Another saying of my father's

I have posted so many sayings we Drexlers had when I was growing up. Well, last night, I thought of another one, and my one hope was that I would remember it until today (Tuesday). I did!

That saying from my father was one word which was uttered most often when he was trying to open a package or a pill bottle with the child-proof lid. He had arthritis very badly in his hands and so anything that needed extra work to be done with his hands was painful and usually had to be passed off to my mother.

Anyway, folks, are you ready for it? Family: are you ready? Do you remember?

The one-one expletive was: Dagnabit. Pronounced with all short sounds on the vowels: dag nab it.

I remember it well!

ttfn

Sunday sayings

I thought I'd start a new thread in my RR ramblings and go back and pick up on our family sayings and talk about some of the times when my dad or mom would come out with the particular words that made up those sayings.

This week:  "I feel my blindness coming on."

Most of the family love this story.  Yeah, they can laugh and enjoy it.  They weren't part of the awfulness of having their father grab hold tight of their tiny hand, and pretend he was blind in the middle of downtown Philadelphia, as he started singing, "Abide with me."

It all started on one of my early visits to Philadelphia with my father.  We were heading over to 15th and Chestnut to see Dr. Feldman, a chirpractor.  My father was a big chripractor supporter.  To get there, we got off a bus which we picked up in Runnemede (#21 or #31) at 12th and Market and started to walk toward City Hall, in Philly.  After we got off the bus, of course, I took my dad's hand.  He had with him an umbrella.  He never went to Philly without his umbrella. 

All of a sudden I noticed that he had gripped my hand more tightly.  I looked up at him, and he smiled and said, "I feel my blindness coming on."  Huh?  What did that mean.  I was about to find out.

Dad started to sing "Abide with me", he took off his hat and held it in front of him using his umbrella (with the same hand) as a cane, pretending he was blind. 

This was not, to me, a funny tease, since there were several beggars who really had problems on the street near where my father's "blindness " hit him. 

Did I learn my lesson?  No.  The next time we went to visit Dr. Feldman and he took me with him, he did it again!  Am I stupid or what?  It seems to me that daddy must have pulled that trick four or five times before I finally learned not to hold on to his hand on Market Street in Philadelphia.  If I wasn't attached to him I could pretend I didn't know him, making his "blindness" all his own, and not involving me in his little "joke."

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Visit almost over

I am not posting any pictures of my brother and his wife. My brother, Mark, has been in a lot of pain this week. What is it with us Drexlers? He has a bad sciatic nerve, I have a bad sciatic nerve, Deb has one, and I think my brother Carl complains of back/hip pain as well. I know my mom suffered from it. And I know at least one of my cousins does.

So, my brother has been a wretch this week (wretch is one of the Drexler "sayings"). He is just being a bear, and I really understand why. When a person is in pain they tend to be nasty, and I also know that the sciatic pain is not fun.

He was supposed to go to the doctor yesterday, and Sue (his wife) and I got it all wrong (we didn't really, but he said we did) and so he didn't get to the doctor after all, so no relief is forthcoming because he's "too busy" today to see the doctor.

Here's what happened: The doctor called here and Mark wasn't home, he was driving Alan down to the Israel conference they're both attending. He has said we should let the answering machine get the call, but we didn't. Sue let me take the messages from the doctor's office. The first one was about the time, and we called Mark and he said the time for the appointment was fine.

The doctor's office called back and told me exactly how to get to their office. Well, it happens that there are five offices in that building, and my brother wasn't sure which doctor in that building was the one he was to see. His doctor had the day off, apparently, and the substitute was seeing him. Well, since the doctors office said when they called, "This is Dr. *(&)&$#'s office" and went on about the time and place, I didn't catch the name of the doctor, nor did Sue. So, you see it was our fault he didn't get his care yesterday, and is suffering even more today.

Regarding the word "wretch". It doesn't mean to throw up or anything like that. A "wretch" is a person who is just being nasty and not pleasant to those around them.

So, it just another day in the life....

I'm in Mt. Airy, NC -- add this to the sayings list

I'm visiting my sister, Deb, and while she's at work I'm putting up a short message of another word we discovered from our childhood while we were preparing dinner -- well, she was preparing the dinner, I was standing around trying to look and sound useful. The word is MEESH, necessarily in all caps, just wanted the word to stand out.

What's a "meesh". Well it isn't a thing exactly. And it's very hard to describe, but here goes, by example.

Last night Deb was making salads for all of us in individual dishes. Well, one dish was definitely missing some lettuce, so I said "meesh" -- it just slipped out. Meaning not enough of that product in this pot. "meesh" is a word of unknown origin which we used in our childhood years, and which now will be used again, I suppose, to indicate that we had been short-slipped something on our food place, or not enough was place on our platter.

It was a word that was especially useful with our father who tended to be very stingy with candy. I've mentioned before about the cutting up of one small Irish potato to be shared amongst the four of his children, and when handed this small morsel of delight, we would all in one accord say to him, "Meesh."

So, I guess it means, too small a portion.

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My father was NOT blind

Oh, he was very persnickety about his vision. He cleaned his glasses with some special glass cleaner -- the smell of which I loved -- at least four times a day, but he was NOT blind, although he did like to pretend he was -- only if on the occasion of his blindness he could embarrass one of his children.

Lori wanted to know the truth about this non-myth. Well, I wrote about it many, many months ago, and it's embedded in an epistle about my father taking me to Wanamaker's at Christmas time. You can check it out by clicking on "on his blindness" in the subject listing to the left.

In case I left anything out in the telling of these very embarrassing moments for me and my siblings whenever my father would say, "Oh, I feel my blindness coming on," I will try to make it plain, once again.

We (my father and I or one of my siblings) would be walking down Market Street (the main drag) in Philadelphia where there were at that time lots of REAL beggars who would sit near the doorways to shops with their cigar boxes and bells, asking for "alms for the poor."

Well, usually right between 11th and 12th on Market, where the congregation of beggars was the greatest, my father would grab hold tight of my hand, and I knew what was coming. His blindness was coming on. I think he put on this act as a protest to the many beggars sitting in his way on the sidewalk, and because he knew that most of the "beggars" were not in need of "alms for the poor."

He always carried an umbrella when we went into Philly, no matter what the weather was when we left, nor what the weathermen said it would be. So he was prepared for the act to follow.

Now you all might think this is funny, but it was humiliating to a child or teenager.

He would grab hold of my wrist -- he had strong hands -- and would state: "Oh, I feel my blindness coming on." Then he would flip over his sunglasses onto his glasses (blind people wear dark glasses), and he would take off his hat (he always wore a felt hat), he would, with the hand that wasn't gripping me put his hat in front of him so that it was in a position to receive "alms for the poor" and he would stop walking, get over toward the building and start singing, "Abide with me," tapping his umbrella like cane while he was doing all this.

How embarrassing! After one verse, he would put his hat back on, let go of my wrist, and we'd be on our way again, usually to Wanamaker's which was at 13th and Market.

So there you have it again. But make no mistake about it. He needed glasses, yes, but he was NOT blind.

MTF

Two more family sayings

When we were on our trip a couple of sayings kept slipping out of my mouth -- when you're near people with your accent (Philadelphia) you start to talk like an east-coast person again. I know, I know, some of you are saying you always talk (tawlk) like an east-coast person, but I have tried over the years to lose the accent. I still say coffee the correct way (caw-fee) not the wrong way (cah fee). And that's a dead give-away.

Anyway, the two home grown sayings are -- are you ready for this?

capisci (cap eesch) -- we dropped the last "i" and just said cap-eesch (phonetic), meaning, do you understand? I think that word is used throughout the Godfather trilogy just before each shooting or dismemberment.

And the other word is stupido (you just did something stupid). I always thought stupido was Spanish, but then I found out that it's also Italian, so it had to have come from my grandmother, not my high-school Spanish class.

I'll put these words back on the "Sayings" page as well, but you don't have to go all the way back there.

We got into a discussion about words when we were with Alan's Aunt and Uncle (in Florida) and I used a "bad" word to describe Mrs. Clinton. Alan's Aunt didn't appreciate the word, but I could think of no other word to use, and then we got into a round of discussion about what is a bad word anyway. In some cultures what we consider bad isn't, and what we consider good isn't, so it's a matter of culture and semantics.

I grew up not knowing four-letter words of the swearing sailor variety, but when I got out in the world there they were and slowly they crept into my vocabulary. And, I catch myself each time I use one, blush, ask for forgiveness from God, and go on. The female dog word wasn't one of the forbidden words, but it was used to describe a female dog, not a back-biting, nasty female person running for president. So, explaining my use of the forbidden word did little to asuage Alan's aunt, and I thought we might be out on the street out last night at her place before we left for the cruise. I don't think she understood where Alan and I were coming from with words. And I could see her point.

We got into a discussion about damn and darn. She says darn when she means damn and my point was what is the difference? One letter -- "r" to "m" it means the same thing, therefore her use of darn would be just as bad as my use of damn (which I don't use in public, in my thoughts I use it). Heck and hell, was another two words we talked about. So how did I get to here from two more family sayings?

Well, think about it. Calling someone stupid in Italian might be as offensive as calling someone a dork in English. So, be careful little lips what you say!

Family sayings

I guess all families have sayings that are part of their families talk around the table and elsewhere.

With out family, it starts with prayer. When I was little, and my brothers and sister were little, we said "grace" at each meal. The little prayer we said, depending on whose turn it was went like this: "Thank you Jesus for this food, Amen." In school we learned and actually said as a class: "God is great, God is good, and we thank him for this food. Amen." (We also said the "Lord's Prayer" everyday until I went to high school and the US Supreme Court said it was illegal.) Dad's favorite was: "Come Lord Jesus, and be our guest, and let this food to us be blessed. Amen." Of course, as I've already told you, that one wasn't good enough for Thanksgiving! I guess he was hungrier at home, than at Thanksgiving.

You know how people say, "God bless you" when you sneeze? Well, dad always said, "Dio ti benedica" (that's Italian) and he pronounced it: dee ah duh benna deech. One day when I was working at Answers in Genesis, a co-worker, who was a former missionary to Italy and who spent many of his formative years in Italy because his dad was employed there, said, "You're from south Italy?" I said, "Abruzzi," which on the southern coast. He said I had it exactly right. Well, dad had learned it from my Grandmother, Santa, mom's mother. So, we, or at least I, picked it up.

When we had a belly ache, or heartburn, we'd say the "agita" was bothering us. I saw a movie about Italian-Americans and the mom was always complaining about "agita" in that movie. I thought, ah, another word from my youth!

Dad would hide on his hands and knees behind the door way that led into the kitchen, and when we came out of the kitchen he would jump out and yell, "hood-gee, bood-gee" -- haven't a clue how to spell that one. It was a game he played with us. We knew it was coming, too, but he always surprised us with it because he didn't always do that.

Another saying that my dad was famous for was "such crust" meaning, "Well, I never..."

Mom's favorite, I think was, "Stupid, stupid, stupid" -- three stupids in a row. I guess that was supposed to accentuate the stupidity of something she or we did that wasn't exactly smart.
The last time my mom said that was when she was just a few days away from going to be with our Lord. Now, she had no strength whatsoever, and probably weighed no more than 70 pounds at the time. She sat on the edge of the bed. And then promptly slid onto the floor. Well, my sister-in-law, Sue, and I were in the room at the time, and we got to giggling, because as soon as mom slid onto the floor, she said, "Stupid, stupid, stupid." Even at her reduced weight, both Sue and I, because we were laughing (which we really shouldn't have been, I suppose) had a very difficult time lifting mom back onto the bed. As I sit here writing this and recalling that I'm chuckling out loud. Maybe it's that happy when we're miserable thing?

Another favorite expression of my mom's and mine was "That was a stupid ending." We would say that when a movie we were watching on TV didn't end the way we wanted it to, or when a movie ended and we were both crying because it was such a sad or beautiful ending. My daughter and I shortened it to "stupid movie" anytime we are moved to tears during a movie.

I have an expression, which I can't credit my mother or father with, but a movie is rated by how many hankies are needed during the viewing of it. If I cry once, it's a one-hankie. Some movies, like Out of Africa are 15-hankie movies.

In the 50s an expression we all used was "George", not "by george, just George. I think it was used instead of saying "That's great." Something was "george" if it was good.

Thought of another one: "blast, dash-darn, confound" an expression used instead of a four-letter word that starts with a "d" and ends with an "n" and has "am" in the middle. A good expression to use when you hit your thumb with a hammer, or can't find something in the junk drawer (another good topic for this BLOG), or you slip on the ice and fall down, etc.

Another one: Fit to be tied. Done know what it really means except that when one is "fit to be tied" they are full of angst, not angry really, but frustrated because they are tied up and can't get relief from the problem that causes them to be "fit to be tied."

Here's another one -- F H B -- yes, three letters. They stand for "family hold back". Dad used to say that when someone was taking too many cookies, or too much salad, or if one of us wanted more than we should, or if there just wasn't enough to go around unless we all held back a bit. I used that expression on my husband the other night. He hadn't a clue what I was talking about. I had put out for eating whenever Christmas cookies and candies. Not a good thing to do, but it is Christmas after all. Alan asked if he could have any of the sweets and I said he could but he needed to FHB on them. I explained that he could have four cookies not a handful, and he could take three or four pieces of candy, not a handful. Moderation -- that's what it means -- do what you're doing in moderation!

It's the middle of December and I'm adding to this post (2007). I was visiting my daughter the other day, and I had a card-making learning session for about 12 home-schoolers. Well, when we finally finished, I said to my daughter -- "Boy, this table is really verschimmelt, isn't it?" The word verschimmelt just popped out -- it means messed up, cluttered, things in disarray. My dad used it all the time when the dining room table was messed up, or my hair wasn't combed. You get the picture. So, add verschimmelt to the list of family sayings. This is a German-spelling for a word that was as close as I could get to what we always pronounced as fur shimmled. It means, if you believe this, moldy! Not how we used it. I'll keep searching through the German dictionary and see if I can find something else that comes close.

And while we're in the German vein -- what about mach schnell -- dad would use those words when we were dragging out feet -- it means get a move on it!

Two other "germanic" expressions my father used from time to time. One I could find in a German dictionary, the other I couldn't find anything that even remotely resembled the word, so I won't list it until I can find something that is close. One of the other expressions we grew up with was schlecht which had to do with junk food. Well, in German is has to do with evil, or no good and is used as an adjective. The adverb schlecht just means badly. So in tell us not to eat so much schlecht I guess dad was telling us to not eat so much junk.

There was another word dad used to denote the stuff that comes out of ones nose -- snot, boogers -- he called it bachtse -- not sure of that spelling since I can't find anything that even remotely resembles that word by looking up snot or boogers. If and when I get the correct word, I'll let you know.

My husband reminded me of another saying. We were watching two really old movies on TV and one was The White Cliffs of Dover -- don't watch it without at least a box of kleenexes. The beginning is actually quite humorous. Anyway, one of my father's favorite sayings was: The poor guy when referring to someone who was being harassed or annoyed or made fun of. You kids remember that?

More Germanic words I remember: scheusslich (hoosh lick) is the spelling the German translator gave me, and is as close as I can get to the way dad pronounced it, and it means appalling, dreadful. I thought it meant we were sloppy or doing something in an manner that was unbecoming, but the dictionary says otherwise. If we were doing our homework in a sloppy manner, he'd tell us not to be so scheusslich. Or if we were running around the dining room table, knocking things over, he tell us to not be so scheusslich.

A word used similarly is betrueblich which sounded like strueblich, which to us meant we needed to comb our hair. We weren't properly groomed. But the German dictionary says it means deplorable. I guess that's close enough. Dad would say we looked very strueblich and he meant we looked deplorable.

On my trip to Florida two expressions came out of my mouth and my cousin's mouth and then I remembered we used them prolifically when I was growing up. The first is capichi --we pronounced it cap eesch (accent on the second syllable) and it means, do you understand?

The second word was stupido meaning you're stupid or you did a stupid thing. I always thought it was Spanish, but then I realized it was part of my vocabulary before I had highschool Spanish.

Hold your horses -- another saying that dad and mom used when we children would get rambunctious and start running around the dining room table, chasing each other in order to influct harm. Hold your horses means slow it down, stop and think what you're doing.

Save the pieces -- I heard this saying at my granddaughter's birthday party and it clicked. My son-in-law was putting together one of the toys she received and was pounding the wheels of the toy shopping cart into place and his grandmother (Grinny Kuhlman) said, "Save the pieces." In other words, be careful what you do, and don't make so much noise doing it. I remember my mom and dad using that expression from time to time. This led to a conversation with Mrs. Kuhlman who insists it's a Kentucky saying. I insist it's Pennsylvania Dutch. Who knows? It isn't listed in the PD Idiom Dictionary or the Appalachian Sayings Dictionary.


If I think of more, I'll edit this BLOG. This particular edition has now been edited 9times.