Nine Cigars, Nine Scotches and Plenty of Pink Silk Underwear

 

It’s wonderful to remember the service of our U.S. soldiers on Memorial Day, but today I’ve been thinking about the best half-American friend that the U.S. ever had – Winston Churchill.  I just finished reading another biography of him, and I loved mulling over all the stuff I already knew and finding a few tidbits I hadn’t run across before.

The author was another super-hottie boyfriend of mind, J. Rufus Frears, (see photo at left) who tossed in all sorts of juicy tidbits, such as the fact that my boy Winston drank nine scotches and smoked nine cigars each day, starting with breakfast. That doesn’t include the staggering amounts wine and champagne he had with meals, but I think it’s a nice round number for the man who stood alone against what he always sneeringly called the “Naaaahzees.”

Churchill's father was a bug-eyed, egomaniacal, syphilitic gasbag. His mother was a beautiful and narcissistic tramp, reported to have have slept with 200 men.  Neither of them seemed to have wasted much thought or effort on Winston. He was a washout at academics, and on the annual parents' day (Randolph and Jennie never came), the boys would enter the hall in order of academic achievment. Winston always walked in last, and people laughed at him.  From this miserable start came his incredible greatness, and that's just one of the reasons I love him so much.

Dr. Frears failed to mention one of my favorite bits of biographical data, which was Churchill’s penchant for wearing pink silk underwear. It’s one of those facts which you may not make much of at the time, but which will begin to color your understanding of every single event of World War II. Just knowing that the “Never Surrender” speech was delivered by a bloke wearing pink silk knickers just gives the whole thing another perspective entirely.

My other favorite Churchill story has to do with his dangerous wartime Atlantic crossings on the Queen Mary (he was always listed on the passenger manifest as "Colonel Warden”). On one particular crossing, there was a great likelihood that they’d be attacked by U-Boats. When told of this, Churchill got quite agitated – not about the need to keep himself safe, but over how he wanted his lifeboat to be equipped with a machine gun. Imagining himself stranded in the mid-Atlantic, with the wreck of the Queen Mary all around him and with the Naaaahzees circling like sharks, he didn't want to go down without a fight. That's my boy Winnie.

I never hesitate for a moment when people play the hypothetical living-or-dead dinner party game.  I would have Churchill to my right for all eternity (fortified, of course, by many naps on my part and a big ol’ jug of Diet Coke to help me stay awake). Perhaps I love him even more when I realize how impossible he’d be for our careful, coiffed and moderate times.  He was short (5' 6”) and he was fat (215 pounds). He drank. He smoked. He always told the truth. He never held a grudge. He did whatever he thought was the right thing, even when everyone else told him he was wrong, and even when it hurt his career.  He was much more brave than he ever was careful. It got him in trouble during his times; it would make him impossible in ours.

With a c.v. like that, he couldn’t get elected to the position of dogcatcher in the 21st century. but how could you not want to be represented by someone who understood what really matters in life: "We live very simply -- but with all the essentials of life well understood and provided for -- hot baths, cold champagne, new peas & old brandy."

On Memorial Day 2012, this Yank is lifting her glass of Diet Coke and saying, thanks, old boy. Well Done.

Talking out Loud (Like a Broken Drum)

My old pal Roger, the one who reminded me of Fred Flinstone in more ways than I care to remember, used to hold a roomful of peons hostage in a conference room, writing with dried-out marker on the flip chart and stopping every now and then to say, “I’m just talking out loud here.”

Ah, my days of being a corporate tool. Good for my 401K contributions, bad for my faith in the longevity of the English language.

Since my first day as an employee at the sort of joint that provides an employee ID number and a name badge, I’ve sat through thousands of hours of meetings. There were meetings when I tried hard not to scream aloud, meetings when I felt my heart pounding in my chest because I had no idea how I would ever get all that work done, and meetings where I honestly wondered if anyone would notice if I just … closed … my … eyes … a … bit. And always, I kept my mouth shut when I heard language being misused, mispronounced and generally mangled to unrecognizable bits, as it often was, and not just when Roger had flown in from Detroit.

As a recovering English major, I make it a point never to correct other people’s grammar. Having spent my life with one parent whose greatest pleasure in life was to point out other people’s mistakes, as loudly as possible, I lost my appetite for correcting other people long ago. My one exception is for a single bit of Minnesota-ese which I only heard after moving here. I feel strongly enough about this one to tell my daughters that if they ever use the word “pitcher” to describe a photograph, graphic representation or piece of artwork, I will sneak into their rooms while they’re sleeping and shave their heads.

I’ve been spending more time in conference rooms lately, and I see that the state of the English language is in perhaps even worse shape than when I first took a detour into self-employment. People are working twice as hard, and they seem to be thinking before they speak about half as much.

Here, then, for your amusement or despair, are a few of my new favorite bits of “talking out loud,” heard within the past calendar year at very reputable firms, and uttered by entirely well-meaning staff members. Feel free to contribute some of your own pips in the Comments section:

From someone who felt he was repeating himself, “I know I sound like a broken drum.”

From someone who was worried she had given me too heavy a workload: “I don’t want to overwater you here.”

From someone who wanted me to know that things were happening at a rapid pace: “We’re aggressing very forward.”

And now, I stop, before I cry. I'm reminded of Kennedy's description of my boyfriend Winston Churchill as the man who “mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.”

The battlefield is one thing, but the conference room might just beat the poor language yet.