Musings

Louis and I are hanging out with dad’s cousin Vic’s family at their home. We’re all sitting around the kitchen table, talking about dad, and how funny he was. Lou comes up with this ditty that had us all dying with laughter:

“It’s like late spring or summer of 1979. Me and some high school friends are hanging out after school at my house. Dads in the kitchen marinating steaks, getting them ready for the grill. We kids are in the den, sitting around the TV, watching the video tape “Faces of Death”. It’s a gruesomely narrated documentary of accidents, and people dying. The film is near the end and there’s a scene with a rocket car jumping over a canyon. Midflight, it disintegrates. the wreckage and driver plunge to the river below. The announcer says, “… he was lucky to have only a broken back.” Dads in the kitchen listening in and is snickering. Walking past the den to check on the grill he looks in and says, “How can anybody be ‘lucky’ to have a broken back?” Everybody’s laughing.

Soon the video ends, and we kids are sitting there trying figure out the best way to die.

My friend Paul D. says, “I wanna get run over by a freight train because it’ll be quick!”

Dads laughing in the kitchen.

My friend John K. says, “I wanna fall into an electrical transformer!”

Dads laughing harder in the kitchen.

I say, “I wanna get sucked out an airplane window and into the jet turbine – instantaneously vaporized!”

Dads roaring with laughter, and poking his head into the den says, “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m dying of old age!”

Robert Raymond Viosca “Bob” born 26 Oct. 1925 in New Orleans, died 26 Feb. 2022 at his home in Mandeville Louisiana. On the way to bed, he collapsed suddenly in the arms of his son Randy.

He was the third child of Felix Viosca and Alice Baudean, and was the last of his family. His three siblings, parents, and wife preceded him: Randall Clement Viosca (1944 England WW II), Felicie “Fay” Rita Viosca Martin (2010 Mandeville LA), and Jerome Felix “Jerry” Viosca (2001 Simi Valley CA), mother Alice Baudean (1987 Mandeville), father Felix Viosca (1947 New Orleans), and Bob’s wife Phyllis Freshwater (2001 Hamel MN). He is survived by sons: Randy Viosca (Cari Giroir, Katie and Joseph) and Louis Viosca (Juliet Maxson Viosca), granddaughter Kayla Sandelin (Dayne) and three great-grandchildren (Reikah, Winston, Bowie), adopted family friends Julie Hoff, Ron Latin, and Cyndee Jackson, nephews Danny Martin (Karen), and Justin Viosca, nieces Tammie, Bonnie, Kim, Tara, and cousin and best friend Vic Viosca (Dionne) whose family adopted Bob when he retired to Mandeville.

Bob was 14 when he graduated Warren Easton high school in New Orleans. His mother Alice taught him how to cook her New Orleans French family recipes so he could make the family meals while they were working and he was at night school. During World War II he enlisted in the Army Air Corps 1943. In basic training he washed and warmed up aircraft in Denver. Just prior to shipping out to flight training he stumbled in a doorway in front of a doctor who diagnosed him with Rheumatic fever. He was quarantined for six months in a hospital bed where he used the time to memorize “The Rubáiyát” by Omar Khayyám, which lines he would recite at any appropriate moment (or not, depending on the wine), much to the chagrin of his wife. He called it his “Red Boat” philosophy.

After the war he attended Tulane University on the G.I. bill, and graduated 1950 as a Mechanical Engineer. He was accepted into Harvard Business School where he earned his MBA 1954. During college he took an internship with Westinghouse where he, with a nearly unlimited expense budget, smoothed the ruffled feathers of worldwide executives in the power industry who were upset that their shipments of generators, transformers, turbines, and other equipment were reconsigned during the defense production act of 1950 for atomic projects.

After college he and some buddies sublet a factory loft apartment from an artist in Greenwich Village where he created his first oil painting “The Hangover” – 1955. It was the beatnik age – and he loved the poetry of Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. One can imagine he and his buddies standing around with martinis critiquing his masterpiece.

He took a job in marketing and manufacturing with Etna Bearing and Nuttel Gear in Pittsburgh where he guided the design of the Moduline adaptable gear sets (still sold today).

Bob met the love of his life, Phyllis Freshwater, an aspiring opera singer and music student, in the laundry room of their Pittsburgh apartment building. She invited him over for lasagna, but she didn’t know to precook the pasta, “and it came out like a concrete cinder block.” He took her to his favorite Lebanese restaurant, Samrini’s, where she had lamb for the first time. He proposed to her, and she refused. He proposed multiple times, and finally he did a full corporate presentation to her with charts, graphs, and bullet points, detailing how he would be supportive of her career, education, and family. She accepted. They married in 1957 in Pittsburgh.

With his New Orleans background, he loved to cook and taught Phyllis. Together they raised two boys and relocated to cities including Mansfield OH, Chicago, Munich Germany, and the Twin Cities (Edina). In the 1960’s Bob got his pilot’s license and bought a Cessna.  For business, Bob traveled a lot, and took along a portable watercolor set he made. In the 1970’s, when their sons were finishing up high school, they started Avion Travel agency, a family business Phyllis and Louis ran. Bob and Phyllis traveled all over the world. In 1978 he started Video Entertainment Inc. in Minneapolis, which he and Randy grew to seven stores. In 1980’s Bob and Phyllis bought a small farm in Hamel MN and raised and trained horses for dressage and fox hunting. Bob was in the Long Lake Hounds fox hunting club.

After Phillis died in 2001, Bob built a home in 2003 in Mandeville LA. He liked to say, “I’m returning to my ancestral breeding grounds.” He made seasonal “painting junkets” to Europe and other places. He continued to study art and took classes with well-known contemporaries. He joined the Lacombe Art League. Never one to “rest on my bay leaves”, in his 80’s he checked out the book “Save The Cat!” from the Mandeville Library, and with Randy, they wrote three satiric comedy screenplays, the first which was presented to Paramount Studios. His lifetime painting body of work is some 500+ oil and watercolor paintings, and mixed media – many sold, given as gifts, or donated.

Many of his paintings, writings, and screenplays can be seen at his website: artbyviosca.com.

In the last year of his life, he often told caregivers and friends, “You know, I’ve really lived a charmed life, I couldn’t have asked for more.”

He was a unique man, some say renaissance. He was slow to anger, playfully irreverent, thoughtful, and empathetic – always striving to understand others’ views, even those he disagreed with.

His wishes were to be cremated and have his ashes scattered in Lake Pontchartrain at his favorite fishing spots. He didn’t want a solemn funeral but requested holding a crawfish boil for him at his home in his honor, and we’ll all do that when the mudbugs come in season this spring. As you can imagine, his exact wording was something rather irreverent, something you might find in one of his screenplays, writings, or paintings. And that was his way.

He touched many family members and friends in his life from all over the world. His passing leaves a vacancy in our hearts impossible to fill.

His art website: www.artbyviosca.com
The Viosca Family genealogy and historic photo website: www.viosca.com
His memorial on FindAGrave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/237185341/robert-raymond-viosca
His entry on FamilySearch.org: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/G3PR-3SH
His memorial at Bagnell Funeral Home: https://www.bagnellfuneralhome.com/obituary/Robert-Viosca

Getting dad ready in the morning is usually the most stressful time. What would normally take 45 minutes, he can drag out to 2.5 hours.
So one day a week I get a break as a home nursing assistant, Alicia, helps him shave, take a shower, dress his pressure sore, and get dressed and to the table.
Alicia doesn’t take any shit, and he knows it. Any alteration from the prescribed course of events is met with consistent and firm, but kind and gentle pressure. Resistance is futile. And, since a woman is involved, he’s all about dressing to impress. She gets him all done in 1/2 hour.

This morning I’m in the living room, secretly listening in as she works with him when I hear the walker starting to clatter quickly across the bathroom tile floor. He’s making a break for it. He’s escaping!

Dad (mumbling, making a beeline to the bed): I gotta get back inta bed, offa my feets.
Alicia: Ya can move fast when you wanna. Hold on! I’m right behind you!

He abruptly stops at the edge of the bed, casts the walker aside, turns around and with legs spread and hernia exposed to the world, plops down backwards onto the bed, naked, with legs in the air.

Dad (excitedly, motioning toward himself): Come on, I’m ready for ya!
Alicia (standing in bathroom doorway, lets out a short startled snort/laugh): Hmmfrff.
Dad (apologetically, embarrassed): I’m just joking!
Alicia (hand on hip, waiving finger at him, laughing): I know you are!

A section of land a block up the road from dad’s home has recently been cleared of old growth forest to make room for a new 16 home subdivision. We’re really sad to see the forest go, as we could walk to it from the house. Part of the land is on two corner lots where they’re widening the road and putting in a stop light. Previously there were ditches on either side that made making the turn precarious. In Mandeville, the city council and planners seem to hate sidewalks and love ditches. Dad’s sister used to call them the “sons of ditches”.

On this morning, as I’m driving dad to dialysis, there’s all sorts of big construction equipment digging around, ripping up road, and knocking big pine trees over.

Dad (disgustedly eyeing the carnage): Is that where they’re puttin’ up the new sewage waste treatment plant, or did they decide on a slaughter house, or perhaps a pig farm?
Randy: (laughing, carefully making turn to avoid the ditch, pointing to a now vacant lot): Yes! And right across the street here, they’re puttin’ in that new strip club!
Dad (grunting): Yes,… I can see the sign,… coming soon.

Sometime last summer, on way to dialysis, I ask the usual questions…

Randy (driving): Dad, have you pooped today?
Dad (indignantly): And, why do you need to know?
Randy: So we have an idea of your dry weight for dialysis!
Dad (drolly): Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay, I haven’t pooped today. Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay, I haven’t pooped today.

Dad has a lot of hardware in his heart, a valve (TAVR), numerous stents, and a pacemaker. So they have him on blood thinners to keep him from clotting everything up. This means that he bleeds really easily. He gets these pinhole bleeds that we have to slap band-aids on to keep from staining his clothes. As a dialysis patient this can be problematic, so they repeatedly train him on how to apply a tourniquet to his access arm, the arm they put the needles in.

Nurse (demonstrating how to put tourniquet on): So you apply the tourniquet by putting it around your arm and tightening it up. Then you go to the ER.
Bob (bored): Uh-huh.
Nurse (talking loudly): Bob! Are you paying attention?
Bob (irritated): Yes! If I’m bleeding I wrap a tourniquet on it.
Nurse (calmer): Yes. And?
Bob (disgruntled): I go to the ER.
Nurse: Yes. Now, have you had any bleeding?
Bob : From where?
Nurse (frustrated): From your access arm!
Bob : No!
Nurse (eyes narrowed): Are you bleeding somewhere else?
Bob (kind of embarrassed and gesturing down towards his hernia): Well, yes… I get these little pinhole bleeds on my scrotum. And since it’s hard to notice, it makes a real mess of my clothes.
Nurse (concerned, but unable to examine him on the public dialysis floor): I see. Is it bleeding now?
Bob (smirking): No. But I’m not quite sure how you’d want me to apply the tourniquet there!

The nurse is covering her eyes, shaking her head, laughing, and turning red.

Nurse (to Randy): Woo-wee, your father is something else.

Due to weight loss and from having to sit in a dialysis chair without out moving for four hours, three days per week, dad has developed pressure sores on his bum (sacrum or tailbone) that need to be treated. This involves cleaning the area with sterile saline, putting a drop of medical grade honey (Manuka)on any open lesions, rubbing zinc barrier cream on the surrounding area, and sticking a gel pad over the area to protect it from pressure. The honey burns a bit on the raw flesh.

Dad: Ouch, that stings!
Randy (rubbing the honey in well): Sorry, not much I can do about that. You need to remember the way this feels when you refuse to eat the protein rich meals I give you!
Dad: Protein, protein, protein, that’s all you say these days… Ouch!
Randy (frowning): Yep, just keeping ignoring the doctors, nurses, and dieticians ’cause you know better.
Dad: Okay, enough, enough! (farts) You can kiss my sweet honey ass.
Randy (annoyed): Just keep it up buster, and I’ll be mixing the whiskey from your nightly Old Fashioned in with the honey. That’ll night cap your ass!

We’ve just finished a doctor’s visit. The office is a few miles from Lake Pontchartrain, where dad kept his sailboat, from before he was married. We’re waiting for the after visit summary to print, and dad’s chatting-up the receptionist who’s trying to schedule a follow-up appointment.

Dad (crooning to receptionist): … and I liked sailin’ on moonlit nights. I’d take my dates out on the boat. It was like dynamitin’ fish.
Receptionist (trying not to laugh): Ok Mr. Bob, we want to see you again in a week. How about next Wednesday?
Randy (butting in): Well, he has dialysis on M-W-F, so Tuesday or Thursday would be best.
Receptionist (looking at computer): The doctor’s booked up Tuesday and Thursday, out about three weeks. What time does dialysis start so we can get him in before hand?
Randy: Ok, I’ll need a half hour to get there after, but his check-in time is 1 o’clock.
Dad (poking his head back into the reception window): And I’m a “wake up at the crack-of-noon” kinda guy!

Dad and I are driving to a doctor’s appointment. Spotify is playing a Beach Boys song, and dad has a confused look.

Dad (disgruntled): What’s this modern music crap. Sounds like cats screwin’.
Randy (disbelief): Dad! This is the Beach Boys. They’ve been around for 50 years or so!
Dad: Well, it’s new to me…
Randy (turning volume down): I can’t change it now as I’m driving. Better?
Dad (shaking head): Humpf… Why would anyone write a song about a little loose poop?

A few months back, when we were in New Orleans for the winter, Dad and I saw a surgeon to see what could be done about his inguinal hernia. After a cat-scan he’s sitting in the doctor’s office on the bench for a visual inspection. The doctor’s obviously impressed (and not in a good way) by its large cantaloupe volume and appearance. He’s cradling it in his gloved hands the way one might hold a large, over-filled, red water balloon, or perhaps a newborn infant.

Dr. (concerned): It’s very large! Does it hurt?
Dad (bored): No. But it’s uncomfortable, and difficult to pee.
Dr.: Can you still push it back in?
Dad (looking down at it): Yes. I can push “the monster” back into its lair, if I work at it.

(He starts rustling around down there trying to push it back in. There’s the sound of water sloshing about, like young lovers wrestling in a hot waterbed.)

Dad (proudly): There!
Dr. (somewhat amazed): That’s good! Because you probably wouldn’t survive the surgery to repair it. And if the blood flow to the intestines gets cut-off, they’ll become strangulated or incarcerated and you’ll end up in the hospital in a real-bad-way, and you wouldn’t survive the surgery to fix that either.
Dad (resigned): Well, I guess I’ll have ta try to keep this “blivit” tucked in.
Dr.: Yes, and I’d avoid exercise that puts a lot of stress on it, like jogging.
Dad (eye brows up, hopeful): Do you hear that Randy, no more exercise!
Randy (to Dr., hurriedly): What about his weekly physical therapy at the gym, and using his walker instead of the wheelchair, like the P.T. says?
Dr. (to both of us): The P.T. knows how to deal with hernias, and using the walker is fine, and probably better for you.
Dr. (to dad): What, exactly, is a “blivit?”
Dad (dejected, grumbling, eyes down): It’s from World War II, for when ya have too much of somethin ya don’t want. It means having “three pounds a shit in a two ounce bag.”
Dr. (chuckling): Yes, literally so.

We’re leaving the hospital where Dad has just finished his weekly paracentesis, a procedure where they drain about 3 liters of fluid from his his belly (ascites). He accumulates the fluid because his heart is in AFIB, the upper chamber is not beating in sync with the lower chamber (sinus rhythm), so the blood pressure to his liver is low and causes blood to pool there. The liver responds by shedding water and albumin, which bloats his belly and puts pressure on his stomach, heart, lungs, hernia, etc. For 3 or 4 days afterward he feels much better, can breathe, has an appetite, and his hernia shrinks.
This day, he has an appointment with his cardiologist about an hour afterwards. It’s near the hospital, so there isn’t time to drive home and back, and the Dr. can’t see us sooner. So we head over to Wendy’s to get him some chili. After we’ve eaten our lunches in the parking lot and we’re headed to our appointment, dad has a distressed look on his face.

Dad: I think I’m going to have to go, very soon.
Randy (driving faster): Hold on dad, we’re almost there, hang in there!

I pull up under the over-hang, slam it in park, race around the car, help him out, and hand him his walker. He’s moving that walker fast, I’m holding the lobby door open and I’m pointing to the women’s restroom because the men’s is occupied. He’s hesitating, he doesn’t want to use women’s. He’s aiming his walker back and forth between the doors. Suddenly the men’s door opens and an older gentleman with a walker slowly emerges, taking his time, he looks up, and sees the panicked look on dad’s face. An invisible line of communication passed between them, knowledge, understanding, and empathy. Then it was like two fast moving walkers passing in the night – click, shuffle, slide, repeat. Suddenly dad’s pants are down around his ankles, his hand is on the door latch, the door clicks open, and boom — too late.

I’m dancing around on tiptoes, assessing the situation, making big cleanup plans, formulating a strategy. I get dad parked on the porcelain and beg him to please just wait, don’t do anything, don’t try to clean up, please, please, just sit there.
Looking up, I see the lobby area near the restrooms has been vacated of patients who are now sitting far away along the opposite wall, with their masks in the upright and locked position. I calmly walk up to the receptionist, knock on the glass, and whisper, “Hi, I’m Randy Viosca, Bob Viosca’s son. We’re here for our 1:00 with Jeff, but we have a major bowel spill over by the men’s room, so if you have some cleaning supplies I’d really appreciate it.” She smiles and says, “Oh, ok. We’ll be right with you.” and slides the glass back shut.

I’m nervous as I have memories of a story dad tells about our family dog, a long haired Lhasa Apso, named Tiki. Whenever it was storming outside, she would keep everyone up all night howling. So dad put her and her doggy bed, in the closet. The next morning he went to let her out and he says what emerged was a 30 pound dingle berry.

I’d waited about a minute, which seemed like 20, and decided to tiptoe back to the restroom to check on dad, and mercifully he’s still parked. I feel a tapping on my shoulder, turn around, and there’s a nurse with cleaning supplies and biohazard bag. I thank her and reach for the supplies and she says, “No, no, no… don’t worry. I got this. I used to be a hospital nurse and know exactly how to do this.” Pointing she says, “You sit down over there!” She pokes her head into to the restroom, asks dad how he’s doing, sees he’s is okay, and tells him to stay put. She quickly cleans up the entrance, floor, door and walls, then goes in and cleans him up. They emerge about 10 minutes later, and he’s sporting new drawers and pants. She hands me the sealed up bio-bag with his clothes in it. I’m so grateful, I’m actually crying.

A few minutes later, the receptionist calls out “Mr. Bob, we’re ready for ya!” And we go off to the exam room. His nurse practitioner, Jeff, says he heard we had a little incident in the lobby. I told him that a really kind nurse helped us out. He asked who and I said I didn’t get her name, but she was shorter, black hair, and has cat-eye glasses. Jeff said, “Yes, that’s Jenny, she’s a hospital nurse.”

Dad and I are sitting on the porch with our evening drinks. He’s relaxed with eyes closed, and a grin on his mug.

Randy: What’s up dad?
Dad: What did the doctor name his new dog?
Randy (thinking): I donna know, Ivy Drip?
Dad: No! Phlebitis!

We’ve since modified the joke to: What did Dr. Drip name his daughter? Ans: Ivy. What did he name his dog? Phlebitis!

I’ve always known my father to be an Atheist.
He has been so, while still respectful of other’s beliefs.
When folks tried to convert him, his view was that they thought they were looking out for him, and, usually, there was no ill intent.

Randy: Dad, what do you believe happens after you die? Where do you go?
Dad (smugly): I believe you just return to the place you were before you were born.
Randy: Well, don’t you think that’s going to be uncomfortable for your parents?
Dad (smirking): Perhaps. It’s more like we return to the great void, infinite nothingness.
Randy: But…
Dad (interrupting, grinning): It’s like this. In other religions, people wear chains and trinkets as symbols of their gods. It’s kind of strange when you think of it. If Christ had died in the present day, folks would wear little gold electric chairs around their necks. If he had died in the old west, it would be nooses. For my belief, I’d wear a gold chain with a tiny vacuum bottle hanging from it.

I’m getting dad ready for bed and we have this routine. He’s sleeping in the bed with his clothes on and I wake him up.

Dad: Why ya waking me up? I was asleep!
Me: Because you’re in your street clothes, and you don’t want to wake up that way!
Dad (Grumbling): , Okay, okay, I guess you’re right. I gotta wash up. It fools me into thinking I’ve had a bath.

With walker in hand, he makes it to the toilet, a fancy computerized Japanese bidet with 10 different wash spray, dry, and wax cycles. Every time he hits a button on the remote control it beeps and I can hear the change in water pressure, aeriation, spray, and dryer. Then he makes his way to the sink where he perform the rest of the requisite cleaning steps, and then to the bed, where he installs himself into his pajamas. Then he lies back and hands me his glasses and hearing aids (in that order), which I dutifully place in prescribed places on his night stand. Lastly, he pulls up the sheets just enough to cover his feet just below the knees, and no more.

Dad: I gotta keep ’em covered, so I can find ’em in case I need ’em.”

When dining out, or going through the drive-thru, dad likes to order things that aren’t on the menu.

Dad: I’ll have the grilled groin of bandicoot on a crispy bed of wombat scrotum crisps with a side of marinated muskrat snout. I’ll also have the marsupial soup, or is the soft shell rabbit appetizer better?

Dad’s in the bathroom cleaning up in the sink, getting ready for bed. He’s inspecting his wrinkly, age worn body, covered with scars from various surgeries.

Dad (pointing at self): Do you know why men have nipples?
Randy (shaking head): Uh,… No.
Dad (smirking): Just in case.

I’m helping dad get ready for bed.

Dad: Do you smell that?
Randy (frowning) : What?
Dad: I farted!
Randy: Oh, didn’t notice.
Dad: We should get your hearing checked!

At a doctor’s appointment after the nurse was discussing the importance of him keeping his hernia tucked in.

Randy (to nurse): They’re ain’t nothing more likely to get your father to tuck his hernia back in than to offer to do it for him.
Dad: Agreed!

After dad graduated from Harvard Business School, one of his early jobs was a director in the marketing department of Westinghouse appliance division. So he has a wealth of knowledge about things like hair dryers, coffee makers, toasters, washing machines, and how they were marketed towards consumers in the 1960’s. Think “Madmen”.

We’re sitting in the living room. Dad’s in his recliner and we’re having a conversation about repurposing unused appliances, i.e. finding alternative uses.

Dad (lowering the foot rest): You know, we have a lot of appliances around here we never use.
Randy (worried where this is going): Uh-huh.
Dad: Well it seems like kind of a waste. We should find other uses for them.
Randy (relieved he not thinking of holding a garage sale): Well, since we buy pre-ground coffee, I suppose could use the coffee grinder for milling spices.
Dad: Right!
Dad (remembering): When I was at Westinghouse, we made refrigerators that’d last a lifetime. Now they make ’em to wear out in 10. Fridge sales were low as they lasted forever. So at a brainstorming meeting, to pick up sales, I proposed we put fittings on the side that handles could be attached to.
Randy (unsure): Un-huh?
Dad: Well that way when the housewife dies, you can attach the handles and bury her in the fridge. Much cheaper than coffins, and it generates sales!
Randy (nodding diagonally): Sure.
Dad: And if you ran the cord up and power to the grave, no need for embalming costs. “Keep your loved one cool and fresh for eternity!”
Randy (frowning): Um… if you bury a running fridge, It’ll overheat! It’d be more like a crockpot!
Dad (shaking head): No-No, not if the cooling fins are attached to the back of the headstone.
Randy (hand over eyes, laughing): Ok, how about things that are a bit more practical, that we can do around here?

Dad (pointing up): Well, that fancy Japanese bidet you bought me could also be marketed as a water-pik, or “oral cleansing station.”
Randy (smirking): Yes, quite refreshing.
Dad (remembering): It would be particularly useful after a jag, on hangover mornings.
Randy: Dad, somehow I can’t see ya getting down on your hands and knees in front of a toilet.
Dad (nodding): Well no…, but younger folks could. “We keep both ends clean!”, or “We’re a means to your ends!”, or “We keep both ends from burning!”
Randy (smug): So, it seems now that you, ahem…, like the bidet?
Dad: Well, yes, now that I’ve gotten used to it.
Randy: Well, ok then.

A few months back in NOLA, we’re in the living room. Dad’s in his recliner. The 24 hour news is recapping the latest urgent Covid news. Deaths are up 100%. Everyone should wear a mask. In Florida and Texas, no one should wear a mask. People should take Ivermectin. Only horses should take it. And hey, we know Iverectin. We wormed our horses with it, gave it to our dogs for heartworm, and we’d never take it. But crazy folks, who fear vaccines, swallow it right up. Wow!

Dad (shaking his head): Geeze, those fools, like lemmings are following their leaders right over the cliff. Maybe it’s nature’s way of culling the herd of the less intelligent.
Randy: Well, I don’t know about nature’s way, but it sure is bizarre.
Dad (depressed): This Covid news is all so glum. Why don’t you switch the channel over to something less depressing?
Randy (holding the remote): Ok dad. Any ideas?
Dad (cynically): How about the WW II channel on Netflix?

I’m working on my computer in my bedroom and I hear dad laughing and talking to someone in the living room. I’m up like a shot to make sure he’s wearing his mask and bumping elbows. He’s sitting in his recliner with his smartphone, “Ok Google, what are the origins of the word ‘Hemorrhoids’?”

Dad (during dinner): What do you suppose the mercenary position is?

It’s after 2AM, and the TV in the living room is still on with the volume cranked up on the WW II channel. Over the sound of machine guns, airplanes diving, and bombs exploding:

Randy (yelling to dozing father in recliner): How’s it going dad?
Dad: I’m just trying to work up the ambition to go to bed.

Dad, is slowly moving his walker up to the dialysis check-in desk.

Nurse: Hi Bob. Any Covid symptoms?
Bob: Other than the usual runny nose, muscle aches and pains, shortness of breath, diarrhea, loss of sleep… no.
Nurse: Okay. How are we doing now?
Bob: Well, I’m feeling rather spry.
Nurse: Oh? Good.
Bob: Yes, I’m thinking of turning over a new leaf!

Dad (sitting at dining room table, looking longingly at recliner): Jeez, I gotta get outta this chair so I can get offa my feets.

Dad’s out in the living room, in his recliner, grumbling about something.

Me: Ok dad, what’s your medical complaint of the day?
Dad (smirking): This hernia is driving me nuts!
Me: oh jeez.
Dad: The pain is gone, but the malady lingers on…

INT.  A DIALYSIS CENTER – DAY

Patients are situated about the room in large recliners and are hooked up to dialysis machines.

Dad, at dinner, waving a chicken drumstick about, “When I die, if I’m reincarnated, I think I’ll avoid coming back as a chicken, or an oyster.”

On my way to work, I’m talking with dad on the speaker phone.

DAD:
I had this crazy dream. I’m in the hospital. Another patient pulls me aside. He says he’s dying and wants to tell me a joke.
It is hilarious! I couldn’t stop laughing. Other folks in the hallway who overheard just bits of it are bending over too. When I tried to tell him how remarkably funny it was, and to thank him, I noticed he had died.
So I walked back to the waiting room, and on the way I passed by a room with a patient who was dying and in a lot of pain. So I walked in, squeezed past the doctors and nurses, picked up the man’s hand, and told him the joke.
Everyone was doubled over. The medical staff were in stitches. And the dying man was roaring the loudest! When the laughter calmed down, we notice the man had passed on. But his family members were hugging and thanking me for bringing so much happiness into the last moment of his life.
And that’s when I woke up!
RANDY:
Wow, that’s an unusual dream! What was the joke?
DAD:
That’s the crime of it. I can’t, for the life of me, remember it!

I’m talking with my dad on the phone. He’s talking about going to the store to get new sheets, because his are threadbare. But he’s not relishing the idea of moseying around Target.

Randy: Why don’t you just order them off of Amazon?
Dad: Well, I’ve sort of forgotten my password there.
Randy: Well there’s a password recovery feature where they’ll send you a link to reset it!
Dad (pauses a bit): I’m too lazy to use the labor saving device.

Dad, who got his pilot’s license in the 1960s, is coming out of the bathroom furiously flapping his clothes. Looking around to make sure his young house cleaner isn’t in sight, he whispers, “I wouldn’t go in there now, there’s a very strong tail wind!”

Dad is getting up early tomorrow morning to go fishing with a friend. So he picks up his phone and says, “Ok Google! Set my alarm for 6:15 am.”

Pretty good for a guy born in 1925!

Dad (in front yard, to his neighbors): If there’s a westerly wind and you smell something foul, call the coroner, as I must have passed!

Dad: If you fart, when you’re asleep, and you’re alone, does it make a sound?

Dad had an angiogram and stents put in this morning. He’s doing well. Coming to, he says to the nurses, “Oh, I think I just farted, and I’m afraid it came with baggage.”

I’m helping my dad, BOB, 92, organize his medications. He has two day-of-week organizers, morning and night, brimming with many colored pills of various shapes and sizes. From memory, he describes the chemicals and purpose of each (he reads all the fine print). Suddenly he has a smirk on his face. I ask him, “what’s up?” And he recounts a “discussion” between his sister FAY and mother, ALICE, when she was in her 90’s. Alice hadn’t been taking her prescribed medications:

FAY
“Mamma, you know you gotta do what the doctor says.”

ALICE
(uninterested)
“Uh-huh.”

FAY
(agitated)
“Mamma, you gotta take the medications to stay healthy!”

ALICE
(resigned)
“Sure.”

FAY
(hands up)
“Oh for gods sake! What am I gonna do with you?”

ALICE
(smirking)
“Well, you’ll just hafta put me up for adoption.”

And in that instant, I can see my grandmother in my dad.

Over the last year, dad has started a new behavior. Every once in a while it sounds like he’s doing a low rumble growl. So, last night while eating dinner:

Dad: grrr, rumble, rumble, chomp, chew…
Randy: Dad, what are you doing?
Dad: What?
Randy (louder): What are you doing? Are you in pain?
Dad: No. I’m eating! Why?
Randy: Well… you’re sort of grumbling, or growling. What’s it mean?
Dad (smugly, looking up with eyebrows raised): I’m purring.

Dad and I are having Christmas dinner at his cousin Vic and Dionne’s house.

Dad (while supping the oyster and artichoke dressing): A little known fact, Majorca is the artichoke capital of the world! And, by coincidence, also happens to be the place where the Heimlich maneuver was invented.

This is the information plaque on an antique outboard motor that was beautifully restored by my cousin Charlie Viosca and donated to the Louisiana State Museum in Baton Rouge for display.

This Johnson Sea Horse outboard motor was manufactured prior to 1937, when I was 11 years old. It was purchased new for $72.00 by Joseph Pleschia, a dear friend of my father Felix Viosca. Dad was an automobile mechanic and we had use of it any time for fishing, crabbing, and hunting trips, with or without the adults.

During the Great Depression few people had boats, but you were able to rent skiffs for a dollar at various marinas. Some of our favorite locations were: the “trestles” at North and South Shore, Lake St. Catherine, Irish Bayou, Grand Isle, and Gulfport.

From 1941, when WW II began, until I returned home from service in the Air Corps, the first order of business was to contact uncle Joe and get the motor that was unused since the war began and get set up for fishing and hunting. When I picked up the motor, uncle Joe told me to keep it as a welcome home gift since he was in poor health and not using it anymore. My younger brother Jerry now became a fishing buddy since Randall died as a gunner in a B-24 in Europe. While attending Tulane, I could be seen most Fridays on Lake Pontchartrain at Bayou St. John using the motor to run the 100 crab nets my childhood friend Tom Satterlee and I had knitted.

Upon graduation I moved to Pittsburgh and stored it “out of the way” in the rafters of the garage of our home in Lakeview where it roosted from 1955 until 1970. When on a visitation I noticed it and put it in the luggage compartment of the Cessna I had flown there, planning to rebuild it “someday.” It therefore found a resting place in the rafters of my garages in Minnesota, where I then lived, and it suffered uncomplainingly through 31 severe winters.

Upon retirement I moved back to my ancestral breeding grounds here in Louisiana. On the last tour of my Minnesota house I discovered the motor in a not too visible place in the garage rafters. It became the final item put into the moving van, still waiting for its “someday.”

Its salvation finally came when my cousin Charlie Viosca was at a crawfish boil here at my Mandeville home, and noticed it in my garage.  He is an expert restorer of antique cars, and a model airplane builder of extraordinary skill at the air museum in Dallas. We put it in his car with the idea that he will see if it is worth restoring. Some months later he gave it back to me in the incredible pristine shape you see here. Rather than use it again, we decided to donate it to the museum where others can appreciate it here in Louisiana.

Uncle Joe’s motor has found its “someday”.

Bob Viosca,
Mandeville, Louisiana

Dad and I are driving across the New Orleans causeway to visit his cousin Vic.

Dad (musingly): For whom the turnpike tolls.

Dad (to his physical therapist, she is also a yoga instructor): When you do your workout in the morning are you clothed, or do you do your yogi bear?

The older you get, the more you receive impassioned pleas to include various organizations in your will. These pitches invariably appeal to you to “give back” something that you probably never got from them in the first place.

I have just scanned several such items of the “Begging” component of the three B’s (Begging, Bills, and Bullshit) that constitute a major portion of the junk mail that I have to pay Waste Management to haul off. With the spirit of giving back still fresh in my mind, I happened to view a television documentary about a people high in the Himalayas who “give back” to the world in the ultimate way.

The “Sky Burial” funerary ritual of this Tibetan and Mongolian sect is based on Vajrayana Buddhism and a belief in the transfiguration of the spirit and giving back to the earth. The bodies of their dead are chopped up by specialists (equivalent to our undertakers and autopsy performers, I assume) and fed to the vultures. The rite is performed at two adjacent sites, one for men, and one for women as the avian main course. After the vultures complete their work, the bones are crushed and mixed with a form of gruel and pelletized, the dining table is then completely cleaned off by the crows and jays. This is probably to eliminate the possibility of stray dogs dragging a tibia, clavicle, or skull into their masters’ huts.

No doubt, the surviving families take comfort in knowing that their beloved departed one’s final resting place is as buzzard poop deposited on crags and roosts high in the mountains as close to heaven as you can get on earth.

Some scholars speculate that the rite is not religious, but evolved over centuries as necessary due to the thin and rocky soil making interment in a normal manner hard work.

While devouring some lovely Lake Pontchartrain crabs recently, it occurred to me that here is an opportunity for me too to give back in a meaningful way. In consideration of the thousands of crabs consumed over a long lifetime, rather than cremate my remains, it would be a noble gesture to feed my mortal remains to the crab population of the lake.

This could be either of two ways. The first, The Ker Plunk approach would be to weigh the body down with concrete blocks and drop it from the stern of a boat at a location destined to become a genuine “man-made” fishing reef. Thus, after the crabs finish dining, the skeletal remains and cement blocks would become a “manmade” reef for juvenile speckled trout to find refuge from larger marine predators by hiding in the rib cage.

The second approach would involve chopping my remains into small enough pieces to fit into crab traps. This has the advantage of possibly selling them as bait for crab fisherman or bartering with them for the main course to be featured at a crab boil at a reception in honor of the deceased, me. A disadvantage to this approach is that some of the guests at such a reception may be squeamish and feel cannibalistic, since the crabs would likely contain some molecules of the not so dearly departed. The Ker Plunk approach appears to be preferred since it reduces this possibility by increasing the odds in favor of eliminating the middle man.

Enjoy the party.

Bob Viosca

At the first diagnosis the doctors said to me:

Rheumatic fever, and death by 33.

At the second diagnosis the doctors said to me:

Glaucoma eye drops
Rheumatic fever, and death by 33

At the third diagnosis the doctors said to me:

Transurethral Prostate Resection
Glaucoma eye drops
Rheumatic fever, and death by 33

At the fourth diagnosis the doctors said to me:

Basal cell carcinoma
Transurethral Prostate Resection
Glaucoma eye drops
Rheumatic fever, and death by 33

At the fifth diagnosis the doctors said to me:

Kidney Disease Phase 4
Basal cell carcinoma
Transurethral Prostate Resection
Glaucoma eye drops
Rheumatic fever, and death by 33

At the sixth diagnosis, the doctors said to me:

Cataract surgery
Kidney Disease Phase 4
Basal cell carcinoma
Transurethral Prostate Resection
Glaucoma eye drops
Rheumatic fever, and death by 33

At the seventh diagnosis, the doctors said to me:

Erectile Dis-function
Cataract surgery
Kidney Disease Phase 4
Basal cell carcinoma
Transurethral Prostate Resection
Glaucoma eye drops
Rheumatic fever, and death by 33

At the eighth diagnosis, the doctors said to me:

Five cardiac bypasses
Erectile Dis-function
Cataract surgery
Kidney Disease Phase 4
Basal cell carcinoma
Transurethral Prostate Resection
Glaucoma eye drops
Rheumatic fever, and death by 33

At the ninth diagnosis, the doctors said to me:

Mild heart attack and stents
Five cardiac bypasses
Erectile Dis-function
Cataract surgery
Kidney Disease Phase 4
Basal cell carcinoma
Transurethral Prostate Resection
Glaucoma eye drops
Rheumatic fever, and death by 33

At the tenth diagnosis, the doctors said to me:

Cancerous Nephrectomy
Mild heart attack and stents
Five cardiac bypasses
Erectile Dis-function
Cataract surgery
Kidney Disease Phase 4
Basal cell carcinoma
Transurethral Prostate Resection
Glaucoma eye drops
Rheumatic fever, and death by 33

At the eleventh diagnosis, the doctors said to me:

Bladder tumor removal
Cancerous Nephrectomy
Mild heart attack and stents
Five cardiac bypasses
Erectile Dis-function
Cataract surgery
Kidney Disease Phase 4
Basal cell carcinoma
Transurethral Prostate Resection
Glaucoma eye drops
Rheumatic fever, and death by 33

At the twelfth diagnosis, the doctors said to me:

Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement
Bladder tumor removal
Cancerous Nephrectomy
Mild heart attack and stents
Five cardiac bypasses
Erectile Dis-function
Cataract surgery
Kidney Disease Phase 4
Basal cell carcinoma
Transurethral Prostate Resection
Glaucoma eye drops
Rheumatic fever, and death by 33

At my 91^st birthday checkup, my doctor said to me:

“Keep up whatever you’re doing you’re putting my kids through college.”

“When I ‘woke’ up this morning I felt terrible because I didn’t sleep a wink.” -Dad

My dad and I are discussing cognitive metaphor, how we think metaphorically, i.e. up, more, lightness are good, while down, less, and darkness are bad, and how this relates to political narrative. We’re noticing that not all “up” cases are necessarily good, as in “up yours”, and “shove it up your ass”.

Randy: Well perhaps it’s because our digestive systems are vertically oriented.
Dad: There’s also up shit creek, without a paddle.
Randy: I’m with you there dad, ‘down’ the creek would be worse.
Dad: Yes, where the volume flow rate is greater. Perhaps “at the mouth of shit creek,” where Donald Trump lives.

Out shopping with dad, I pull into the parking lot, and by habit, I drive past the handicap/senior spots. With a smirk, pointing at the spots, he says, “Hey wait, why don’t you park in the short term parking.”

So dad’s cousin Vic is showing us all how his android phone can can look up words from his voice.

Vic (to phone): Ok google, ‘Juachin’.

Vic then looks up at us all watching him.

Vic (to us): Jeeze you guys must think I look silly talking to my hand.
Phone (Google responds):  Used as a contemptuous way of dismissing what someone has said (often accompanied by a gesture in which the palm of the hand is held in front of the original speaker’s face). “talk to the hand, girl, ‘cos the face ain’t listening”.

My vision’s changed, I’m seeing red.
The doctors don’t know why.
Why do you think, I paint clouds of pink,
Against a violet sky.

You’ve never seen a pink cow.
You say there cannot be one.
But I can tell you anyhow,
I’m surely going to see one.

Show me a cobalt blue cow.
If one you can ever find.
But I can tell you anyhow,
I’ll paint a mauve bovine.

So far, with apologies to Gellet Burgess:

Greens are gray and grays are red.
Blue is purple instead.
I see the world anew, when looking through
A  glaze of cadmium red.

Picasso had his blue and green phase,
Mine will be purple and red.
I’ll warmly paint abstracts these days
Seeing red,  until I’m  dead.

It’s not a curse, it could be worse.
I could see sienna or umber instead.
My paintings, I admit, would then look like shit.
Soooooo…
Tho I have no choice, I’m not adverse
To painting the the town in red.

If we see normal MRIs, of the brain behind the eyes.
Several opthamologists said.
Your chronic crimson visual haze,
Will evoke the cowardly cold war phrase
“Better red than dead”.

Continuing, with apologies to Omar Khayyam:

To see the veins in the retina, an injected dye is the mode.
It causes the red pee you see, when at your abode.
This can be quaint if used to paint a watercolor.
And given the lovely title, “ Sunset in the Commode.”

(on painting with peg usner one day)

Painting at a marina,  the weather is very hot.
Why plein aire “en rouge,” the doctors don’t know squat.
lf Omar Khayyam was here, he’d see
I’ve evoked an old joke to paint a genuine ruby yacht.

Feathers of pink, I think, look great on flamingos.
And red is fine on Rudolph the Reindeer’s nose.
But can you wink, at an egret of pink
in a swamp of lilac and madder rose?

A model in ante bellum garb, a house that could be Tara.
An artist’s set up, not the get up for a Verdi opera.
Rose-tinted sight, no sweat, unlike  Rhett, I frankly do give a damn.
So I’ll paint for you in colors true, a realistic Scarlett O’Hara.

I call my father and this is how the conversation starts:

Dad: Hello?
Randy: Hi pops, how ya doin?
Dad: Huh?
Randy: (loudly) I said, how…
Dad: Hold on a sec, gotta find my hearin’ aids.

(Lots of commotion in background followed by sound of him sitting back in the recliner, poof!)

Dad: Okay, I can hear now! Who dat?
Randy: It’s me, how…
Dad: Just a sec I’ll be right back…

(more commotion, kitchen cupboard doors slamming, drawers slamming, recliner poof!)

Randy: Jeeze pops, that’s a lot of ruckus going on there! What was that all about?
Dad: Oh, I just had to look in a few more spots, so I didn’t find ’em in the last place I looked.

Bob, on being labeled a “controversial” artist for his political paintings like “Frack, Baby, Frack”:

When fame is elusive, settle for notoriety!

I’m standing in line at Radio Shack in Mandeville, waiting to buy a camera flash to USB converter for dad’s camera. The flash is full and he can’t take any more pictures, so I need to upload them to his computer. Behind me an excited Harley biker dude in leather chaps decides that I’m the one he’s going to share his new pickup line with:

Biker (taps me on shoulder, and with a very Cajun accent): So ya walk up to her and say, “Ever kiss a parrot?”
Me: No… I can’t say that I have.
Biker: Well you look like you’ve kissed a Cockatoo.
Biker (whispering): But you only say it to the ladies.
Me (uncomfortably): Ah. Okay then. I’ll keep that in mind.

As he drove his earthmoving machine making a cut that would become the roadbed for a new highway across the country now known as Polemiczyk, Jozef Buzzzwicki was appalled to notice that he had uncovered an ancient ruin.  He was dismayed because he now would have to file a compliance report to the Ministry of Antiquities which had decades ago in the year 5004 BCE decreed that work would have to cease until a permit was issued following an archaeological dig. This would prevent him from virtually attending the championship game of his favorite sport.

Flagpoleball was a step of the evolutional descendent of a game three millennium ago known as “Basketball.” Over the centuries, through selective breeding, the professional players had evolved to be nine feet tall. However since it became boring to the fans and public interest waned when every possession resulted in a basket, changes were initiated requiring that the players crawl around on all fours and move the ball with their noses. Hence the wildly popular game “Noseball”, Jozef”s passion evolved.  Of course, the basket was changed to a net, smaller, lower and similar, to that used in what was then known as football in most countries, but soccer, in one, due to a prior claim to the use of the word “foot”.

The chief archaeologist in charge of the dig, Dr. Louiski Leakeyski, was sitting at his field desk reviewing the amazing findings and with the aid of his GPS and a little of help from Google, he was able to pinpoint the dig location to an ancient town known as Wadowice in a country then called Poland. Along with most of the known world it had been buried under many feet of ash from the eruption millennia ago of the volcano Yellowstone. His studies of the strata had indicated that the ruined structure had been built well before the known date of the eruption.

He was interrupted by the entry into his tent of a lovely but breathless Doris Nojusticewicz. She was his lead graduate student aide who had achieved a small measure of fame as a female activist who justly complained that “even here in the fifth millennium, due to bribery of politicians by PACs, women are still not paid equal wages to men.”

She quickly gasped “We have unearthed a significant find,” and was holding the remains of what appeared to be a very old sealed bag made of the material then known as plastic that had survived intact all those centuries.

Taking it from her trembling hands, Leakeyski placed it upon his desktop and gingerly unzipped the bag to examine its contents which were not visible due to the thick ash coating. To his amazement, inside he found a book, a pair of very much worn and aged cleated shoes, and an item of rotten fabric that could be a towel or part of a garment.

Taking first the book, he was able to make out the title “Catechism 101.”  Opening the cover he was amazed to find the owner’s name, Karol Wojtyla and the date 1935 BCE. He quickly Googled the name and became so excited that he lost a bit of bladder control. “Holy shit, Doris, this is obviously the gym bag of Saint John Paul II, this site must have been his high school, and he must have lost this somewhere in the building. Do you realize the significance of this? His bio says that he was an athlete in his youth and as Attacking Midfielder led his football team, the Wadowice Tadpoles, in their defeat of their arch rivals the Krakow Polecats. He scored the winning goal in that memorable game.”

In an effort to increase revenue the politicians took control of the items and immediately placed them on E-Bay.  The bidding across Christendom reached over 50MM euros for each item since it was obvious that such a relic in any church would astronomically increase donations by visiting pilgrims and tithing by the devout. The winning bid for the fabric item was placed by reigning Pope Sicola, using Pay Pal.  He immediately assembled a team of experts, similar to those who studied the Shroud of Turin, to verify its provenance and age. This team, using carbon dating, of a shred of the fabric and DNA comparisons of a hair attached to the fabric to that of a descendant in the Wojtyla family tree was able to confirm that it was indeed a garment worn by the revered Saint during his high school years circa 1934 BCE. Two of the analysis team were reported to have been cured of serious illnesses upon exposure to the fumes arising from the fabric sample; one was cured of terminal haemorrhoids and the other of cancer of the sweetbreads. Needless to say, this news electrified the world. Ailing and worshipping pilgrims seeking cures flocked in droves to view the relic, and, upon insertion of large euro notes into a machine in St. Peters Basilica, could inhale a slight whiff of fumes vended from the climate-controlled sealed display case, which is closely guarded by Swiss Guards to avoid desecration by jealous and zealous fanatics of competing faiths.

St. Peters Square, outside the Vatican, has been occupied 24/7 by massive crowds. The world demand for rosaries has outstripped production capabilities, and new, highly automated, Vatican licensed, factories, are springing up overnight in China.

At a CNN broadcast, a reporter interviewing people inside the basilica at the display said that she had cornered an Italian woman dragging her reluctant young boy and followed by her husband who obviously would rather be playing bocce ball. The high decibel prayer sounds could be heard as far away as the Trevi Fountain where numerous new Baptist converts were being baptized by total immersion, without even wearing personal flotation devices as required by the Coast Guard.

Upon completion of her allotted ten second viewing of The Relic, the boy, pointing at the relic asks, “Che cosa e’ che conchiglia facendo li.”ⁱ  After the mother admonishes him, pointing at the relic, he asks his father, “Quelle est cette tache jaune?”ⁱⁱ His father replied, “Sa coupe de’borde.”ⁱⁱⁱ

Amen

i    “What is that jockstrap doing there?”
ii   “What is that yellow stain?”
iii  “His cup runneth over.”

A number of years back, the 1986 movie “Stand By Me”, made popular the sport mailbox baseball, where kids drive around in a convertible taking out mailboxes with a baseball bat. So one of dad’s neighbors, tired of repairing his designer mailbox, who was an executive for the power company, and who lived a mile or so up the road, had the brilliant idea of installing a gigawatt lamp across the street facing my parents home. So started the great Hamel Minnesota lighting feud.

I remember one thanksgiving when family and friends were gathered at my parent’s house. We were all seated at the candle lit dining room table. Dad was in his fox hunting coat, sitting at the head, looking out over the grand expanse of his front yard. The wine had been flowing. The sun had just set. The turkey carcass was making it’s last rounds and was nearly bones. And mom was feeding a hound, Elvis, scraps under the table. From the road, over a football field away, there was flickering light that got brighter. Looking at dad you could see shadows forming from the window panes across him and the wall behind.

He was up in a flash, stopping only briefly at the coat closet. From the window we could see his silhouette as he trotted down the driveway into the light. A distant shot rang out, and the light on the wall turned green. More shots and our faces were orange, and then the light fizzled.

Returning to the house, he stowed the shotgun in the closet, smugly sat back down, and resumed dining. Elvis was rolling around on his back under the table as some guests pet him with their stocking feet. Except for the sound of clicking plates and silverware, it was quiet for a few minutes, and then a guest raised his glass and called a toast, “To the night!”

INT: Day – Bob’s living room.
We’re sitting around his coffee table. Pages, notes, and the storyboard for his comedy screenplay are strewn about. Bob is in his recliner, and I’m on the couch.

BOB (working a crossword):
We need to figure out how Juan is going to try to kill Tom from a distance, because Tom is still in Haiti getting his voodoo erectile dysfunction cure from Dr. Quackoir.
RANDY (sifting through papers on the coffee table):
Is that the scene where the Doctor sacrifices a goat? Because to cure ED, Shouldn’t there be a horse involved. That way later on, in the sex scene with Maxine, Tom can whinny.
BOB (smirking):
Well, no, I don’t think there’s an animal sacrificed. That’s later. But how about a donkey.
RANDY (annoyed):
Do you want Tom to bray in the sex scene? How about a tiger? Then he could roar. Although, people might get upset about tigers getting killed for their penises.
BOB:
Well, we could say Dr. Quackoir uses only “Free Range” tiger penis.
RANDY (hands up):
Okay, Okay. I’m sure that PETA people will be much happier with that distinction.
BOB (puts crossword down):
Anyway, I was thinking that Juan could hijack a drone and send it to Haiti to kill Tom.
RANDY:
But how does dying from a drone attack cause Tom to die from ED or a urological problem?
BOB (scratches head):
Yes, that’s the problem with the drone approach. Too much collateral damage.
RANDY:
How about a bomb, perhaps in a toilet? Is that close enough to urological?
BOB:
Yes, but, how would Juan, in the US, plant a bomb in a Haitian toilet, lure Tom there, and trigger it remotely from the US?
RANDY:
Umm… Could you have Tom wearing Depends? That way you could have Juan plant an explosive in the diaper. Juan could send Tom a box of depends as a going away present.

(INSERT: party scene with Tom opening a box of gift wrapped Depends brand diapers.)

BOB (eyes widen):
That’s interesting — a diaper bomb, an Improvised Explosive Depends — IED.

Bob leans forward in his recliner and re-arranges his pants, and then nestles back comfortably.

BOB (Cont’d) (looking over his glasses):
How would Juan trigger it?
RANDY (gesturing with hands):
The explosives could be tied to a Bluetooth transceiver linked to Tom’s phone.

(INSERT: padded diaper laced with C-4, blinking LEDs, and a chip with the Bluetooth symbol on it.)

RANDY (Cont’d):
Juan would then just need to call Tom’s phone, pair the diaper to the phone, and enter a code to detonate the diaper.
BOB:
And how does Dr. Quackoir save Tom then.
RANDY (gesturing):
Well, as Juan makes the call to detonate, but before he enters the code, Dr. Quackior puts the pin in the voodoo doll’s groin. And, just as you currently have, the husband of Juan’s lover enters and shoots Juan in the groin. Now, however, as Juan feebly tries to protect himself from the shot with his iphone, it is destroyed. We make it an iphone so it’s smaller, offers less protection, and only Apple people are offended.

Randy stands up and takes his phone from his pocket.

RANDY (Cont’d) (pointing at phone):
Yet another reason to insist only on Android smart phones with gorilla glass!

Dad’s sitting in his recliner in the living room and he’s preoccupied with some loose threads that are hanging from the corner of his shirt pocket. He’s getting frustrated.

Dad (annoyed): Could you grab me a pair of scissors?

I get up and start hunting them down. Can’t find them in the kitchen junk drawer, so I head to his art studio. Not in any of the junk drawers there either. Heading back into the living room…

Randy: Dad, where do you keep the scissors?
Bob: Who?
Randy (louder): Where do you keep the scissors?
Bob: Huh?
Randy (yelling): Dad! Are your hearing aids in?
Bob: Yes! What do you want?
Randy (pause): … Um, I forgot, shit.
Bob: Say, could you find the scissors for me?

Lather, rinse, repeat…

Justin and Zeke stood at the edge of the frozen lake. “Do ya think it’s thick enough yet to go ice fishing?” was Zeke’s question to Justin, his friend for the ten years of their lives, all of which had been spent here along the pond. Everyone called it a pond, but actually it was a small Minnesota lake of over 150 acres. Justin said “I can’t wait to put out the ice shack and pull in some walleyes and northerns.”

He continued as he put one foot onto the ice to test its strength. The ice held, but he could swear he heard it give a sigh as he added his weight to it. He said, “Maybe we’d better wait another week.” Zeke said, “Take a walk on it Justin. Check it out. Don’t be chicken.”  His response was, “I’m not chicken. Here goes nothing.” He then stepped onto the ice and his dog Max, the retriever, always his companion, followed and ran ahead about fifty feet.

Justin’s heart sank when he heard the crack of the ice breaking under Max’s feet. “Holy shit, Zeke, it’s an ice hole!” Justin shouted to Zeke. He was referring to the random places around the lake where the ice would always be thin, being above one of the sulfurous hot springs that fed the lake. These were the reason that the Ojibwas had named the lake “Ughnosa” which actually meant “Place Where the Fart God Dwells.” The more prudish whites over a century ago translated it as Stench Lake.

Residents alongside the lake included a high percentage of citizens who suffered from severe flatulence. They were attracted to the area because they were less likely to be blamed for any vile odors that wafted across their dinner table.  The Olson family dining room wall, in typical Minnesota fashion held a moose head, deer head, and a muskie, all evidence of the family prowess in predation on the local fauna. Usually the source of the insult to the olfactory was from the lutefisk dish being served.  Lutefisk, practically a staple among those of Scandinavian descent, was about as popular among those locals classified as “outsiders” as grits among Yankees. Max too, appreciated that, at least in the Olson household, such accusations were no longer ultimately blamed on the dog, but were now blamed on Lake Stench.

Max gave his “get my ass out of here bark.” Justin knew exactly what Max meant since he and the dog had a relationship rarely seen between man and canine.  Max, who everyone thought was a golden retriever, was actually a Bavarian Brauhund. As such, he had the peculiar dietary habits of his breed. He would only eat his kibble if it was soaked in Lowenbrau, although, if it was not available he would sometimes settle for Spaten. He demanded sauerkraut and knockwurst as a main course during Oktoberfest.

But for all these peculiarities, he was a dog with a brilliant mind. He had a Grade Point Average of 3.99 out of four during his training in Obedience School as shown on his transcript. He had covered the seven years of courses in only one dog year. He would have had a solid 4.0 average except for the course “Slipper Fetching 101.” Dr. Phineas Dogbody, his professor had a deep prejudice against anything German, having lost his lower left leg to frostbite during the Battle of the Bulge.

He was suspicious from the outset due to the name Max, but his suspicions were confirmed that Oktoberfest when Max came to class wearing the darling lederhosen that Mrs. Olsen had tailored for him from deerskin. Max considered the embroidered edelweiss border on the shoulder straps to be a lovely additional touch.

When he ascertained that Max was Bavarian, he downgraded his grade to B+, the lowest he could without turning both cheeks of his bias. This was particularly unfair since Max had perfected slipper fetching to a science and would actually put the slippers on his master’s feet, after fetching them.

Max retaliated when at the graduation ceremony he peed on Dr. Dogbody’s good leg. He, having no time for a registration round, astutely “fired for maximum effect”, avoiding Dogbody’s prosthesis in favor of his good leg and nailing him on the gastrocnemius five centimeters below the patella. Dr. Dogbody did not respond immediately. He merely thought that his Depends had failed. He did however realize the next morning that Max was responsible for the severe rash that developed on his leg and the dissolved portion of the lower pants leg of his best Brooks Brothers suit. For, indeed, Max had used the same industrial strength caustic charge that had stripped the paint off all the fire hydrants within two kilometers of the Olson residence.

Justin had raised Max from puppyhood, and had spent long hours teaching him to communicate in American Sign Language. He was hampered by the fact that Max lacked an opposing thumb and long well defined fingers. Max’s signs therefore were abbreviated but he could readily understand what Justin signed. All of this made Justin’s job easier, as Max’s ears had become frosted over.

Justin’s mother could not know this as she watched from the kitchen window. She immediately called 911 and dashed to the barn to find a rope. The ladder was too short to do any good, and all she could find was Justin’s rod and reel, which still held his favorite large red and white lure. She grabbed it and ran to the lake edge. By this time Justin had signed Max to quit struggling and just hold on to the edge of his ice hole.

Lying down on the ice to spread his weight, he removed his trousers and slithered on his stomach toward Max. He stopped long enough to sign Max to grab one of the pants leg cuffs with his teeth and lay flat on the ice. He then he tossed one leg to Max while holding the cuff of the other leg. Max understood and did as directed. Then Justin tried to slide back to shore pulling Max, but couldn’t get enough traction. He heard an ominous loud crack indicating a possible massive break in the ice.

Meanwhile at the shore, Mrs. Olson was conferring with their ancient neighbor Mr. Svenson who was feeding the birds at the lakeside. “Do you have a long ladder?” She asked.

Cupping his hand to one ear he replied “Vot’s a wrong father?” he asked.

“Not a wrong father, a long ladder” she responded.

“Eh?” was the reply from Svenson, cupping both hands to his ears.

“Uff Da!” she said, “How about a long rope?” Svenson said “Vot do you vant vith a long robe now. Let’s get dem off de eis before vorrying how to keep dem varm”

Exasperated, Justin’s Mom took Justin’s fishing rod and checked the drag. She made a cast toward Justin and Max now struggling for traction in one place on the ice just as a large crack opened behind them. Unfortunately she was short by ten feet. Retrieving the line, she again opened the bail of the spinning reel and casted again and again. Finally, she struck home and nailed Justin’s left buttock with the lure. Justin gave a howl as she set the hooks firmly, but his mom persevered. Fortunately, Justin had 30 pound mono on the reel, being after large northern pike. Setting the drag to maximum, she gingerly played in Justin and Max using the same pumping action her husband had taught her to use when she caught the dining room muskie.

With each five foot advance the ice crack kept ominously following them closely toward shore.

Mr. Svenson contributed to the confusion by helpfully offering advice, shouting “Dot’s it Miz Olsen. Dot’s it. Play him, don’t yackass him and break the line. Gute! Gute! Is this vot dey mean whan dey say you’re ‘hauling ass’.” In this manner, she landed Justin and Max on the shore just as the 911 team arrived.

They immediately asked her to show a current fishing license, then measured and weighed Justin and declared him a record catch for Lake Stench. Justin’s yells could be heard as far away as downtown Minneapolis, as they excised the multiple treble hooks from his left gluteus maximus, stitched and bandaged it.

Two weeks later at dinner, Justin was still sitting on a pillow. To avoid any false accusations, Max prudently crept from the room, when the lutefisk arrived.  On the wall, alongside the deer head (odocoileus virginianus), the moose head (alces alces), and the muskie (esox masquinongy), there is now prominently displayed the exact replica of Justin’s pink rear end with the red and white lure embedded that his mother had a taxidermist prepare. The name plate on the plaque reads (Homo Sapiens Justinius Sesquiculus). Max could be seen in the doorway to the dining room with an obvious smile on his face. For he had had aced Latin from CI through CCCII at Obedience School and knew that sesquiculus translated as “asshole and a half”.

Mary ran from the house. She was desperately trying to make it to the outhouse on time. She was particularly panicky, being completely dressed in her wedding gown and suffering from Chronic Diverticulitis, Chrone’s Disease, and Irritated Bowel Syndrome, she had been particularly susceptible to an intestinal calamity being precipitated by the nervous jitters she experienced while awaiting to be picked up by her Uncle Ezra and Aunt Henrietta. She was reviewing in her mind just how to handle the numerous crinoline petticoats she was wearing when she would be trying to function within the confines of the crude one-holer.

Dear uncle Ez would be walking her down the aisle since she had been orphaned several years ago when both of her parents succumbed during the wave of Bubonic Plague that swept through her home town of East Overshoe, Iowa.

For today was the day she would become Mrs. Harvey Winebucks, wife of the scion of the Winebucks family, and the sole inheritor of the Winebuck vintner’s fortune. He, of the family dominated by the mean spirited matriarch, Sara Lee Winebucks, who had tried numerous devious means to discourage Harvey from marrying Mary, persisted, but everyone knew that Sara Lee, who had the temperament of a wolverine, would make life difficult for Mary.  Fortunately, one of the wedding gifts Mary received from a friend, the local mafia don, was an offer to put out a contract on Sara Lee if things got too unbearable in the future.

The Winebucks wines enjoyed a great following over the years. Harvey’s father, the late Merlot Winebucks had come to America during the phylloxera infestation that wiped out the French vines. He had anglicized the family name “Vinfranc” and prospered to become one of the largest vintners in the world.

At the outset of World War II, his vineyards in France were seized by the Nazis and his signature Grand Crud became Hitler’s favorite, but his ordinaires were so toxic as to have been selected by Eichmann as his favorite house wine.

His strict adherence to traditional winemaking procedures featured the rejection of modern masceration equipment in favor of hand, or rather foot, techniques. Through genetic engineering, he solved the serious problems of pollution of the wine by tinea pedis fungi transmitted from the feet of the people tromping on the grapes. Tinea pruris fungi which also had been a problem in the deeper vats also became rare.  His wines developed not merely a resistance but actually killed off these infections.  As a result, athlete’s foot and jock itch are no longer a threat to vintners using his grape strain and time-honored methods.

His Chateau LaFeet Winebucks is being collected by wealthy oenophiles and put aside for their death. Contracts have been signed for their use then by the world-wide funeral director Plantem & Mourne for their embalmment. In this manner they can spend eternity “accompanied by a fine wine.”

As Mary, holding up her lovely gown, dashed madly for the privy, she bumped into Jake, the hired hand who had for years been making crude, unwelcomed attempts to seduce her. He grabbed her roughly and said “Gimme a kiss Mary, gimme a kiss”. Mary was as usual, repulsed by the crude, uncouth, unwashed Jake.  He had long nose hairs. And the few remaining teeth were so coated as to resemble the pilings in Lake Stench. Mary felt a moment of pity for Jake when she noticed that he had braided his nose hairs in anticipation of attending her wedding reception, but she rapidly overcame it.  She mustered all her strength and delivered a powerful knee to Jake’s groin which caused his collapse.  Unfortunately, the time lost and pressure of this action was too great and produced a calamitous result for Mary.

Jake, who had now partially recovered, again approached Mary, but quickly gave up the chase since he was downwind of her. Then he, who bathed regularly every year whether he needed it or not, left gasping and heading into the prevailing westerlies en route to his straw pile in the barn loft where he slept amidst the other vermin.

Undaunted , but free of Jake’s clutches, Mary now turned and rapidly ran down the path leading to Skunk Creek which meandered  through the farm on its journey  ultimately  to join the Mississippi downstream. Taking a deep breath  ,  as she had done so many times growing up, she mounted the tire on a rope hanging from the old oak, launched herself out to the middle , and dropped  into the creek. She then thrashed about violently.

As she started from the creek, another problem arose.  Downstream , one Harry Testes, a field inspector with the Environmental Protection Agency  was conducting routine water quality tests and was appalled by the results he was getting.  He followed the pollution upstream to its source where he found Mary standing dripping on the bank. He promptly issued her a citation for discharging untreated effluent into the heretofore pristine waters. This would carry a fine of $2,000 at her court appearance later at which it would be revealed that she had polluted the Mississippi successively  from Cairo, to St. Louis, to Cape Giradeau, to Memphis, Vicksburg, and onward  to New Orleans. Later tests would show that she was also responsible for a two square miles increase in the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico.

With time running out, she dashed madly into the house and mustering all of her resourcefulness devised a plan to save her wedding day.  Since the well had gone dry, she dried herself off as best she could using a box of Kleenex and within the time frame she was compelled to work in.  It was not possible to consider washing, drying, and ironing the dress, and having read “Gone with the Wind” several times, she remembered Scarlet O’Hara’s solution to her costume problem.  She then ran into her boudoir and tore from the windows the organdie curtains.  Locating her white bikini swimsuit, she then, working on the kitchen table, proceeded to staple and duct tape the organdie material to strategic spots on the two piece suit.  The result was dramatic in that it displayed the heart and arrow tattoo on her midriff with the words “Mary Loves Harvey” inscribed in it in 50 point Times New Roman Bold.

As she worked she reflected on the romantic night that Harvey had proposed. She recalled how he had knelt on his good knee and said “Mary, I pledge my troth to thee, will you pledge thine to me?”  He was prone to using flowery language.  Mary, not knowing what her “troth” was, thought he had said “trough”, but she agreed.  At their next meeting, she proudly brought him, cleaned and gift wrapped, one of the ones that had been used for decades to slop the hogs on her farm. It had developed a lovely patina and the chewed edges gave it the appearance of a perfect item to take to the next “Antiques Roadshow”.

The doorbell rang and she answered to greet Uncle Ez who hugged her and said “You look gorgeous Mary. The swoosh on your white Nike running shoes keys beautifully with the cockroach tattoo on your left buttock.”  With a flick of her index finger, Mary dispatched a Periplaneta Americana saying “That’s no tattoo, Uncle Ez, the damn things are taking over the joint. They seem to find me particularly attractive today, as do the house flies.”  This she said while attempting to shoo away a squadron of Musca Domestica circling her in search of a safe and nutritious landing site on her lovely, once white, now greatly exposed epidermis.  Then, obliterating one that landed on her Nike Swoosh, she said to Uncle Ez “Let’s get the hell out of here, Sara Lee can’t be any worse than this dump.”

Mary entered the car and sat in the back seat. Uncle EZ quickly used the controls on the driver’s side door to open fully every window in the car. As they started to depart her cell- phone rang and Mary, excusing herself, quickly answered  it.  She said into the phone “Yes, this is Mary… Yes. …Yes…Yes… Oh Nooo” and that’s when her difficulties began.

Bob Viosca

Years ago, in New Orleans, in the early 1930’s, my aunt Fay had an impatient conversation with her aunt Thelma Louise. Fay was probably ten at the time. Thelma was in a hurry getting dressed up, and Fay was asking where she was going, and Thelma kept saying “I feed ’em, and I’m gonna go.” Fay didn’t think she was hearing properly and kept asking, and Thelma kept impatiently repeating it, “I feed ’em, and I’m gonna go!”

Fay went home, and her mom, Grandma Alice, who saw Thelma Louise all dressed up, and leaving, asked Fay, “Where’s Thelma goin’ Honey?” And Fay said, “I don’t know mama, she wouldn’t tell me. Whenever I asked her she just kept saying, “I feed ’em, and I’m gonna go!””

So a year ago, in 2010, Fay tells this story to my father, Bob. And over coffee, the two of them Google bits and peices it on the internet. They figure out Aunt Thelma was on her way to the opera, and what she was really trying to tell Fay, over 75 years ago, was that she was going to the opera “La fille de Madame Angot.”

http://translate.google.com/translate_t?hl=&ie=UTF-8&text=La+fille+de+Madame+Angot&sl=fr&tl=en#

My father, Bob, was born in 1925 and lives in Mandeville, Louisiana, a small town north of New Orleans across Lake Pontchartrain, about 24 minutes on the causeway the longest bridge in the world. Bob does pretty well for his age; he still goes fishing in his boat on the lake, the Rigolets, Lake Borgne, and the brackish water passes that connect Pontchartrain to the Gulf of Mexico. These same waterways caused no end of troubles for the British in the war of 1812 and the battle of New Orleans, but Bob fires up his GPS and navigates his way.

That’s not bad for a man born before the great depression. Unfortunately his hearing isn’t what it used to be. Dad’s refrigerator freezer is mostly filled up with fish from all his expeditions. He catches lots of red fish, drum, croakers, flounder, and sheepshead, nets crab, and loves to give it all away to visiting friends and relatives who smuggle it in their bags for cross country flights, probably to the annoyance of the luggage inspecting TSA.

When he hasn’t had guests for a while, the freezer compartments get awfully tight with all those frozen fish packed in ziplock baggies. So when he’s in there digging around for the ice cream he can’t hear the loud ruckus he’s making as those frozen packages are jostling about in his quest. Nor does he hear it when a berg of sheepshead falls out and skitters between his legs, across the tile floor into the open pantry, nestling quietly in among the bags of potatoes, rice and flour, the Zatarains, and the mirliton.

About a month goes by and Bob starts thinking somethings gone wrong with his nose, like he’s got a bad sinus infection. But eventually he figures out that he doesn’t smell it by the boat in the garage, and it’s strongest in the kitchen. Then, after falsely accusing the refrigerator and throwing out half his food, he discovers a spoiled gumbo brewing in his pantry. So he wraps it up nicely and gives it to the garbage man.

L-R: Felix Jerome Viosca, Felicie Fay Viosca, Randall Clement Viosca, Alice Helene Baudean Viosca, Robert Raymond Viosca, and Felicie Rolle Baudean (Alice’s mother). Camera probably facing northwest across Chef Menteur pass. The old iron bridge is no longer there.

Many of the unspoiled New Orleans recipes Bob cooks came from his mother, Alice Baudean. When he was going to Tulane night school after leaving the army, post World War II, he used to cook the family meals with Alice while he studied at home during the day. So he learned many of her recipes for things like New Orleans seafood and chicken gumbo, jambalaya, shrimp and crawfish étouffée, crawfish bisque, stuffed crabs, oyster patties, and oyster dressing. Alice learned many of her recipes from her mother, Felicie Rolle Baudean. And that’s as far back as Bob knows.

Bob’s tips for modifying most gumbo recipes to make them great:

1. Brown all ingredients separately and deglaze with water and dump ingredients and deglazed liquids into the gumbo stock pot (you are in effect cleaning the pan with water and dumping the water into the stock pot).
2. Browned chicken thighs and their deglazings can be added as they make a nice base.
3. After cleaning the shrimp, make a stock from the shells, throw the shells away, and add the liquid to the stock pot. Optionally brown the shells first before making the stock.
4. Brown the shrimp, add deglazings to the stockpot but keep shrimp aside to add when gumbo is near done simmering (shrimp is fragile and will fall apart if simmered for too long so add later).
5. Lightly brown the okra but throw the deglazings away (browned okra is bitter and ruins the gumbo), add last before simmering.
6. Make a medium dark roux and add it last before simmering. The roux can be done with the vegetables or separately. Bob prefers separately as the darkness can be better controlled.
7. If, after the gumbo is done simmering, it doesn’t come out dark enough, a very dark roux can be added. In a pinch, Alice used to add some left over thick dark chicory coffee to darken it.

Bon Appetit