself, Joe built a pasteurizing plant and adjacent duplex. He and Mary processed and distributed milk, eggs, cream, and butter from a horse-drawn wagon. He was on the wagon for a time.

My Burg

Childhood was awash in ethnic aromas and foreign tongues that seeped out of row homes and lured kids for supper. Recipes and homeopathic cures were shared. Family bragging included athletes, musicians, politicians, lawyers, and a doctor. Folk songs invited dancing and brought joy and tears, especially when accompanied by a cimbalom heard throughout The Third Man movie. It sounds like a muted xylophone. It haunts me.

The Mafia emerged in the Burg. Silence regarding a relative was suspect.

The Campbell Ketchup factory on Lalor St. oozed tomato scent in September. Otherwise, we could tell whose turf we were on by kitchen aromas, like spiced Polish kielbasa; Hungarian goulash with chicken, paprika, and heavy cream; Greek moussaka with eggplant, cinnamon, and nutmeg; Slovak stuffed cabbage with barley, veal, and green peppers; Romanian potato pancakes with leeks; Russian borsch from beets, sour cream, and chive; German beef marinating in vinegar, juniper berries, and root veggies; clams and garlic in Italian pasta; and Irish ham and cabbage with potatoes and mustard. Aromas alerted pedestrians to ethnic turf and what was ripe and harvested for supper. Like GPS, aroma marked ethnic neighborhoods, triggered appetites and memories.

Burg men fought Japanese barbarians, Italian Fascists, and Nazi butchers. The difference between a Nazi and a bucket of fertilizer was the bucket.

My uncle Jake related that during the bombing of Ploesti oil fields in Romania, his formation of B-17s was decimated. A landing wheel was shot away. Only one of four props managed a belly landing in Russia. Jake’s best friend was trapped in the ball turret beneath the fuselage and lost both legs below the knees. A Soviet officer strolled to the wreckage, casually smoking a cigarette while standing in a puddle of blood and gasoline. Jake couldn’t stop his friend from bleeding out and pleaded for help to no avail. He pressed his .45 into the Russian’s temple, cocked it, squeezing the trigger slowly with deadly intent while saying, Oh ymnpaet, bbl ymnpaete! (He dies, you die). Jake’s pilot stopped him from blowing away an accomplice to death but presumed ally turned indifferent. Busted from sergeant to private, Jake returned home with utter contempt for Nazis and Russians. If he had his way, we would’ve immediately attacked the Red Menace. He said Russians went from decadence to barbarism without civilization. Yakov Smirnoff said, In America you can always find a party; in Russia the party always finds you.

A lot of veterans knew what politicians chose to ignore. The Russian government, apart from its people, was no benign ally but a heartless enemy. Moreover, Jake expressed what many in the Burg felt: defend family, friends, and turf; finish a fight; stay loyal; and never, ever mince words. Life is short; work hard; quench thirst; drown pain; survive; and have fun. Jake was part of the greatest generation and didn’t know it.

7

Nagy at Her Stove

Grandmom Mary, my Nagy (Hungarian for lady) was large hearted with matching body. I was completely loved and safe near her. After daily Mass, she toiled in her kitchen until dusk. She was chef, homeopathic healer, psychic, matriarch, and matchmaker. Her gifts included intuition, experience, and unconditional love. Most of all, Nagy could make a meal out of leftovers. She baked light, delicate cookies and delectable cakes as if spun from gossamer. She rolled noodles on slotted reeds shaped like a mandolin. As a result, I’m not overweight, just easier to see.

Nagy stood over a big black coal stove. It resembled a simmering, snarling Doberman that she fed and tamed. A bucket of sooty coal with black shovel sidled against the cast iron beast. She’d grasp a wire coil pry bar, lift a stove lid that could have doubled as a manhole cover, slide it aside, shoveled, and stirred glowing coals. Embers and sparks spewed like fireworks and storm clouds that left a hot, metallic odor. This warmed our home.

Her shoes were low and black with straps above the ankles. Formidable for a substantial woman! The floor had a repeating Dutch windmill pattern of orange, yellow, and brown that spun endlessly into baseboard. Counting windmills held my toddler attention. I banged on pots and pans with wooden spoons. Nagy was never annoyed. I was kept from the hot stove.

Kitchen aromas lingered and announced Friday with crepe suzettes oozing cottage cheese with white raisins, apricots, or grape jelly. Sundays were filled with chicken in a cream, onion, and paprika sauce. Bone marrow was spread on rye bread as dessert. Nagy found use for everything as a child of the Great Depression. Bacon will kill you. Smoking will kill you. But smoked bacon cures you. Nothing was wasted.

Nagy’s most tempting aroma came from a sweet treat on birthdays. Fourteen thin layers rose to a tort, filled with butter chocolate and slathered with rich icing. Burned sugar sealed and solidified the tort. It crackled when scored with a hot knife. A slice could feed a starving province in India for a month. It was worth waiting for birthdays. Time passed quickly. But loving memories of Nagy remain, cooking, baking, and toiling over her stove.

8

Cod Liver Oil

Open your mouth! I locked my lips. Look! It’ll be over fast. Just swallow. I shut my eyes and doubled down. Don’t fight me! I’ll call your father. It took two to pry me open. Cod liver oil stinks, and I’m stubborn. Dad and Mom never swallowed it. It’ll make you strong like Superman. Don’t you want to be strong like Superman? No kid I knew flew around in a red cape, faster than a speeding bullet or leaped tall buildings in a single bound after fish oil. It was kryptonite! I gritted my teeth. Look! This is good for you. You’ll feel better. Then you can have some ice cream. Some meant a little, not a lot. Okay! If you don’t take it, you’re going to the hospital. Do you want to go to the hospital? Some kid said he got lots of ice cream at the hospital where his tonsils were snipped. And he missed school. My eyes and mouth opened. Before the word really left my tongue, a tablespoon of fish juice hit my lips. Ugh! The stuff ran down my face, throat, and pajamas. I shuttered, eyes watered, gut wrenched, and I nearly vomited. Mom launched it like a missile before I could intercept. When it came to medicine, Mom advocated more is better. There! You’ll feel better in the morning. What if it ate through me like kryptonite? Mom would feel bad if I died. My tombstone might read, Kid killed by cod liver oil (CLO).

Who dreamed up CLO? A fishmonger? Josef Mengele at Auschwitz? I promised myself never, ever to poison my kids with that stuff. Some said CLO was good for you. It contained omega fatty acids, vitamins A and D. It was rumored to improve bone growth and remove rickets from kids. Old people were promised mended fractures, diabetes relief, relief from multiple sclerosis, and restored memory. One taste and you’d never forget CLO. It was peddled out west as antidote for snakebite to no effect. Perhaps it was meant to poison snakes. Medical research eventually found that too much CLO increases cholesterol and blood pressure, triggers asthma and stress, clogs arteries, and sinusitis. Kids instinctively knew this. Just thinking about it raised anxiety. Labels now warn, Keep out of reach of children. CLO contains omega-5 fatty acids. It may reduce coronary heart disease and relieve painful joints. This warning came too late for me. I grew up with super dense bones that orthopedic surgeons had trouble drilling into. They said, Damn! This kid was forced to swallow CLO.

Every kid I knew was forced to suck liver juice from a dead cod. They all could swim fast and deep like me, see better underwater without goggles, and even perform in school. I wondered if anchovy, sardines, and mackerel caused the same results.

Gel caps eventually arrived after kids died taking CLO straight without a chaser of ice cream, such as vanilla bean and mint, toasted chocolate with bing cherries, ginger and strawberry punch, champagne with ripe blueberries, root beer with marshmallow and macerated cherries, sesame honey orchid with raspberries, licorice and caramelized cumquats, and moose tracks. Ice cream was the only antidote. Unfortunately, Socrates’s mother practiced more is better with CLO. History mistook CLO for hemlock. Dying, Socrates said, A wise man is always a child. And Woody Allen said, Eternity is really long, especially near the end.

9

Stan’s Candy

Every church in the Burg had a candy store caddy corner, like Stan’s. He took pennies from kids, while the church collected heavy coin from parents in pews. Did Stan and the pastor compare weekly takes? They ran symbiotic businesses.

Plate glass-protected sweets glittering and glistening in recess sun. We ogled All Day Suckers, Good and Plenty, and beyond. A gold mine of succulent flavors lay protected from twitching fingers, i.e., addictive Kettle Fudge; translucent Rock Candy on a string; hard-as-granite Jaw Breakers; soft, delicious Bonbons; sticky Gummy Bears that removed fillings from teeth; spicy Cinnamon Hearts; Candy Drops on a paper strip that resembled a belt of machine gun bullets; succulent Root Beer Barrels; tasty chocolate Hershey’s bars (with or without nuts); soft Almond Joy; multicolor M&Ms; pink, green, brown, and white Merrimints that resembled communion wafers but tasted like vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, and mint; coconut Mounds and Macaroons; pink Mary Jane on a stick; color-coated Dots; Peanut Brittle; Pretzel Sticks; red sugar-encrusted Watermelon Slices; Candied Peanuts; Swizzle Sticks; Snickers bars; pink Bubble Gum wrapped with baseball cards; Gummy Balls that doubled as marbles; an unknown colored liquid in small wax bottles; chewy Nugget with fruit bits; black tart Sensi confetti; and small sweet red hearts that lasted long and stung. Stan had to wash fingerprints and drool off his display window daily. A sugar addict would spring for an orange-coated vanilla ice cream pop, known as a Creamsicle. Sodas would dissolve and wash sugar down. I was mesmerized and stupefied standing before Stan’s reinforced plate glass counters that kept me at bay.

Pocket pennies bought chocolate bars. What resulted? Diabetes! I went through sugar withdrawal while cavities ate through teeth. My dentist invested in candy companies and encouraged trips to Stan’s. The invisible hand of capitalism had fingers in my mouth and pocket.

Classmates would debate the best purchase strategies of who’d buy what, count change, practice addition and subtraction, negotiate, and learn economies of scale. Let’s trade! You buy this, I’ll buy that, and we’ll swap at the swings. Three white Good and Plenty equaled a pink one. Agreed? But I’d never part with my chewy, chunky Nugget. When attacked by the class bully, I’d put a death grip on squishy Nugget with fruit bits squeezed through fingers. This was messy, but I never had a finger bitten off. An option was to bribe the school muscle builder with a Baby Ruth to be my bodyguard. The risk was that he’d become the next bully. The NATO alliance and international relationships at the United Nations exhibit similar negotiation skills acquired in candy stores and playgrounds.

After a sugar binge, Stan tempted us with bric-a-brac, including water pistols, slingshots, toy soldiers, balsa wood airplanes, kites, Hula-Hoops, big balloons, ball and jacks, and ping pong paddles. All just beyond reach! Stan made school tolerable.

Years later I delivered newspapers for Stan. Neither rain nor snow nor heat nor gloom of night stayed me from the swift completion of my daily, appointed rounds. Delivering eighty copies of The Times, I made pennies off dollars. My pay barely covered repairs for weekly bike flats from jumping curbs. It was my first exposure to capitalism without collective bargaining. I was an accolade being groomed as a numbers runner for Stan with a lot of growing up to do. I realized all this inside my backyard fort.

Mrs. Stan flounced around the candy store like a succulent lollypop, wearing fuzzy pink slippers and a loose silk bathrobe that provoked passion. After teasing male customers, she’d slip upstairs after six. Everyone knew how to survive in the Burg. And Stan’s was the ultimate candy store in the shadow of a church steeple that slowly crept across the street from Mass and salvation to evening sin. Even the Vatican Bank is caddy corner from a candy store and pizzeria where St. Peter slipped out of his Basilica to launder euro for the Mafia.

Stan’s Candy evolved from a fallow field to fur trading with the Lenni Lenape Indians, goat pasture, general store, millinery shop, brothel, sweet shop, religious artifact bizarre, back to sweet shop and brothel. As Stan would say, What goes around comes around.

A sexual predator walks into a bar and lowers it. The bartender asks, What can I get you, Mr. President?

10

Where’s WC?

How different one language sounds from another. Slavic tongues twist and trip in hungry knots with a mouth full of crowded consonants that run together like Bolsheviks and Mensheviks clashing in Red Square. Guttural German plows deep furrows to plant harsh horseradish, tart cabbage, and tangy mustard. Lyrical Italian is laced with vowels like voices flowing into melodious and boisterous chorus. Families clamor for pasta with seafood. Nasal French has pungent overtones of grapes and fields of fragrant lavender. Then there’s English. It’s altogether loose limbed and dangerously ambiguous. Churchill said Britain and America are two countries separated by a common language.

A handsome, nattily dressed American tourist with bathroom issues approached beautiful, busty British guide Wendy Canwell. He desperately needed a restroom, otherwise known as a water closet, loo, or simply WC. He whispered in her ear, I really need WC! Thinking he was interested in her and perhaps Winchester Cathedral, Wendy purred that it was only an hour and half away but well worth his very best effort. He’d