Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family
history through old photographs.
This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt is sure to make
everyone smile, if not laugh out loud. The same response might result from
looking at this photo from 1973:
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| Christmas 1973 |
My sister and I were having a good laugh over the onesie
footy pajamas with “trap door” she received for Christmas. Those pjs were funny
enough, but in retrospect we should have been laughing over my lovely
floral-overload bathrobe or maybe my sister’s bathrobe crafted from bath
towels. You gotta hand it to the 70s - funny fashions.
Something about laughter inspires more laughter. Have you
ever started laughing just by watching someone else laugh uncontrollably even
though you didn’t know what you were laughing about?
That is what happened to me one evening in the early
1980s. I answered the telephone. On the other end my sister was laughing
hysterically. She couldn’t talk. Every time she tried, she would break down in
more laughter. “Cam was callll HA HA HAHAAAAA.”
Before I knew it, I was laughing hysterically, too, with
tears streaming down my face. My husband Barry asked what was so funny. “I don’t
know. HA HA HAHAAAAA.”
Between fits of laughter and tears I got the story. Barry
and Cam, my sister’s husband, were officers in the United Methodist Men’s group
at church.
 |
| Some of the Methodist Men 1980s |
It must have been some big dinner coming up for Cam to be making
phone calls to invite or remind the members. After one call, Cam just fell back
on the bed. “Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh,” he kept saying as tears started to form.
When he was able to talk, he told Mary Jollette about his
last phone call. It went something like this:
“Hello, is J. B. there?”
“No, he’s not.”
“This is Cam from the Methodist Men. Can I leave J. B. a
message?”
“Well, Cam, J. B. is dead. He’s been dead for a couple
years.”
Not surprisingly poor Cam stumbled through an apology. He
knew the man was dead. He was just going down that list of names and not
thinking. But our family is merciless in times like these. We spouted off the
names of other dead men not to call. “Don’t call Denver Coble.” “Don’t call
Sam.” “Don’t call . . . .”
Just remembering this story still makes me ROFLMAO.
Make your way over to Sepia Saturday where there are lots
of laughs to be had.
Wendy
© 2019, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.
Always good to laugh; laughing with family is the best!
ReplyDeletebetty
HaHa! You made me laugh too. Oh those 70s fashions. I look back at our old pics and don't know whether to laugh or cry.
ReplyDeleteForgetting someone's death is one those universal embarrassments that transcend time and space. A few weeks ago my 88 year old mother made a list of friends and family recently deceased so that she won't forget.
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, the 70s were a creative era. Best not to remember too much.
O come on! Some of those '70s fashions were pretty cool. I, for one, loved the robes created from towels & had one. Only problem was, it was too warm. Great take on the prompt! I never would have thought of big smiles. Neat.
ReplyDeleteLaughing really does us good...your family obviously has a good sense of humour. And possibly needed it with those fashions ;)
ReplyDeleteLove this story and the look back at 1970s fashion. I have several knitting books from that era with laugh-out-loud patterns in them every bit as wild as your and your sisters' outfits. And congrats on doing the A to Z challenge this year. My schedule didn't permit, but I hope to join the fun next year.
ReplyDelete