Precious memories

One night, when I was probably 7 or 8, dad and I stayed up late, after everyone had gone ot bed, and talked. Maybe I woke up again and found him up (this was the norm). But I'm not sure since what I am sure of, is that the living room lights were off. It was just him and me, in the relative darkness and silence of night. And what did we men discuss? What father to son wisdom did he impart on lil' Maxy? Dirty jokes.

As though he'd been waiting until I was old enough to reveal it, he had a massive cache of dirty jokes! And, of course, they were the kind of jokes kids love. Lots of jokes about poop and farts... lots of limericks where the characters were anthropomorphic turtles and rabbits and eagles... it was grand. Imagine my awe, as farty old dad pulls ace after naughty ace from up his sleeve, and in a hushed tone, recites these juvenile gems.

My favorite? Well, there was the classic "Here I sit, so broken-hearted/Tried to shit but only farted...", and the story about the mouse being eaten by the owl, not knowing what has happened, and peeking out form the owl's butt to find himself hundreds of feet off the ground... But the one that stuck with me, for my whole life, the one I repeated to all my friends (in similar non-chalant "respect my dirty joke genius" tones), went like this:

The night was dark
The sky was blue
And down the alley
A shit-wagon flew.
It hit a bump
A scream was heard
A man was killed
By a flying turd.

That one will always crack me up. Maybe it's the surreal image of a "shit-wagon" flying, which, in my over-imaginative brain meant that a covered wagon, filled with shit, was floating a few feet above ground, and drifting slowly down the alleyway. Not until years later did it occur that maybe he had meant it to be going really fast. And the eerieness of having the night be dark, but the sky being blue: a deep blue, as if the sun has only just set... but the town in which all this takes place is surely empty, save for the random, doomed passerby. It's a magical poem. I think it has affected my style of story-telling and film-making.

Dad was good at relating to me on that wavelength. He could be stinky and dorky and even if I rolled my eyes and tried to be above all that (something I deeply regret now), I was grinning and giggling inside. Farts are funny. Poop is funny. Dad knew this better than most. If I ever have children, you can bet they'll know, by heart, the legend of the man-slaughtering shit-wagon.