Search This Blog

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Why I Love My Nephews



She-who-must-be-obeyed and I had some light-hearted stationery made up, and it featured the drawings of a man, under whom was my name, a woman, under which was her name, and so on. You get the idea.

The last picture was a dog and under the dog was the name Carl.

This was my idea of a joke.

At the time, I did not own a dog: this was before the days when saints Cymbalta and Zoloft came to town on pilgrimage...and never left. I thought that I was allergic to the great, floppy things...as well as their small, diminutive, yappy cousins. When we visited people who did own dogs, and the great brute mastiffs jumped up on us,  or did that leg thingey, we did not gleam with delight.
When the owners said, "Rover, come on. So-and-so doesn't want you jumping all over him.", we did not contradict this observation. Sometimes I gave one of those sickly smiles and said, "Indeed. Indeed, Rover." Sometimes I frowned mightily, and said - as Ahab did to Stubb - "Down, dog, and kennel!"

When conversation turned to Antiquity, I would say things like  "You probably do know more about mediaeval Europe, living with the animals in the house as you do..."

Well, I had the dog placed on the stationery because I liked comic books.
When someone were to ask me (they never did ... which demonstrates the obstinate lack of interest of most people in the accoutrements and emblems that we bedeck our own lives with...unless we are certified celebrities) why we had a dog on the stationery, I would say, " Carl barks."
This, of course,  meant the Disney comic book artist of the 1940s and 1950s, Carl Barks.


My nephews did not ask. They saw the letter and drawings and went into gales of laughter. We indeed are kindred spirits.

5 comments:

Ruth said...

Well you are a bit oblique as usual, and I always fear I will say something profoundly dumb. Is there an allusion to Karl Barth in this?

Or is that the obvious thing your nephews didn't have to ask about?

:|

Montag said...

I guess I am oblique...not to say deliberately misleading...
Sorry.

Carl Barks was the artist it was all about.
When I had the stationery printed up, I had the dog included as a joke...even though no one ever asked about it. Everyone assumed I had a dog named Carl....or used to have one, and included his picture as some sort of memorial.

My nephews knew that I loved old Donald Duck comic books, and I esteemed Carl Barks...so....that's how that happened.

It is not very funny when you think about it. It is a deliberate effort to turn the world - a fine and straight-forward place with no mysteries whatever - into something resembling a fun house from "Killer Klowns from Outer Space". (or do I have this backwards?)

I shan't do it again!

Montag said...

...that was a struggle...

It seems my own comments have been banned from my site.

Odd.

Oh, well. Back on track.

Catherine Jeffrey said...

I also have a dog who arrived on pilgrimage after traveling 3,000 miles across this great country with my daughter who was a tree planter at the time. She found him wandering along the Trans Canada Hwy, and (unbeknown to me) decided she needed to hitchhike home and save him. You know the rest of the story. She had to go back to work. If my husband hadn't read that dogs can prolong life and reduce heart attacks, I don't know where he'd be.
What I intended to say is don't stop turning this straight forward world into a fun house. Anyway, thanks for my morning chuckle.

Ruth said...

Oh dear. No no. Do not think my comment means I feel left too much outside. It's a good exercise reading what you write and sweeping out some cobwebs in me head. Please don't say you shan't do anything!