Remembering Snook
By
Rick Brown
Editor’s note: Originally published in Naked Sunfish, Issue 34.
It was ten years ago this month that my father passed away. I always reflect on this because he ended up dying close to the same day as my mother ... except nine years later. So, it’s impossible for me to go through spring, Mother’s, and Father’s Days without pausing for reflection. And his birthday was June 16th so there were many years that it was the same day as Father’s Day.
My Dad’s nickname was Snook. He got it from one or more of his many brothers and sisters who numbered 10 or 11 ... I forget. I had an Uncle Skeek. I had an Uncle Mooney. Snook’s real name was Richard ... like mine ... and he went by Dick almost always. Yet my cousins always called him “Uncle Snookie”. He didn’t much like the moniker ... but it stuck like glue.
I won’t kid you. The guy was a real pain to live with ... demanding ... boisterous ... you’re typical blue-collar father. But he was a good father. He came home after work every day. He was hard on us kids ... but he loved us. He was hard on my mother ... but he loved her. Yet even though he quit high school to join the Navy and go to war he had a certain decency ... and wisdom ... an intuitiveness that I don’t remember seeing in my friend’s more mild mannered fathers.
He had this sense of humor. He would just start with the dumb jokes until he found one that finally made you laugh. “Hey ... you know Fat Burns? Just light a match to it!” “Ever heard of Phil Dirt? He’s Sam Spade’s brother in law.” And then there was my personal favorite. He would say in a very deadpan voice, “You know what BURNS my ass?” Then he would thrust his hand out about waist high and yell, “ a FIRE ‘bout THIS HIGH!!!” It still cracks me up. And he would do these outrageous things no one else would have the nerve to do. Like when he heard a rumor that the owner of the shop he worked at was moving the place to Texas ... whenever the bosses would come around he would start singing, “The stars at night are big and bright” clap, clap, clap, “Deep in the heart of Texas.”
Snook did this great imitation of the Pope. He would make the sign of the cross and chant, “Icanbeatanybodyinthishouseindominoes!!”
This too still cracks me up! And whenever we drove past a cemetery he would say, “Hard to believe but people are DYING to get into that place!” Religion was a good subject for him. His philosophy for why he attended church regularly? “You’re dead a LONG time.” I think that’s funny ... and more honest than most churchgoers.
For a while my two brothers, Snook, and I were custodians at our church. What this means is that you do a lot of work, get paid very little, are appreciated even less and learn that it’s the LAWYER who becomes president of the congregation ... not the janitor. Still Snook made the best of the situation. I remember the whole family would be getting ready for church, invariably running late and you would see my father frantically brushing the shoulders of his sport coat while shouting downstairs at my poor mother, “GOD DAMNED DOG HAIR!! ANNE! ANNE!” Like somehow it was her fault. One time we had to get to church really early ... way before the minister did. Why? Because Snook left his cigar on the altar. Fortunately it had gone out before he put it there. And then there was the time he put the bowl from the baptismal fount on his head and went into this routine like he was shooting a machine gun! “Rat-tat-tat-tat!”
One time when I was a kid I asked my dad if our ancestors came over on the Mayflower. He told me they did. When I learned later on it wasn’t true and confronted him about it he said, “There had to be a Brown in there somewhere. And what the hell difference does it make which boat we came over on? We got here didn’t we?” That’s the way he was. Seat of your pants, blue-collar truisms that sometimes contradicted each other ... but it didn’t matter. “You can’t get rich by workin’ ” He’d say, “It takes money to make money.” Or “You don’t get nothin’ for nothin’ ... which ... I believe is a triple negative ... maybe quadruple ... but true none the less. On domestic issues it was either, “You can’t have dogs AND furniture” or “You can’t have KIDS AND furniture” Both of which we all know to be true.
For a while my father had a lawn mower repair shop in the garage out back. I have many fond memories of hanging out there watching him work and listening to baseball on a warm summer night. Tony DiAngelo from across the street would be bangin’ away at a mower with a hammer ... which seemed to be the only tool he knew how to use. He worked at a junkyard you see. Those were good times. Snook had these signs up in the shop. One read “Confucius say, No got the cash ... no cut the grass.” And “Confucius say, “No got the doe ... no gonna mow.” And my favorite, “Good tools cost money! Maybe mine aren’t good but put them back anyway!”
And how he LOVED to watch television. Ironically it brought the family together ... because there was only one television. Snook’s television. But we all sat around watching “Gunsmoke” and whatever Snook wanted to watch. These are some fond memories. Once ... after I had gone off to college ... he and my mom were visiting me at school when Snook told me, “Television ain’t any good any more Ricky”. When I asked him why he replied, “They ran out of PLOTS!!”
So this is the kind of guy he was. But the big thing I learned from him was tolerance. Yes from this belligerent, frustrated man I learned to be tolerant of others. Having served in the navy during World War II ... a subject he almost never spoke of…he was on a ship that went in after a battle, removed the dead and helped repair the guns. He wasn’t proud of this. Once he told me about a friend of his…a black man. In order for Snook to see his friend he had to go to the back of the ship to the galley. Why? Because the cooks were black and they had to be segregated in the galley ... away from the white guys. Same navy…same country. One time while we were on a vacation in South Carolina he and I took the car to a garage because the exhaust was falling off. While the car was up on the rack he introduced himself to a man of color there for much the same reason. The man’s name was Redd and Snook said, “Imagine that! A white man named Brown and a black man named Redd.” A year later when I invited a black friend from Akron that I had met at a youth church function to stay at our house Snook insisted we all go to church together ... and I remember people walking out…white people of course.
When I was 12 he bought me my first guitar. We looked at inexpensive guitars first but when he learned they were made in Japan he bought me a Gibson ... from the good old USA. “I ain’t buyin’ no Jap guitar”. He said. Yet 7 or 8 years later he bought a Mazda and proclaimed, “Them Japs make good cars Ricky!” I guess he forgave them by then.
Oh sure ... I’m romanticizing a little here. I don’t miss going out to change the oil in the car on the coldest night of the year after he waited until it was dark. “Put the oil in Rick!” “Does it go in this hole dad?” “NOOOOO ... I want you to POUR it all over the engine!” Or when I was going on a date and he didn’t like the girl he’d say, “Don’t do any thing stupid.” I’d say,” Waddya mean?” And Snook would yell, “YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!” Hey I do not miss those times ... funny as they seem now.
After my mom died Snook met a woman and remarried. She was nice enough ... but she was a Southern Baptist. So Snook became a Southern Baptist ... and believe me ... he did not make a good one. At his funeral there was this young minister ... one that Snook always joked cared more about taking his money than saving his soul…and if I hadn¹t written a little biography about my father I never would have known it was HIS funeral. So this young Baptist minister is up in front of Snook’s casket ... Bible in hand ... arms flailing about ... talking about fire and brimstone…eternal damnation…hell and salvation ... and I thought to myself, “Hey buddy! Ya know what burns MY ASS? A fire ‘bout THIS HIGH!!” And I swear I saw Snook smile. |
