CHRISTMAS EVE 1973

12-26-2016  I'm re-titling this:  SPEAKING OF ELECTIONS

 12-24 73

Family dinner in Westwood, Massachusetts. Christmas Eve with older son Ted and wife Maureen, daughter Kathie and hubby Dick White, son Tim solo, younger daughter Vonnie and current boyfriend, Ronnie, blogger Mom and current boyfriend, Jack.  My ex-hubby Ed must be in Florida.    

                                         

Ted   Hey, if there are any oysters in the stuffing that you don’t want, let me know.  They look like little tushes.

Vonnie  What’s a tush?

Dick  Use your imagination.

Kathie   As soon as we finish eating, you’ll have to tell them your joke.

Dick   Which one?  Oh, the First Family joke.

Tim  Have you all seen the bumper sticker, Impeach the Cox Sacker?  That’s a beauty.

Mom   Oh yes.  We’ve all misread it.

Dick   What do you mean, misread it?

Vonnie   I didn’t misread it.

Mom   Even my Community Sex group said they did when they first saw it. They couldn’t believe it.

Dick   You mean they thought it was shocking?

Ted   They read it as it sounds instead of the way it was meant.  Hi Jack, how’re you doing?  We’ll need another chair.

Jack   How are you, Ted?

Ted   Fine, and you?  You’re very lovable, Jack, but just stay out of the oysters.

Jack   Don’t worry about it, I’ll gladly keep my distance.

Vonnie aside to Ronnie  You’ll tell your joke about the Scotchman, all right?  No, not right now.

Ted   This is just out of this world, Mom.  The oysters, there isn’t any question, it’s good.

Vonnie   Mom, remember when you wrote to me when you were abroad, and you said you asked the Scotchman what he had under his skirt.  Do you remember that postcard?

Me   Sort of. 

Vonnie   Later on Ronnie is going to tell you about a Scotchman and somebody asked him what he had under his skirt. 

Dick  His kilt.

Ted   There are enough Nixon bumper stickers out now for somebody to collect them and create a book out of it.  What’s the one you’ve got on your car, Maureen?

Maureen   “Say goodnight, Dick.”

Ted   Yeah, “Say goodbye, Dick.”

Mom   I like the picture of the state of Massachusetts that says, “We told you so.”

Ted   I like the one that says “Nixon 49, America 1.”

Dick   It’s kind of funny, though, you go out to the Midwest, I was out in Chicago and everyone’s got the bumper sticker, “At least no one drowned at Watergate.”

Everyone:  Oh, right!

Ted   Every Millhouse has its Watergate?

Jack to Mom   Merry Christmas, dear.

Mom   Many happy returns.

Ted   Did you see how Nixon’s now seeking immunity for all the people in the oil industry so they can make excess profits and probably slip him lots of payola?

Mom   They certainly can afford it.

Ted   There we were sitting in the harbor, wondering whether or not we’re gonna be able to get fuel for the boat to make our swordfishing trip, and the jets are flying over, the Air Force jets, one after the other steadily.  Pensacola the same way.

Mom   Billions every month.

Tim  Yeah,  boy,  the Navy and the Air Force certainly have no shortage.  They’re all out there flying away and driving their vehicles.

Ted   Taking joy rides.

Mom   They have to protect us from those Vietnamese.  Do you want those Vietnamese coming over here and bombing us?

Dick   Actually, we’ve been threatened by Transylvania.  [laugh from Vonnie]  At this point we need the protection because we’re so unpopular.

Ted   Jack, would you like to have some salad?

Jack    I’m done.

Mom   Yes, Jack would like some salad.  [No, I wouldn’t.] It’s my famous homemade salad.  [Is it?]

Vonnie   It’s delicious—mmm,mmmm!

Dick   We now can offer Option B.  Take the salad .  [general laughter.]

Ted   Just send your plates down when you’re ready.  

Jack   Is there really a little bit left there?

Ted   Mmhm, there’s quite a bit.

Dick   Did you hear they finally did impeach Nixon, and he was convicted.  He was thrown out of the White House.  The IRS confiscated every possession that he had.  He was left with nothing.  Trish and Julie disowned him.  They wanted nothing to do with him.  Halderman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, all the rest of his old friends, they totally disowned him.  He was worse than a leper.  So he and Pat ended up living in a cold-water flat in New York, no money, absolutely destitute.  Nobody’d give him a job and Welfare wouldn’t accept him, and he couldn’t get any money anywhere.

     So finally one night, they were sitting around and Nixon said to Pat, Well, there’s only one recourse left.  You’re going to have to go out and do street work.  And she said, I could never do that, it’s beneath my dignity, after all I’m the former First Lady of the Land..  He said, Well, those days are gone forever, and kid, we gotta do something. 

     So finally a couple of days later she agreed and she got all the wrinkles she could out of the one dress she owned  [Mom  I thought you were going to say her face!] {mixed laughter} and fixed herself up    Did the best she could and at 8:00 in the evening, she went out and hit the streets.  Tricky stayed home and doodled on his yellow pad. 

     She came back about 3:00 in the morning, and he said, “How much money did you get?”  “Twenty-three dollars and ten cents.”  He said, “Twenty-three dollars and ten cents!  Who gave you that dime? And the three ones?” [laughter]

    “The moral of the story is, if Nixon would only do to Pat what he’s doing to the country, everybody would be better off.”  [much laughter]

Ted   Maureen was telling me that while we were away we had Nixon’s secretary on television, and she was [Vonnie  Oh, that was the most far-fetched story I ever heard in my life!] telling everybody how she erased the tape by accident with her foot, and they set it all up in the courtroom and she went to do it, and she couldn’t reach the buttons?  [mixed laughter]

     And then she said, Well uh, it’s not the same as it was in the office, and so they reset it all up in the office the next day, and she couldn’t do it in the office, either.

Vonnie   Yeah, and she had supposedly done it for 18 minutes?

Ted   You know who’s really done the best, I think, with this whole situation is that guy that writes, does the--

Mom   Buchwald.

Ted   Well, he always is great, but I never really appreciated that other guy—

Vonnie   Szep.

Dick   The Globe cartoonist?  He’s great.

Ted   Oh yeah, he makes some great caricatures.

Vonnie   You should have seen the one he did about Nixon's secretary. She was all tangled up and her face was all twisted up!  [laughter] 

Sound of something falling.
Vonnie   Teddy did it.

Mom   The tape recorder landed on your foot?

Ted   I saved the tape recorder, but I ruined my foot. 

Maureen   Poor Teddy, he’s in pain.

Mom   Vonnie, say something sympathetic.  Poor Teddy!

Vonnie   Something sympathetic.  Poor Teddy!

Mom   Is it still plugged in, Vonnie?  [Yes.]  The little wheel’s going around? 

Vonnie Yes, Mummy, while you’re talking the thing is going around.  Jack, could you use some Mountain bread?

Jack   No thanks.

Ted   Well, it’ll just go to those poor little birds hopping around out there, I guess.  They’re probably so overfed they can’t fly.

Dick  When are you going to have your news conference at the Boat Club?

Ted  My news conference?

Vonnie  We all want to know what’s happening.
Dick    Honest to God, Ted, in the last two weeks at the Boat Club, I’ve had 28 people ask me what the hell you’re doing.  I told them you were writing a book about the sea.

Vonnie   What the hell are you doing?

Ted   That’s right, I’m writing a book about the sea.

Mom   You’re not playing any squash?

Ted   Well, the courts don’t fit too well on the boat.

Mom   I know, but you’re home now.

Dick   And the water doesn’t fit too well on the court.

Vonnie  (giggle)

Ted   No, I am home now, that’s very true.  And I hope to get on the squash courts right after tomorrow.

Dick   You missed all the innovations they instituted.  They varnished the floors [Oh?]  and they’re putting hasps on all the lockers. [Oh?] And it’s just as filthy as it always was.

Ted   That’s what I heard. Mike Windsor said the place has really slipped.

Dick   When did you see Mike?  He was one of the guys asking about you.

Ted   I saw him down at the Mall today.  Crossed the last one off my Christmas list.  I ran into Elliott Berry in the airport, just getting ready to fly home to New York, and he’s just about ready to cut his throat.  He says, “Max Turner calls me at least three times a day to change the light bulbs in the men’s room and things like that.”

Dick   He’s not doing a very good job.

Ted   Well, he may not be, but the fellow is supposed to be a squash professional, not a janitor, and if you treat a squash professional or any professional like a janitor, chances are he’s not going to be back the next day.

Dick   Well, the other thing, according to Turner, they hired him to be a manager, not just a squash coach. 

Ted   Mike  says that, too.

Tim   How about some salad, it’s good.

Dick   The thing that aggravated Turner and a lot of other people, right when the squash season started, Berry took a two-week vacation.

Vonnie  I had six Slim Jims before we left, I was so hungry.  And a bag of potato chips.

Ted   They’re taking advantage, putting him in that position and not paying him for it.  I think that’s the problem.  He’s not making any money at all.

Vonnie   THERE AREN’T ANY OYSTERS LEFT.

Mom   Everybody heard you, Vonnie, that’s for sure.

Vonnie   Shhh.

Mom to tape recorder  That was Vonnie who said that. 

Tim   Are you kidding?  Is that thing running?

Mom   Say something!

Tim   Jesus Christ!

Ted  That was very good.

Mom   That was Timmy Malley.

Dick    As if he needed to be identified.

Vonnie   The M C is Kathleen Malley White.

Ted  The one voice you can be sure is not getting on the tape is Maureen’s. [laugh from Vonnie]  She hasn’t even said boo today. 

Dick   How about one big Boo?

Tim   Let’s see now, what would Dick Nixon do with this?

Vonnie  The microphone?

Mom   Rosemary’s boo-boo.

Maureen  She was on Johnny Carson.

Mom   She was?  Or that expression? 

Ted   Rosemary’s booboo?  What’s this about Rosemary’s booboo?

Mom   Well, this is what they called her little mistake with the tape.  Rosemary’s booboo.

Ted   Oh.

Mom   One of the cartoonists featured Rosemary’s booboo, too, and they had Nixon hiding behind the door, looking hopeful.

Dick   Remember the great No Air tape?

B  Oh, no air, right.  Who was the New York motorcyclist?

Tim  Me. Boston to New York.

Dick  With no air.

Mom   Who kept saying “No Air?”

Tim and Ted   Rob.

Mom  Did you hear Rob’s getting married?  At 34?

Vonnie  [with huge intake of breath]  He is?  I think he was getting bald, anyway, I’m not interested any more.

Dick  No, he’s not bald.

Vonnie  His hair was starting to get thin, wasn’t it?

Mom   What’s wrong with a receding hairline?  A lot of people have those all their lives.

Vonnie   I used to have a mad crush on him, and then I heard he was going to be a lawyer and make all sorts of money and then I really had a crush on him.  If he ever saw me, he’d change his mind, so he’d better hurry up and get married. 

Tim  There’s a little left, is there?

Ted   Mmhm, just send your plate right down.

Dick   You haven’t eaten lately?

Tim   No, I eat quite a bit, all the time.  If we were on the boat, I’d be asking Kathy [his wife] for her plate so that I could scrape it onto my plate

Kathie   You could have mine, but I have a cold, you’d get sick.]

Mom  Maureen, how are you keeping him filled?

Ted   Keeping me what?

Maureen   He hasn’t eaten at home for two weeks.

Ted   We’re not moved into the house, we’re at the last stage here.

Vonnie   How many bedrooms do you have?

Dick  Twenty-four?

Ted   Three.

Tim   Fishermen never eat at home, they eat out all the time.

Dick   How many of you are there on the crew? 

Ted    Six.  Jackson is the cook, he picks the food.  

Tim   He makes a darn good roast.  But you know, after working for about ten hours straight with nothing to eat but oreos, anything will taste good.

Vonnie   Are you still fishing in the wintertime?

Ted  No, we’re down south.

Dick  What do you have, a big freezer?

Vonnie  Why did you buy a house if you don’t even live here anymore?

Ted   I’m staying up here and moving into the house.

Mom   Dick wondered how you stored your food on the boat.

Dick   Do you have a big freezer?

Ted   We keep it on the ice in the hold.

Mom   With the fish?

Ted    No, separate bins.

Vonnie    Urrgh!

Ted    No, it doesn’t pick up any taste.

Dick   Do you ever eat any swordfish while you’re fishing?

Ted   Once in awhile.  Not very often.

Vonnie    I don’t think I’d ever want to eat a swordfish again!

Ted   One of the favorite swordfish treats on the boat is swordfish cheeks.  Once in awhile we get that.

Vonnie   Is that like the Pope’s nose?

Mom   Oh, Vonnie!  (laugh)  Why would you only do it once in awhile? 

Ted   Well, because it’s a lot of work.

B   Ordinarily you just cut the head off and throw it overboard?

Vonnie   You mean like the cheeks in your face?

Ted   You can cut the cheeks out, and they’re very good, they’re very tasty.  We even had codfish tongues on this trip.  Those are super! 

Vonnie   OH, MY GOD!

Finicky Jack   I’m glad I never got to eat that.

Mom   We had grilled swordfish tongues in the stuffing, didn’t you taste it?

Jack   It was very good, whatever it was.  (Aside to someone) Now I could sure go for a cigarette.

Vonnie   Ted, would you go get the pack of Kents and the package of Luckies and an ashtray and a packet of matches?  They’re on the coffee table.

Jack   Hey, screw that tape recorder.

Vonnie   Oh, my nose is starting to sneeze because Teddy put so much pepper on {unclear}  Where’s the ashtray?

Dick   What is the purpose of this tape recorder, anyway?

Mom   It’s just to commemorate this holy day-- [giggles from Vonnie]

Dick   JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!  [uproar of laughter from the unholy group]

Tim   That’s the word I wanted to say.

Vonnie   That was a good one.  You’re going to be sorry for that when you hear the tape.

Mom   Probably not.

Dick   No, I’m not.  I thought it was the perfect response.

Mom   I was sorry when a tape like that was played back where I kept saying that word.

Vonnie   Mother!

Jack   You were sorry?

Mom   I’d had too much to drink when I was saying it and it seemed very funny, but you have to listen to it drunk, and then it sounds all right  [little chuckle from Kathie].  Never listen to it sober.

Vonnie   Do you still have the tape that you heard yourself on?  I would love to hear that!

Mom   It has Bad Word written on the outside of it.  [mixed laughter]

Kathie   When I was in the hospital, Mummy used to read to me, and every time that four-letter-word was in the book, she’d say effing.  [mixed laughter]  I thought that was adorable.  She couldn’t say that word to me, her daughter. 

Vonnie   She’s changed now, though.

Mom   How about that second sex workshop I went to where I was bragging about how much I’d learned from the last one and how I’d even talked to very proper friends of mine, saying there wasn’t anything so terrible about that word, and I said there was a big breakthrough with my sweetheart, and finally I got him to say that word, and I finished my little story, and somebody said, “What word?”  And I said [in tiny voice], “I can’t say it!”  [burst of giggles from Vonnie and general laughter]

Tim  Well, I get the Clean Your Plate award.

Dick  You do, boy.

Mom   Timmy, we awarded it to you even before you arrived. 

Dick   Before you arrived, we were talking about it.  Some people say Timmy isn’t fit to {unclear}.  Well, I think he is.

Vonnie   The only time you open your mouth is to put your other foot in it.

Dick   I know.

Mom   Vonnie!  Is that a way to talk to your big brother-in-law?

Vonnie    I heard that someplace today, I can’t remember where.

Jack    It was on TV.  That lady.

Vonnie   Was it on a soap opera?

Jack   No, it was on Truth or Consequences.

Vonnie   All right, Ronnie, tell the joke about the Scotchman.

Ronnie   No, I don’t want to.

Mom  Oh, come on, Ronnie!

Vonnie   He can do the Scottish brogue, I can’t.  Do it, Ronnie.

Mom   Or else.

Vonnie   Come on, Ronnie.  Everybody be quiet.

Ronnie   There’s this lady in the street and this Scotch guy was coming with his kilt on, and she says, “Laddy, what have you got under your kilt?”  He says, “Why don’t you reach under and find out?”   She reaches under and says, “Oh, how gruesome!”  [giggle from Vonnie]  And he says to her,  “Squeeze it some more, and you’ll see it grew some.” [general laughter, big giggles from Vonnie] 

Vonnie   “And it grew some more.”

Ronnie   “And it grew some more.”  I knew I’d screw it up.

Mom   Now Maureen will tell a joke.

Ted  {unclear}

Mom   If we only had videotape,  it’d be great.

Ted   Come on, stop picking on my girlfriend
Mom   You started it.  We didn’t even know she wasn’t saying anything until you pointed it out.

Ted   I know it,  So I open my big mouth.

Dick   I think it’s refreshing to have someone quiet in the room.

Ted   Yes, it’s certainly the bunch of Malleys around here that step on each other trying to get a word in edgewise.

Tim  Give me your plate, Kathie.

K   I have a cold, I don’t think you should eat it.

Ted   There is more left here, Timmy.

Tim   [He has a cold, too.]  No, I’b fide, thag you.

Mom   He said stuffily.

Mom   Well, who’d like—let’s see, I have half a pumpkin pie, and I’ve got lots of—

Vonnie   How come you only have a half a pumpkin pie?

B   Because Jack and I ate the other half. {laughter}  And I have Dorothy Muriel ice cream, vanilla and carob.

Vonnie   Yummy, we get that, too?

Mom   And I’ve got cookies, but I forgot to bake them.  [laughter]

Vonnie  I’ll have a cookie!

Jack   I’ve been making homemade ice cream.  I got an ice cream-maker for Christmas.

Mom   Electric?

Tim  How much mechanicalness is involved?

Kathie   It’s the last five minutes, when it gets thick.  It’s hard work, but when you pass it around, it’s worth it, it really is.

Tim   They had it on one of the boats this summer.

Kathie   We know a few people who have the manual ones.  It’s well worthwhile.

Mom   And you put rock salt around it?

Dick   Where do you get the rock salt?  Well, this time of year it’d be easy.

Mom   We’ve got some right in our back yard.

Ted   One of the things you learn on the boat after the first few days out is that you get to know who’s on watch before and after you.  Like you learn that if Timmy’s on watch, and your watch finishes at two,  he’s supposed to get up and go until four.  You get Timmy up at around ten.  By the time he gets dressed,  makes the coffee,  drinks the coffee, and makes another batch of coffee, you’ve stood three-quarters of his watch.  [general laughter and Vonnie’s giggle] 

Mom   Oh, I gotta go out there with you guys and write about all this ,Teddy.

Vonnie   I thought you were going to go this year.

Kathie   Next year you have to bring her out.

Mom   Think what I could write!  I could write a saga.

Dick   A saga?  An epic!

Kathie   Mummy wrote Dick and me a letter about—did you hear about the day she got the jeep caught on the back of her car?

Dick   She backed out of the driveway into the jeep and then had to tow it down to the center.  [shriek of laughter from Vonnie]

Kathie   She backed into the jeep, and the jeep hooked on to her bumper.  She was in a hurry, so she decided to take off [general laughter and another shriek from Vonnie].  She drove out of the driveway with the jeep behind her, all the way out to Route 109, then began worrying about what was going to happen when she went up the hill.  Then she dragged the thing all the way to through town.

Vonnie   You’re kidding! 

Kathie   I’m serious, it was the funniest letter!  And then she and Jack had to go and get it that night, and they had {unclear}  It’s a funny letter, it’s like one of Mummy’s old funny letters.  I’ll have to pass it on to the family.

Vonnie   Oh yeah, she used to be able to make anything funny, but that really is.

Kathie   It’s hysterical!  Isn’t that like Mummy, in such a hurry that she can’t get the jeep off the back of her car?  She says she’s creeping along Route 109 and people are passing and staring at her, wondering what the hell she’s doing.

Vonnie   (giggling)  What did the people in the gas station think?

Dick   They shook their heads.

Ted    Did you really do that?  Is that just something you made up, or is that a true story?  You really did that?

Vonnie   Oh Mother!

Mom    I was in a hurry.

Ted   You really drove it out of the yard?

Mom   I backed out and—

Dick   Smacked into the jeep.

Ted   I can’t wait until I can get a job down here at the gas station.  I want to see you drive up and I want to put the gas in your car and then have you say, “Please charge that to Malley on 103 Country Lane.”  I’d say . . . .

End of Side One  [We’ll never know what Teddy’s punch line was.  bbm 9-30-01]