Many Happy Returns by KuKu

My dad was well known for his sense of humor and his pranks — and sometimes worse.

This story, however, is one of the blander jokes.

He used to tell this story a lot and, I must admit, it is better in person when you can hear the inflection in the voices. But I’ll try to type it appropriately.

When I was growing up and attending Sunday School, I was given birthday pennies once a year. Whenever a child’s birthday came on or near a Sunday, they got up in front of God and everybody and put one penny for each year (while we counted) into a special bank. Then we sang them “Happy Birthday”.

Different churches have different traditions and when my father was growing up, his Sunday School did the birthday penny offering. Then, the teacher and all the students would recite (think a little sing-song and monotonous tone all at the same time):

“Many happy returns on the day of thy birth.
May sunshine and gladness be given.
And may the dear Savior prepare you on Earth
For a glorious future in Heaven.
We thank you for the offering.”

It’s a nice, schmaltzy little poem but that ending sentence always cracked me up.

One year, when both my dad and his brother, Art, were adults, they were many miles apart and it was Art’s birthday.

My dad called Western Union and dictated a telegram to be sent to Art:

“Go ahead, sir.”
“Many happy returns on the day of thy birth.”
“Yes. ”
“May sunshine and gladness be given.”
“. . . OK.”
“And may the dear Savior prepare you on Earth”
“. . . . . .All right.”
“For a glorious future in Heaven.”
“. . . . . ookaaay. . .”
“We thank you for the offering.”
“EXCUSE ME, SIR?!?”
“We thank you for the offering.”
“We thank you for the offering?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Sir, let me read back the whole text.”

She may have thought Dad was crazy but Art didn’t. He laughed his head off when he got it.

Maybe in another blog, I’ll talk about missives between my sister and me or what my best friend, Angela (Yiker) has sent me. . .

KuKu

Thanks, Dad, for my freedom

Today is Father's Day. I just want to brag about my dad. He served in WWII.

When he was a teenager, he worked in a pharmacy. Some horrible chemicals accidentally got splashed in his eyes. They were saved by someone sticking his head under a faucet and letting the water totally wash out his eyes.

My aunt (his sister) told me later that he and all of his wild friends wanted to fly planes in WWII. Because of crystals in his eyes from the chemicals, he was rejected as a pilot. She told me all of his buddies died in the war, flying planes.

My dad was kind of like Sgt. Bilko. He was in charge of a platoon of men. He would score beer for them, all kinds of fun stuff.

His platoon did clean-up; they would go to sites of battles after the battles were over. Though there was no guns firing at them there, those sites must have been horrible to see. He was on Hawaii, Guam, among other sites.

He came back from the war, met & married my mom and they had me and my older sister. He was 38 when I was born! (I'm 47 now).

He died in 1994, from a heart attack on a fishing trip. I don't think he could have chosen a better way to go! His little memorial pamphlet, on my direction, didn't have a poem or Bible passage but simply said "Gone fishin'". I think he would have liked that. I know my aunt loved it.

I miss him still, especially around the holidays.

Because of a fluke accident when he was a teenager, I was born! Yay!

Thank you to my dad and hundreds of thousands like him, now and in the past. No matter how we feel about an individual war and why we are at war and whether we should be, we should ALWAYS thank our vets and their families for all the sacrifices.

And, hey, you single vets, come back alive. There are kids like me that want to be born!

KuKu