Hahaha...my wife was a “Child of The Wooden Spoon”! Her mother was old Irish, and was not known for being the touchy-feely mom...
It was kind of humorous, when she passed, at her wake, her husband must have said “yes...yes...yes” to all the stuff the Funeral Directors put out there, including the music.
At some part in the ceremony they often do at wakes, they played a song that was so saccharine and sugary, about the mother that kisses the child’s cut knee, and hugs them, that my wife’s family were looking at each other with wide eyes that had equal parts humor and disbelief in them!
I laughed too, as I had my own run-ins with her. They didn’t like me when she was dating me, and it wasn’t that I was a bad guy or anything, but I think she was the last daughter to leave kind of thing.
And, she was an old school Irish Democrat, all in on whatever was needed to get the Democrat elected. I have no doubt she would have been an unrepentant ballot box stuffer.
So, she would bait me, knowing I was a conservative, and not being the kind of person to bite my tongue in these things, would open the firing ports on my vessel and fire broadsides back at her.
Eventually we stopped, and I found out after she passed on that my wife had read her the riot act!
One Christmas she gave me a present, and since she knew I was a history buff, gave me a book on American history called “A People’s History of The United States”.
On Christmas morning, when I opened it, I eagerly opened it and began reading as is my wont, randomly selecting a passage in the book. I like to open it to an era such as the Revolutionary war, or WWII to read something I know about, just to get a feel for the author.
Well.
I read a paragraph and thought “Huh?” then randomly selected some other passage elsewhere in the book, and said aloud “What the Hell?” and went to a random third one with the same response.
It was the most Leftist, anti-American screed of a history book I had ever seen. After a few more, I walked out into my garage and threw the book in the trash.
The author was Howard Zinn, a rabid, America-hating Leftist. I didn’t know who he was before that, but I sure did after that.
Imagine my horror when I found out this was a “popular” textbook for American History classes in K-12 and colleges!
I immediately thought she was baiting me, but the more I thought about it, I realized she probably wasn’t. We had made our peace, and she knew I liked history. She likely saw it on the sale rack at a book store with a drastically reduced price, and grabbed it without knowing what it was. That was her way to Christmas shop...:)
Ha ha ha ha! We had the same experience at my Irish rage-aholic uncle's funeral!!! Something would trigger him at so many of our big family dinners and he would blow up, with the red face and bulging veins. Kids scared; almost peeing ourselves.
At his funeral, the priest expressed great appreciation for him. Concluding, he said, "He helped us so much around the church. What needed to be painted, or repaired, he would always donate his time and skills. But there was one thing about Mickey..."
[Family gasps, side-eyes one another, tenses up, shoulders up around our ears.]
The priest continued, "He loved a good cigar!"
[audible exhales, eye rolls and suppressed titters from the family]
God bless our dear uncle where he is. WW2 veteran. We didn't know about PTSD then, but now we do. For the past 40 years, I've decorated his grave most Memorial Days.