We were bigger fans of his dad, Carl Reiner, but how could you not love Rob too. Carl and Mel Brooks’ Two-Thousand-Year-Old Man, and then the great Dick Van Dyck Show were two humor benchmarks of our youth through high school. And Rob gave us the single funniest moment in the history of the cinema in When Harry. Rest in peace Michele and Rob. Here are Carl and Rob.
This poem by Yahya Frederickson is called “News.” It’s today’s Poets.org Poem-A-Day.
Before breakfast, we drive into town
to buy a Star Tribune for my father,
who usually rides along, but today sleeps late.
From the passenger seat, you stuff
my mouth with a saucer peach. For energy,
you say, my fog before food well-known.
The beige flesh tastes like jasmine.
Honey. A Persian fairy tale.
In his La-Z-Boy near the big window,
my father will read a section, nod off,
wake, read another, all afternoon.
You and I no longer bother—every day
the same: people killing, being killed.
Instead, we cook, clean. We look
after my father, keep our kids busy.
At the One-Stop, I take a copy
off the dwindling stack, set my father’s exact
change into the cashier’s tattooed hand—
my daily deadline met. Heading home,
you spot it first, uphill, in a birch,
glowing, a blue pilot light. A flaming
blue arrow shooting toward us. I can’t
stop, can’t swerve, it strikes our windshield.
I see it in the rearview mirror glance
onto the shoulder. Maybe it’s still alive,
you pray. Maybe we can put it in a box
until it’s well. So I reverse, hope it flies away.
Could I mercy-kill it under a wheel?
Standing by, we watch a wing flail once,
an eye shut, the end. Even a little death
sucks out our air. Where it hit gravel,
one feather sticks up. Such color!
Lapis-and-turquoise filigree.
We kick a shallow grave with our heels,
and deliver my father the news.
Before we let go of yesterday, we need to say hi to Ernest TUBB, who visited at 38D with “Ernest in the Country Music Hall of Fame.” One of those little doors that the puzzle can open for us led commenter CDilly52 to share this story.
My wonderful husband, a brilliant man, superb musician (percussionist), adoring father, and as near perfect as a human can be, had his oddities – two of them to be specific. He loved “The Beverly Hillbillies” and “The Grand Old Opry.” He taught me so much about the history of country music and I have an intellectual appreciation for its place in American music and American history. At least the older country music.
Ernest Tubb was one of the earliest country super stars. If memory serves, he was a Texan, born sometime before 1920. I’m fairly sure that his most famous song was “Walkin’ the Floor Over You.” Why I know that particular song and its author is because it featured prominently in my labor and delivery.
Had medicine believed that women could in fact have Ankylosing Spondylitis back in 1978, I would have had the cesarean the OB nurses snd docs were begging my husband to convince me to have. But “Real Women” in those halcyon days of the Women’s Movement had natural childbirth. Period. Back then, we were downright rabid about it. After all, pioneer women took a break from spinning and weaving and threshing and cooking and cleaning and sewing and farming and milking and boiling the laundry and making the soap and . . . you get it. If they were in the fields when in late stage labor , they just walked over to the nearest tree, gave birth, ripped their petticoat, swaddled baby and went back to work, right? Anyway, I refused.
My poor husband hung in there for almost 40 hours of brutal transition labor trying to do all the things he learned in our childbirth class in between begging me to have the caesarean. He was frustrated. Hell, he was mad at my stubbornness. I was mad at everybody. So he started pacing and humming in between the doc or a nurse dropping by to check that there wasn’t any emergency brewing so they could override my pigheadedness.
I finally yelled at my pacing, humming husband, and asked “What the !$#* are you doing?!” The answer was in song, “I’m walking the floor over you/ I can’t sleep a wink, that is true/I’m hopin’ and I’m prayin’ as my heart breaks right in two/Walkin’ the floor over you.”
Right about then the baby’s BP started to drop and someone yelled “Get me an OR NOW!” Simultaneously, Mother Nature let me know that she was in charge and we were doing this thing. As the hoard of people started racing my bed down a hallway presumably toward the OR, everyone yelling “DON’T PUSH,” I was yelling STOPSTOPSTOPSTOP!! We never got to the OR and our daughter was mostly born in the hallway at Oklahoma University Hospital. We made it to a delivery room to finish the job, cut the cord etc.
Our daughter, Katherine has a stubborn streak. Occasionally when it would become parentally frustrating, Dad would say something to her (so I could hear) like “Ernest, there’s more than one way to skin this cat.” She would just roll her eyes and say, “Dad, I’m doing it my way.” That’s why I know some stuff about Ernest TUBB.
Some cute cluing today.
“One in a box at the theater?” Answer: RAISINET.
“You might heave a big one.” Answer: SIGH
“Person in hot pants?” Answer: LIAR
At 11D for “Easily found on the internet, say,” the answer was GOOGLEABLE. Egs made a slight adjustment at the end to give us this biblical exchange:
God: Where’s your brother?
Cain: GOOGLE ABEL.
At 38A, “Words of communal support” was WE CARE. Son Volt linked it to this Clash lyric for us:
There ain’t no German girl outside
But who cares when it’s warm inside?
Breaking news from The Onion:
Merriam-Webster Accused Of Bias After “Dictionary” Named Word Of The Year
[OC Note: Actually, SLOP was the word of the year. Not kidding.]
Finally, this is Romy Reiner, 28. She found them. Hard to imagine.
See you tomorrow.
The Wellington Files 