Freddogg Off The Chain

My problem with Christmas presents goes back to when I was 14 years old and just learning how to curse for real. I have always been open to assimilate new words into my vocabulary but I was slow to understand that not all words are acceptable in all situations although they may be the best words for the moment.

The cardboard box from Seattle arrived the week before Christmas like it did every year of my life. It was dropped on the living room floor and ripped open from the top and out came the newspaper, then the Holly, and I always thought Holly was from Seattle, only because I never saw any in Philadelphia.

Mrs. Greer, who met my parents when my father was in the army and stationed in Seattle, always sent the package and presents for the children.

My father was in a wheel chair, totally disabled by MS, and getting worse by the day, but nevermind all that, what was in that box for me?

Here’s yours, my big brother Tom said, throwing something oddly shaped inside a box at my head. I opened it and out came a plastic player ukulele and when I turned the handle it played, ”Oh Suzannah.”

I cranked it and cranked it and finally blurted out,”A fucking ukulele! Just what I always wanted, a fucking ukulele! Am I the only one here with a fucking ukulele?”

My mother, smiling a vacant Christmas smile, while her one true love of loves Tommy, sat terminal in a wheelchair, surrounded by her three children, swooped across the room, ripped the ukulele from my grip in the middle of “don’t you cry for me” and whacked me over the head with the flat part, as the ukelele broke in half and she was left holding the shaft.

“Easy come, easy go, ”she said. “David no longer has the only fucking ukulele in the entire fucking town.”

My father laughed, like a lions roar. My siblings smirked because I was an idiot.

Men spend their lives not looking for Christmas presents because in America if there is something a man wants he already has it and if I ever find a player ukulele that plays Oh Suzannah I will keep it next to the tree ready to crown the first person who cracks wise,”Oh look what I got from Fredman, a coupon from an extra cheese pizza. Fucking way cool!”

Yours in dueling banjos

Pappa Fredman