Celebrating Life, by Arthur Tebbel – Pop Art #110

January 11, 2011 Arthur Tebbel 6 Comments

Hi everybody,

I usually use this space to try and be funny for a little bit.  I have no desire to do that this week.  For one thing I find there to be nothing funny about the attempted assassination of a congresswoman this week and have found it hard to focus on more trivial topics this week.  I’m usually able to do that though but this week there’s another factor.

For the second time in three weeks I have gotten a call today telling me that my grandfather might be dying imminently.  This has been a trying thing to deal with to say the least.  Among my grandfather’s wishes is that he neither wants a funeral nor to be eulogized by his relatives.  I plan to honor those wishes when the time comes but, as of this writing, he’s still alive and I would like to take some time to talk about my grandpa Irwin.  I don’t intend this as any final word on his life but more of a snapshot of him as I see him.

I suppose it’s easiest to start with my grandfather’s sense of humor.  It isn’t fantastic.  He loves the kind of jokes that are most commonly associated with grandparents.  If you tell him the rain is really coming down out there he will, unfailingly, inform you that it rarely goes up.  From what I understand that’s the kind of jokes he’s always liked.

The thing is my mother is very funny.  Not to be immodest but so am I.  How does that follow?  Because he’s always trying.  He knows the jokes are out there and he reaches for them.  He isn’t embarrassed when it doesn’t work.  He smiles and half-shrugs and sells it through charisma.  Imagine what someone could do with that talent and actual punch lines.  Comedy isn’t really about being the most clever it’s about being fearless.  It’s about failing a hundred times for every joke that hits.  I learned how to take those knocks from my grandfather.  I could never thank him enough.

I distinctly remember a conversation I had with him when I graduated from high school about the importance of charity.  He’s like that, a stalwart supporter of the Jewish Federation.  I’m not going to talk to you about that though, that’s like cheap obituary talk.  I mention it because when he was urging me to be involved in charitable donations he didn’t mean to his causes but for me to find what I was passionate about and give to them.  I’m sorry to say I haven’t really done that yet.  I’ve sort of stuck to the easy and predictable.

This all doesn’t come close to exhausting the topic of things I’ve gotten from my grandfather.  He paid for my college education.  He gave me my default cocktail order (dry gin martini with olives).  He kindled in me a love of sports.  He showed me that there are some places in this country that people really shouldn’t be living (unfortunately he lived in those places).  He gave me the freedom to chase my dreams out here in Los Angeles.  When it finally is his time I know it’ll be really hard.  Tears will probably be streaming down my face.  They hardly ever go up.