Pearls Of Wisdom (P.O.W.)

What follows represents a sampling of advice and general observations shared with me in my youth:

Italians love concrete. My mother, offering her take on a neighbor's driveway-replacement project.

"Down the alley the dago flew, stuck a knife in the bald-headed Jew." This little ditty came from Uncle Ed, who was actually my mother's uncle. I would recite it in the backyard, oblivious to the notion that it might offend our Italian neighbors.

Way down south, where the trains run fast, monkey stuck his finger up a baboon's ass. Baboon said, "Goddamn your soul, get your finger out of my asshole." Courtesy of Aunt Marge, Uncle Ed's sister. Also a sister to my grandmother.

Shit and molasses, sugar and snot, 24 assholes tied in a knot." This from Aunt Marge, also, in the nursing home, summoning me with her claw of a left hand to bend closer, the better to hear her faint voice. It was longer, but I could only make out this part of it.

Opinions are like assholes...everybody has one. From my father, via my mother. I might have mentioned it before, but it's a gem that bears repeating.

Don't ever grow up to be a nigger. This from a neighbor who also was a friend of my brother's and a regular presence in our house.

There are black people and there are niggers. Courtesy of my mother, making allowances for the possibility that good black people do exist.

There are three things you can't get back: The flown arrow, the lost opportunity and the spoken word. My mother wrote this on a scrap of paper, I think when she was trying to get me to reconsider my college choice and not forgo a particular school.

The Lord works in mysterious ways. My mother, time and again. In fact, the Lord works so mysteriously, you don't even know he's there.

The Lord always answers your prayers. Sometimes the answer is no. My mother, of course, and ain't it a beauty.

The Virgin Mary never refuses the prayers of children. Also my mother. And for the record, Mary refused my requests, which I didn't think were unreasonable. I didn't pray for material items or to get in someone's pants; I just wanted to not feel like jumping off a building all the time. And to be able to sleep, maybe.

You never know who that might be knocking at your door. My mother said this is what her mother used to say when she gave to beggars knocking on the door during the Depression. Her mother's apparent rationale was that the person looking for food might be God incognito. My mother later chastised me for offering one of my brother's friends orange juice to drink, saying it was too expensive and that we needed to keep it for ourselves. I guess that was okay, since we were pretty sure he wasn't God.

The sky clouds up in the afternoon. My mother's take on Good Friday. Her contention is that the skies darken around the time Christ died. I think this one came from her mother, too. It seemed eerily plausible for a while in my youth, but it hasn't since been borne out.

Don't ever buy sheets with less than a 200 thread count. About a week after offering me this sage advice, my mother gave me a 150-thread-count sheet set.

Make milk shakes out of it. My mother's advice for how we should use the shitty ice cream she routinely bought. I guess, if you want a shitty milk shake.

We've been in a recession for years. Mom, during the Clinton boom times.

What are you, a little faggot? My oldest brother, after he pulled up alongside me in the car as I was skipping home from second grade.

Every time they shoot a rocket into space, the weather changes. Grandma, allegedly, who my mother described as being ahead of her time.

You can write your own ticket. This via one of my mother's male companions, parroted by my mother, in an effort to persuade me to attend the elitist high school. Well, I went there, but I don't know about writing my own ticket, whatever the fuck that means.

Gotta have a funnel. Some drunk girl brandishing a plastic convenience-store funnel who jumped on the hood of my car in Montana. She was with another girl and a guy. Not sure where the funnel came in.

Truckers eat pussy. A friend spotted this on a bumper sticker. Said there was no rhyme or anything.

Don't tell my mom I'm a lawyer, she thinks I play piano in a whorehouse. From an acquaintance, also from a bumper sticker.

Next time, I'm just gonna find a woman I don't like and buy her a house. From the same acquaintance, who had been married three times.

Don't get married. Women are wired different. My Uncle Lee, at my cousin Timmy's wedding.

When you want to be with a girl, jerk off and throw a dollar in the trunk of your car. This appeared in former Yankee Sparky Lyle's book, "The Bronx Zoo." Some gentleman gave this advice to Sparky, ostensibly to keep his career on track. I would certainly have more money had I followed this guidance.

You have no sense of humor. My mother, to me, numerous times. Trust me, her fucking jokes weren't funny.

You don't need it. One of my brothers, in reference to antidepressant medication.

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. This comes from Hamlet, though my mother favored variations. I once heard George Carlin say there were certain things nobody would ever hear him say. One of those was: "I think I'll stick this red-hot poker up my ass." Now, do you suppose if someone were to find himself with a red-hot poker up his ass, he would be able to think good thoughts? Unlikely. Sometimes depression feels like I imagine a poker in the ass would feel, and it's just as impossible to think your way out. So this notion that someone can shake the blues with a little exercise or getting out and about or whatever has inherent flaws, and nobody should expect that a person so afflicted can snap out of it or retains control over the ability to do so.