If

 With apologies to Rudyard Kipling...

 

"Who cares?  I'm dead, you bloody twit."

Yes, I realize that Mothers Day is this Sunday.  Sadly, my mom passed away 39 years ago and my father twelve years ago.  Which, I suppose, makes me an orphan.  Even so, my memories of growing up under their care and feeding is as vivid as it's ever been.  Still, my mother never thought to dispense with her wisdom of how I should live my life as an adult.  Well, beyond making sure I never forget to put the seat down.  My dad, on the other hand, had no trouble giving this bit of advice or off-color commentary.  In going though a group of papers, I came upon his version of a poem which he reworded as a guidebook for how my brothers, sister, and I should conduct ourselves.  Okay, I probably should have waited until Fathers Day, but who knows if any of us will still be here?

"The English needs to speak for himself."

If you can keep your church offering when devout suckers around you

Aren’t buying jelly doughnuts or chocolate milk,

If you can trust yourself when everybody else

laughs as you scratch your back with a fork,

If you can blame anybody but yourself

when the car conks out on the off-ramp even though

the gas gauge says “empty,”

Or, being allowed first in line, say “sucker”

Or being complemented, say “tool”

And “dressing up” is washing your hair with soap and

bathing in Old Spice:

 

If you think fancy cuisine is an

onion sandwich with yellow mustard,

and Piels Real Draft which makes you burp

or liverwurst that gives you gas,

yet can save room to suck hot peppers from a jar;

If you can get a sunburn using only a bottle

of Baby Oil and iodine,

and your skins peels enough to give each child a buck for the

“biggest piece,”

If your feet smell like Italian cheese and your teeth fall out before you’re 40:

 

If others can listen to your philosophy on  

people of other races, faiths, and culture,

and not go insane,

If you can use all varieties of the Lord’s name when bashing your thumb with a hammer,

Or the ‘F’ word when talking to a priest

when draining your pool into his yard,

If you think all God’s creatures, great and small

take a final ride to New York State

If you can make fun of the overweight while

sporting “man boobs”:

 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it all on one hand of pinochle with uncles and aunts who aren't really,

And lose, and laugh and say, “Eh, what the frig?”

even though your children need new clothes,

If you could say, with a straight face, that you didn’t get the promotion because you really like manual labor,

If you can sneak into a drive-in movie through the exit at four in the afternoon:

 

If you can cover your entire home with shag carpet-even the toilet tank-because you “found it” next to the new Holiday Inn,

If you can set the walls on fire putting in a dimmer switch

and keep your composure long enough to yell, “Get the hell out of the house!”

If you can replace every bedroom door with plastic fold-outs that fall apart in six months,

Yet find time to make beds out of particle wood that collapse before the doors,

If you think electrical tape can fix everything from a frayed wire to a broken bone,

And finishing painting the house is optional:

 

If you can talk to crowds while making fun of them,

Or set fire to your pubes while on the toilet,

If neither foes nor loving friends like to hear you speak,

If you can fill the air with one blast of your after-dinner flatulence or your carton of Kools,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And-which is more-you’ll be a Man, my son!

A class act, that Big Ken.  Yes, that would make me Little Ken.  Although, given the current situation, I prefer to go by "Living Ken" now.  Needless to say (to the relief of my kids, although they don't realize it), I didn't follow my Dad's advice.

Pull my finger?