Uncle Fred Was a Caveman

A Memoir by Karen Kay Remus
(C) 2017

Dad called me for lunch.  It was back in the days when I was in junior college, and Dad was in his parent's cellar. He had access to the phone upstairs, but for the most part, he was a cellar dweller.

The lunch meeting occurred at a local restaurant, although we probably could have eaten free roots in the cellar.

Dad had dressed in his baggy old hobo clothes and hat.  On a previous occasion, he had shown me all of his hats, neatly displayed in a row on his cellar cot, explaining what each hat implied to the public and why he wore it.  

For example, "This is my 'poor old man hat.' I wear it when I want people to feel sorry for me."  It was an ancient, plaid, "ivy cap" (the technical term)--like a beret with a bill--that was faded, dusty, and would indeed, make any wearer look poor and old.  Or, depending on other factors, such age and accompanying attire; just crazy.

At the lunch meeting, over his usual potato soup, Dad opened by loudly spouting an embarrassing litany of bigoted opinions that made me cringe and wonder how I could be his genetic progeny.  Then, it actually got interesting.

He lowered his volume and told me that when he was a little boy, living in a working class neighborhood in the Midwest, his mother took him on a train trip to her native Missouri to meet the relatives.  His mother had 13 siblings and had been dirt poor.

So sometime in the 1940's, little Don and his mom took a rare train trip to Missouri, where he met, among other relatives, Uncle Fred, who lived in a cave.  Yes; you read right: a cave. Uncle Fred had undoubtedly furnished the cave in accordance with the latest issue of Better Caves & Gardens. 

Dad also mentioned that Uncle Fred had been trying to treat a foot infection with magnets.  I did not inquire further into this line of discussion, since we were eating lunch.

The moral of the story is that I have shockingly recent caveman ancestry.  I have no interest in exploring my personal genealogy any further, because at that one meeting, I learned everything I cared to know from my strategically-hobo-dressed father who, at that point in history, chose to live in a cellar.

Me and William Shatner: It's Over!

Pictured above:  Karen Remus (pre-Genius Billionaire) and William Shatner in 1987

Me and William Shatner.  It was great while it lasted.  All 30 seconds of it.  That is, the actual encounter seen above, where he kung-fu gripped my heavily padded shoulders.  The blog, Me and William Shatner, lasted somewhat longer (3 years), and it too, was great while it lasted, but I must say "goodbye" now and move on.  The blog site is still up, if you want to check it out:  www.meandwilliamshatner.blogspot.com

It was my first blog.  I was a blog virgin.  I was going where I'd never gone before.  I had intended to tell the story of how the picture above had come into being, but in three years of starting to tell the story, and then de-railing and ranting about some topic like ex-congressman "Wiener" (or some other wiener), I never actually got around to it, so I'll tell it here.  I am finally ready.

In 1987, I was 23 years old and shockingly naiive in some major ways.  I had just graduated with my Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree and was working in a hospital where I was miserable.  I was tired all the time, and I felt lonely and isolated.  Back in those days, I had no computer (no one did), and I still hand-wrote personal letters in cursive and mailed them.  Vinyl albums, the TV, and the radio kept me company.

WLAV was the local rock station.  It actually plays the same tunes now that it did back then--except that now, they're "oldies."  The "Autorama" was coming to town, and William Shatner was making an appearance.  WLAV was running a promotion entitled, "Be Captain Kirk's Escort."  Remember that.  They weren't very specific about what that meant, but one of the D.J.s--a real bitch named Allison Hart--said something like, "you'll get to ride around the Autorama with Captain Kirk," or some such crap.

"Send us a postcard to enter for a chance to be Captain Kirk's escort!" 

I sent about fifty or so.  I don't remember the exact number, but it was a lot.  I wrote poetry on some of the entries.  One of them ended with the line, "I'd rather meet Shatner than (Dan) Rather."  Make of that what you will.  It had to do with what I was watching on TV at the time, including Star Trek re-runs.

I was alone in my apartment as they read the winner...."KAREN REMUS."  I felt as if the gates of Heaven had opened.  As I said before, I was shockingly naiive.  They had drawn my entry with the "Rather" poem and read that too.  "OH JOY!"  "OH BLISS!"  "MY LIFE IS ABOUT TO CHANGE FOR THE BETTER!!"  My heart raced.  I really felt like I was entering an alternate reality.  I called everyone I could think of who would care.  Three people. 

The big day arrived.  My sister and brother-in-law drove me to the Autorama, where I was basically used as free labor to hand out Bill's mimeographed promotional sheets (since he wouldn't sign autographs).  He was seated on an elevated platform behind a table, and throngs of people lined up and filed by to shake his hand.  I was placed at the foot of the platform to hand each fan a Shatner Sheet. That's what I called it--it wasn't really anything that clever.

No one introduced me to Shatner.  It was a crowded mess.  My sister and her then 3-year-old daughter were in line to meet Shatner.  When they reached me, my sister was all excited.  My neice, not so much.  I handed them a Shatner Sheet.  When they got up to Shatner, my neice started crying and screaming hysterically.  "WAAAAAAAAAHH!"  Her tearful wails seemed to say, "WHO IS THIS RUDDY OLD MAN WHO SITS BEFORE ME LIKE A CHEAP KING ON A FOLDING CHAIR THRONE?"  I was starting to feel the same way. 

"That's my sister!" said my sister to Bill, pointing at me.  Bill didn't get the point of what she was saying.  He clearly had not been told about "the contest," and he didn't know me from Adam.  He nodded obliviously and smiled, as one would to a screaming child and her retarded mother.

Finally, after about 30 minutes of this, I became red hot pissed.  I rebelliously stepped out of my "position" and found someone in "authority."  All of the men in this role looked like wanna-be gangsters.  Low men on totem pole with cheap suits and flashy dime store rings.  In my complaint letter afterwards, I wrote that last phrase verbatim.  That's what impressed them the most, too.  I remember someone saying, "They shouldn't have been wearing cheap suits."  Also, that was back when people still knew what "dime store" meant.

So one of these greasy creeps finally said, "OK, we'll see if we can introduce you to Shatner,"  as if he were doing me this HUGE favor.  Had I not complained, I never would have even gotten to shake his hand like the other masses.  No one knew anything about the "Captain Kirk Escort" contest that had been so heavily hyped on WLAV--most notably, William Shatner.  Someone had clearly dropped the ball.

When Bill took a break, the head creep (Bill's bodyguard?--No, too weak and sniveling), while standing in a huddle with his fellow creeps, made a BIG PLAN to get me into Bill's dressing room for about 30 seconds to meet him.  Now here's the key to this whole story....

The head creep briefed me about what to say and not say to William Shatner when I was introduced.  "Do NOT mention anything about Star Trek!  Got it?  He gets really mad if you say anything about Star Trek." 

This was right after Bill's famous SNL appearence where in a skit, he told some "Trekky" to "Get a life."

When they were convinced that I had "gotten it," they all hussled me into Bill's dressing room, and said, "THIS IS THE CONTEST WINNER!"

William Shatner smiled at me with a glazed look, and asked, "What was the name of the contest?"

Now, as you will remember, the name of the contest was Be Captain Kirk's Escort.  However, I had just been severely warned not to mention anything having to do with Star Trek.

So there I was, face to face with William Shatner.  My big moment.  And I could NOT SAY THE NAME OF THE FRIGGEN GODDAM CONTEST THAT GOT ME THERE!

What was I to do?  I was really on the spot.  So I said, "Uuhhhh....I can't say the name of it."

NOW ISN'T THAT PATHETIC?  I'm slowing things down here for a moment, because in actuality, this event was over in a matter of seconds. 

I was a HUGE Star Trek fan.  This was one of the greatest moments of my life, and I was put in the most awkward, embarrassing position possible, because some dumb ass promoters had their heads up their asses and didn't know or care WTF they were doing!  But I didn't have time to think of that.  I was just mortified.

Bill's glazed look briefly turned to slight confusion.  There was an awkward two or three seconds there, and then he said, "Well, I'm sure it was a nice contest."

What was he thinking?  Why couldn't this girl say the name of the contest?  Was it something like, "Who can pick up the most quarters with her --?"  Bill probably didn't even give it that much thought.

I meditated on this for many years.  Replaying it with the advantage of 20/20 hindsight.  At one point, I thought that my perfect response would have been,  "The contest was called Find a Cure for Cancer, and I did."  I think that would have pricked up Bill's ears--perhaps even scored me a real conversation where I could have revealed the horrific scam that had been played on me.

But no.  This had all blindsided me.  Bill did give me an autographed photo of himself, signed "To Karen," and he did pose for the picture above, which, in my complaint letter to WLAV, I claimed "didn't turn out."  Hey, they lied to me first.

I was infuriated.  I wish I still had a copy of that scathing complaint letter.  The paper vibrated.  The ink singed the page.  It must have scared them a little, because they gave me free, main floor, Bruce Springsteen concert tickets.  "Big deal," I thought.  Unlike my peers at the time, I was not a big Bruce fan.  I would have preferred tickets to see Elvis Costello or Kate Bush.

So there it is:  the story that has taken me twenty six years to tell in its entirety.  These are the thousand words behind the picture.

It was great while it lasted.

"Dad's Teeth" or "Find the Bone"

CRRUNCH! / CRRACK!

I remember my dad at the dinner table when I was in early elementary school.  You could have cut the tension with a knife, but you'd better have worn rubber gloves to avoid electrocution.  That's when our nuclear family (both parents & two sibs) still ate dinner together--before the core melted.

To say that Dad chewed REALLY HARD is an understatement.  The muscles of his jaw and temples flexed and bulged as if he were competing for the Mr. Universe title with his face.  His teeth chomped with piston-like action with a force of, say, 200 psi.  His expression, intense.  Somber.  He took little pills before dinner with "R's" stamped on them, which at the time, I thought stood for Remus, but later (in pharmacology) realized was the drug manufacturer's ID.  The drug was for--not surprisingly--treating ulcers.

No matter what he ate, his chewing was LOUD, like a slow jackhammer on granite.  Or perhaps "repeated blasting to destroy an old dam" would be a more accurate simile.  He sat at the head of the table, and I sat on his immediate right, between him and Mom.  Like the Son sitting at the right hand of an angry, hard-chewing God.  Come to think of it, I was often placed between my dad and mom--including on long car trips.  I WAS A HUMAN BUFFER!  I absorbed countless megawatts of electricity this way as a child.  Maybe that's why my nerves are now shot.

Anyway, what I'm building up to is this:  Dad would ALWAYS FIND THE BONE--EVEN IN FOODS THAT DON'T NORMALLY CONTAIN BONES.  Hamburger, for instance.  Maybe one out of 400 hamburgers will contain a bone chip.  His odds were more like one out of 40, and if one of us Remus's was gonna get that one in 40, it would be HIM.  ALWAYS. It was as if his teeth could bite into another dimension.  A dimension where everything--including pudding--contained bones.  He'd be chomping and grinding along happily (though expressing "happiness" more like an alligator than a human), and suddenly, you'd hear a huge CRACK from deep inside his skull.  It resonated like a gun shot.

Then, for a moment, silence.  The tension built as he mentally rose up out of alligator consciousness to figure out what had just happened.  Then he would spit out a grey lump, and finger his molar.  

"$%*@!" He grumbled, hauling the cracked tooth from his maw.  "WELL, OF ALL THE...(anger mounting)...$@#%..." his tongue exploring the new molar landscape.  He held up and examined the tooth.  "THAT'S A #%$ OF A..." or was that a bone fragment?  It was hard to say.  And he stomped off to further examine things with the aid of a mirror and flash light. 

Dessert, anyone?