“When one scoop of ice cream is too much, two scoops can sometimes be just right.” That was something my wife, Donna, said one summer evening – perhaps unwittingly, we’ve never been quite sure – when the family walked to the local ice cream parlour for a cool treat. Then she demonstrated her belief in this reasoning by devouring a double-stacked concoction consisting of mocha mania and strawberry surprise.
I’m not good with the names of ice cream flavours anymore. For five years during high school, many years ago, I was one of several young hires that scooped hundreds of cones on Saturday nights as part of our summer jobs in a Wasaga Beach drugstore. It became a mind-numbing experience to hear customer after customer ask, “What flavours have you got?” when they were clearly marked on a sign-board over our heads.
Our method of fighting back was to slip in a “choke cherry” and a “poison berry” among the standard chocolates and maple walnuts in the list we rhymed back. Most adults were okay when they caught onto our game, but the occasional one wanted us fired.
That is a digression that is way off topic. The point of this article is that every family lives by a set of sayings. Many of these are shared by the community at large. They may come from sacred or profane texts or be something heard in a movie. Sometimes they are simply advertising slogans. From whatever source, they resonate because they answer some need. “C’mon punk, make my day,” seems like an odd choice to enter the common language, but repeating it is a coping response to a world made partly mad by violence.
Two of my favourite sayings are “neither a lender nor a borrower be” and “beware of the favour of princes.” I have found both to be true on too many occasions to count. Maybe Shakespeare was the first economist. He was certainly a pioneering psychologist.
It’s good to remember a number of these sayings because you never know when they will come in handy. I made a presentation in Orlando, Florida a number of years ago during which the lights flickered, then went out for a minute or two. After they came back on, I proposed a course of action to make sure they would stay on. I asked everyone in the room to please raise their hands. Almost everyone gave me a questioning look, but most complied. I was able to tell them, “Confucius say, many hands make light work.”
The best sayings are those that are more unique to the family. I had the privilege of knowing my stepmother Goodsie’s family when I was quite young, long before she became my stepmother. Goodsie’s mother was a marvelous storyteller. She was from Ireland and the lilt in her voice turned every phrase into poetry. I was enthralled while listening to her. She had a way of getting down to home truths. One of her best lines was, “That woman’s so bow-legged, she couldn’t catch a pig in an alley.” She would also often repeat the life-affirming message, “You live ‘til you die.” This is a saying that has far more depth of meaning than those five short words would, at first, seem to suggest.
Sometimes what is most memorable is only one word. We adopted our daughter Tammy-Li from China in September 2003. When she was still very young, I gave her the nickname Poopadopolis for what seemed an obvious reason. The following summer, on the beach, we overheard our six-year-old son, Ted, bragging about his sister to a buddy. “My dad calls her Poopadopolis. That’s a Chinese word. I’m not sure what it means.”
Ted has always had his own way with words. While he was going through that awkward end-of-diapers phase, he composed a little ditty. He liked to sing “I’ve got ants in my pants and I really wanna boogie dance” when we took him by car to day care in the morning. This always turned into a sing-along and I can’t think of a nicer way to start the day. And lest we forget, our oldest son Tom still likes to belt out “I know I saw the water first” to the tune of Greensleeves as we crest the final hill on the way to the cottage.
My final example is closest to home. The Carrick family surname presents an obvious target for wordplay that we have endured for generations. But we’ve found a way to turn this around and have some fun instead. The kids love it when I use the salad phrase “C’mon carrots, lettuce depart” to get us out the door. Off we go “like a herd of turtles.”
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The next story makes sure I don’t overlook an essential family member and trusty companion, our beautiful golden retriever: Walking Daisy, Over the Dunes and Around the Bend.
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For my first book, “Two Scoops” Is Just Right, please click here for the paperback version and here for the Kindle e-book version.
For the sequel, “Three Scoops” Is A Blast! (with the award-winning “Size of the Skip”) click here for paperback and here for Kindle.
For “Four Scoops” Is Over The Top (containing Hemingway short-listed “Caboose Follies”) click here for paperback and here for Kindle.
And finally, for my latest book, “Five Scoops” Is An Addiction!, please click here for the paperback and here for the Kindle digital version.
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