The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From the Tree

Friday, September 16, 2011

Page 11

AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)

The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From the Tree

By J’AMY PACHECO

A few nights ago, my youngest brother brought his children over to swim. While his three little knuckleheads—as we like to call them—watched “Spiderman” for the bazillionth time, we sat at the dining room table and reminisced.

Reminiscing with my brother is fun, because it always ends with laughter. Part of the reason it does is because we were, to put it mildly, weird kids.

For example, I remember one long ago occasion when I was eating in the kitchen, and my brother walked in. As any loving sister would, I expressed my affection for my dear sibling by opening my mouth to display the chewed food. Not to be outdone, my brother held out his hand, as if asking for the food.

Naturally, I spit it into his hand. Without ever changing expression, he put it in his pocket and walked out of the room. He won that round, and I wound up laughing hysterically on the kitchen floor.

While that might sound like a bizarre incident to find funny—let alone take place—it was normal for teens who were addicted to “Saturday Night Live,” as we were then.

There was no TiVo in those days, so we stayed up late to watch as it aired. I think one of the reasons SNL is on so late is because that close to midnight, almost anything seems funny. I’m not sure commercials for “Bass-o-Matic,” the household appliance that lets you make delicious, fish-flavored milkshakes, would have been funny around breakfast.

But we laughed at the fake commercial, just as we laughed at the Coneheads, the Land Shark, Weekend Update and Gilda Radner’s Roseanne Rosannadanna.

The top laugh-getter for us was a guest of the show, Steve Martin, and we spent the better part of our recent visit trying to recall the words to his “Grandmother’s Song.” It’s a folksy song that starts with a request for listeners to be “courteous, kind and forgiving; be gentle and peaceful each day” and morphs into a whole different kind of tune with lyrics like, “be obsequious, purple and clairvoyant,” and “live in a swamp and be three-dimensional.”

The fact that we were able to recall the entire song when I can’t even remember my telephone number is probably a good indicator that we’re still pretty weird. And that is reflected in our children.

My brother’s oldest daughter, who is 8, showed me a new trick she’d figured out.

“Tita J’Amy!” she shouted. “Look what I can do!” And she demonstrated how she taught her abdominal muscles to do some sort of weird muscle-crawl, kind of like a belly dancer would do. Except it was creepy – in a fascinating kind of way.

The middle child, a first-grader, is shy. When she feels put on the spot, she opens her mouth and emits a sound that can only be described as a cross between purring and gargling. It was the weirdest thing I’d ever seen a kid do, until her sister figured out the belly crawl.

The boy is only 3, but he clearly has a sense of what’s funny. When changing into his swim trunks, he escaped. During his brief bout with freedom, he ran around with no pants on shrieking, “Who Let the Butts Out?”

As for my own child…what can I say? She got frustrated at the age of two when she couldn’t figure out how to get her head off, and she’s been weird ever since.

I’d say I don’t know where they get it, but then I remember an old photo of my brother striking the classic John Travolta dance pose in front of the “Saturday Night Fever” poster on my closet, wearing an unbuttoned disco shirt, a necktie affixed to his chest with masking tape, and a funnel strapped over his nose and mouth. I also remember walking into my daughter’s first grade English class in nearly-full scuba gear, including fins, to talk about diving.

I’ve taken dolls to public places to be photographed, and walked through a Las Vegas casino dressed as “Hostile Makeover,” foil to the superhero “Barbie Girl.” I’ve worn pajamas to Disneyland, gone to a movie dressed as a witch, attended a school function with rollers in my hair, and done some things I don’t want to admit to publicly.

Not only do I know where they get it, I have to admit those kids never stood a chance. I just hope they grow to appreciate it.