Friday, July 27, 2007

THE FALSE TEETH EPISODE

Many years ago while attending High School, I used to work afternoon at my former grammar school and I would help the char-women to sweep the floor, dust around and clean the balckboard. When summer came, of course, there was no school and I hired on as one of a crew to prepare the school for the coming season. My brother was the crew chief and I had an in to the work. Mr Durr was the head custodian and you wanted to stay away from his temper. I had been assigned to work with Jimmie Gassman and clean windows---you know those great high windows where you needed a tall ladder to do them well. Jimmie was a riot and he was regaling me with some rediculous stories and we were sitting each on his own ladder when in comes Mr Durr. We sat quietly while he told us how worthless we were and threatened that if we didn't get to work, we would be fired. The morning time was passing and again Jimmie and I are sitting exchanging nonsense--one of which I still used to impress little kids. This is done by stretching the web of your thumb and forefinger, putting it against your mouth and blowing and the sound of a fog horn would resonate across the room. We did a few of those and were laughing when in come the ogre--Mr Durr Now he is really mad and as he begins to lay it on us he seems to have a problem getting the words out. With that encumbrance, he cups his hand, spits out his upper and lower denture and proceeds to scream at us. Well, here we are at about 14 and had never seen dentures before and instead of respecting his problem, we broke out the most hilarious laughter you have ever heard. How unkind!! Well, I wish this tale had a moral or something to make the story interesting but that was it. We were fired and walked out laughing. I never saw Jimmie Gassman again and always wondered "Is he still so very funny"?

1 comment:

QuiltingFitzy said...

Glad to have you and your stories back! Hope you are feeling better.

I wonder if the existance of dentures will become a thing of the past, considering the advancements in the dental world?

If you were lucky, Mr. Durr likely had no idea what brought on your giggles!

Fitzy, a Tucson reader!