he rode a blazing saddle

The internet is filled with opinions. There is a recent trend among posts on such micro-blogger sites as X and Threads as far as opinions are concerned. That is the concept of "unpopular opinion." Users preface their unpopular opinion posts with "Unpopular opinion, but..." and proceed to offer an opinion on a particular topic. "Unpopular," however, is a relative term, depending on the circles in which you travel. Statements like "Unpopular opinion but, mustard doesn't belong on any type of sandwich." are just looking for an argument. The ones that say things like "Unpopular opinion but, Charles Manson was an awful person" are just plain stupid. Opinions on things like television shows, movies, books or food are just opinions. They can only be labeled "popular" or "unpopular" depending on who is reading the statement. I have noticed that a lot of "unpopular" opinions reflect the way I feel. So, I will venture into the realm of "unpopular opinions" and register one of my own.

"Unpopular opinion but, I can't watch Blazing Saddles anymore."

I saw Blazing Saddles in its initial theatrical release. I went to the movies with my parents. It was six months before my 13th birthday. I was familiar with Mel Brooks and his brand of comedy. I loved watching Get Smart. I loved seeing Mel and then partner Carl Reiner play out their "2000 Year Old Man" act on the Ed Sullivan Show. I loved staying up to see Mel Brooks give a frenzied interview on The Tonight Show with  Johnny Carson. I got most of the jokes in The Producers, the first Mel Brooks movie I ever saw and one of my mom's favorites. But when Blazing Saddles hit the theaters, my dad couldn't wait to see it.

My dad was a proud racist. He watched All in the Family as though it was a documentary. He spewed out ethnic epithets as part of his normal everyday conversation. He spoke the notorious "N-word" the way some people say "good morning." That word popped up regularly in dinnertime conversation. My father often peppered his rundown of the day's activities with the "N-word" when describing interactions with customers at the supermarket at which he worked. Sporting events broadcast on television were cheered on by my father with phrases like "look at that 'N-word' run!" It was only as an adult that I realized that this was so grossly wrong and — in hindsight — it should have turned my stomach the way it does now.

My father didn't stop at African-Americans. His vitriol was hurled at Asians, Italians, those of Polish extraction, the Irish, Catholics and even Jews... despite the fact that we were Jewish! So, when my dad read the early reviews of Blazing Saddles, he couldn't wait to be a part of the experience. And when we saw the film... boy! oh boy! did my dad laugh. To be honest, everyone laughed.

Yes, yes... I fully understand that Blazing Saddles was written as biting satire. I know that Mel Brooks collaborated with Richard Pryor, a pioneer in controversial comedy and himself master of topical satire. I get that the way certain words and phrases in Blazing Saddles are used was very well thought out. The jokes are always at the expense of the bigoted ignorant characters. These characters are presented as too stupid to know they are stupid. Cleavon Little, as protagonist "Sheriff Bart," is intelligent and always outsmarts the brainless townspeople. I know that Richard Pryor encouraged Mel Brooks to employ the "N-word" in an effort to "tell the truth" about how racial prejudice functions as a brutal weapon in America. Mel Brooks fought with Warner Brothers over the inclusion of the word. Brooks, whose contract explicitly gave him final content control, stood his ground, making few and insignificant changes to the script.

I get all that. But in 2026, I cringe when I hear that word.

I am reminded of a time when that word was used in sitcoms that I watched. It was used on Sanford and Son, All in the Family and The Jeffersons. It was famously used in a skit on a first season episode of Saturday Night Live, where host Richard Pryor and cast member Chevy Chase played a very racially-charged game of Word Association. I am reminded of a time when that word rolled off my father's tongue like he was asking my brother to "pass the peas" at the dinner table. The use of that word, over time, tapered off on television to the point where now, it is audibly "bleeped" and appears as a line of asterisks in closed-captioning. 

This afternoon, Turner Classic Movies is showing a selection of Mel Brooks movies in honor of his 100th birthday. Wedged between Spaceballs and Young Frankenstein is Blazing Saddles.

Happy Birthday, Mel Brooks. I still can't bring myself to watch.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

no milk today

When I was a kid, I guess I drank a lot of milk. There was always milk in the refrigerator. It was usually a big gallon jug, as there were four people in my family, including two growing boys. My brother and I would have cereal nearly every morning and cereal required milk. Sometimes, after school or on a weekend afternoon, I'd pour a small glass of milk for myself, grab a few (or more than a few) Oreos from a package in the kitchen cupboard and have myself a quick, typically kid-friendly snack. However, if I think about it, most of the milk in our house was consumed by my father.

My father was a creature of habit. Once he did something, he would always have to do it. I suppose that started back in World War II, when, as a young seaman in the US Navy, he tried his first cigarette — and he never looked back. Cigarettes became a part of his daily routine right up until the day he died. He also always put his shoes and socks on first when he got dressed and then struggled to get his pant legs over his fully-clad feet. I don't know why he dressed in this order, but he did. He always did. My father also had a giant glass of chocolate milk and a Tastykake Chocolate Junior every night before he went to bed. It was as though he could not get to sleep without those two components. My father insisted that our kitchen was always stocked with milk, Hershey's Instant chocolate milk powder and a box of Tastykake Chocolate Juniors. The Tastykakes were usually hidden by my father so they would always be available for him and him alone. If, by chance, my brother or I would eat one, it had better not be the last one or we would suffer the wrath of one Harold Pincus deprived of his daily, late-night, pre-bedtime ritual. We were permitted to mix a spoonful of Hershey's Instant into our milk as long as enough remained for my father's milk, but if there were no Tastykake Chocolate Juniors around when my dad was ready to hit the sack — well, let's just say there better have been at least one. We seemed to go through a lot of Hershey's Instant in the Pincus house. Between my father, my brother and me, a one pound can never seemed to last very long. I remember the lid of the metal container had to be removed with the help of a crowbar, but a metal spoon handle would often suffice. The recommended two "heaping" teaspoons never delivered enough chocolate flavor for my liking and I would usually add a little bit more to my milk. I think I caught my father dropping up to three spoons worth of Hershey's Instant into his milk. His rationale being "I'm paying for the goddamn stuff. I'll use however much I goddamn please." My mom, who was in charge of keeping our kitchen's food inventory maintained, never allowed the Pincus house to be without Hershey's Instant.

As I got older, I did not follow in my father's footsteps. My taste for milk did not carry over into my teen or adult years. I have never poured myself a glass of milk to drink anywhere past the age of ten. I still eat cereal every morning, but I pour a  minimal amount over my Honey Nut Cheerios A few years ago, my son asked if I am still drinking cow's milk. He went on to explain that I should cut down on my dairy intake and suggested that I switch to almond milk for my cereal. At first, I balked. Then —  very much unlike my father —  I took my son's advice. I bought a carton of almond milk. I tasted no difference between almond milk and cow's milk. I've been buying almond milk ever since.

My wife told her father about my switch and he said he'd like to try almond milk. My father-in-law is not the most flexible or receptive-to-change person I have ever met. He (much like my own father) is very much set in his ways. My wife bought a carton of almond milk for my father-in-law. Allegedly, his highly sophisticated taste buds detected a "taste" in the complex flavor profile of almond milk and he rejected this little non-dairy, "I don't like anything new" experiment. The remainder of the carton was sent to our house. (This has happened several more times since as he half-expected to like almond milk on subsequent samplings. He did not.) While I do not fancy myself a food connoisseur in any respect, I cannot detect the remotest "almond" flavor in almond milk.

I still have no desire to pour and drink a glass of milk. As a matter of fact, the thought of it is a little nauseating. I'll happily drink the few drops left at the bottom of my empty cereal bowl, but that's it. No big glasses of milk for me.

I will, however, eat a Tastykake Chocolate Junior if one is available. You know.... in honor of my dad. Yeah... that's it.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

robbery assault and battery

From the time he was discharged from military service at the end of World War II until the day he entered a hospital to have that pain in his stomach checked on — only to die ten days later, my father worked. And he worked and worked and worked.

The day after he arrived home from his assigned duty of keeping the world safe from Nazis, my father walked into a Penn Fruit supermarket in his West Philadelphia neighborhood and asked for a job. With absolutely no experience and zero prior interest, my father became an apprentice meat cutter. He trained with a seasoned butcher every day. He learned the ins and outs of hacking up a full side of beef into saleable cuts that would entice Mrs. "Shopping For My Family" consumer. He caught on fast and soon became very adept at his new — and now chosen — career. He became a reliable meat cutter and after a few years, he was named manager of the meat department. Over the course of his tenure at Penn Fruit, his acknowledged skills were the source of various transfers within the supermarket chain. His know-how was called upon to raise the production — and the profits — of a slagging meat department in lesser-performing stores. He'd train the staff on how to cut meat efficiently and for optimum resale. He'd stay at a particular store until the department could run as though he was in charge... and then he'd be transferred to another store where he could "work his meat-cutting magic."

After many years of working within the supermarket business, my father was promoted to store manager. He was able to apply his understanding of maintaining a profitable meat department to an entire store and all of its various other departments. Once again, the company saw my father's prowess in turning a profit that they continued to send him in to underperforming stores to turn things around. 

Some of the stores my father worked in were in some pretty rough neighborhoods. A supermarket was a regular target for armed robberies in broad daylight. Many of the stores in which my father worked were robbed. Several times. One store was situated across the street from the known headquarters of a local motorcycle gang. That store was robbed — on average — once a month. However, as many times as my father's store was robbed, it was always on my father's day off. Not once was he ever in a store when it was held up. Each time, the robbers dealt with my father's assistant manager or the head cashier. My father always seemed to be elsewhere. He'd get a call — after the incident — from the store while we were in Atlantic City or even just lounging around the house. He'd interrupt his day off and drive down to the store or to the police station. But he really had little to offer, as he never experienced the actual robbery.

Penn Fruit eventually closed its doors and ceased operations. My father took a job with Penn Fruit's rival Pantry Pride, who, after almost a decade, also went out of business. In that time, though, several Pantry Pride stores were robbed — also always on my father's day off.

Later in his life, my father took jobs in independent grocery stores. He never had difficulty finding a job because skilled meat cutters are a dying breed. Stores were only too happy to hire someone with so many years of experience regardless of their age. 

In the late 1980s, my father was working in a family-owned supermarket in West Philadelphia, just a few blocks from where he began his career. My father was busy cutting meat at the rear of the store where the meat department was located. Little did he know that two men brandishing handguns burst into the cash room near the store's entrance and demanded everything. The store was owned by a family man in his forties and the man's father, who was quite the entrepreneur. He owned a lot of properties in West Philly and was responsible for bringing a thriving business district to the area. He was a hard worker and a proud self-made businessman... and he'd be goddamned if he was going to allow a couple of punks to rob him of his hard-earned income. Guns or no guns, the father — unarmed himself — lunged at one of the gunmen. The robber pulled the trigger and shot the father square in the chest. He fell backwards into an office chair as the panicked robbers fled with what they had gathered up to that point — which was a couple of bags of cash, mostly ones, fives and tens.

One of the gunmen ran out the front door. The other headed towards the back of the store. The first door he found on his proposed escape route was the cooler for the meat department where my father was busily cutting and wrapping the day's offerings. The gunman breached the heavy plastic sheets that kept the cold in and startled my father. He pointed the gun in my father's direction and loudly demanded, "Which way is out?" My father could not speak. He just pointed in the direction of a metal door that led to the alley behind the store. The gunman left and headed to the metal door. He opened it and found himself in the alley... where two police officers were waiting for him. Meanwhile, the first robber who ran out the front door holding a bag of money in one hand and a gun in the other was also met by a Philadelphia patrol car who just happened to be driving down West 60th Street and turned on to Cedar Avenue. Both gunmen were arrested.

This was the first time in six decades that my father was in a supermarket that was robbed. He was questioned by police, looking for his account of the events of that day. My father gave his honest answer. (This was a rarity, as my father was a longtime, habitual liar.) He told the police he was very sorry that he was unable to describe the robber, despite the fact that he stood just a few feet away when he burst into the meat department. My father explained that all he saw was the gun. A gun he described as being as big as a cannon — the barrel as long as a pool cue. He said the gun practically took up the whole room. He went on to say the only thought in his head was that he would never see his family again. The police politely thanked him for what little help he could offer. He was not questioned again and was not asked to appear as a witness in the subsequent court trial.

My father worked in two more supermarkets after leaving the one that was robbed. Considering that my father loved to fabricate stories and embellish upon actual events, he never spoke about that robbery ever again.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

I didn't recognize the man in the mirror

Nearly thirty years ago, my wife and I were in the food court of a local mall with our son. Our son was about seven or eight at the time. Taking a break from shopping, we selected a table and ate our standard mall food fare, probably pizza or the always "safe bet" salad. As we ate I looked around at the other folks doing pretty much the same thing we were doing. It was a fine example of suburbia and I silently laughed at the tableau before me. 

I continued to eat and observe my surroundings when my glance landed upon a startling sight. Sitting at a table about ten or so feet away was a man eating his dinner alone. His head was down as he guided his food-laden fork to his mouth. Not particularly unusual... until he lifted his head up. He was the spitting image of my father. I don't mean he was a guy who kind of resembled my father. I mean he looked identical to my father. So much so, that — if I didn't know otherwise — I would have thought it was my father. But I did know otherwise. My father had passed away over eighteen months prior. This made this sighting all the more.... unusual.

I am not a believer in the afterlife or omens or signals from the Great Beyond. I cringe when I hear people interpreting the appearance of a cardinal as a representation of a deceased loved one. I dislike when folks wish dead people a "happy heavenly birthday" and I certainly do not — under any circumstances — entertain the unscientific concept of reincarnation. You want to believe those things? Go ahead. Don't foist them on me, 'cause I ain't buyin'.

But seeing my father sitting at a table ten feet away from me, eating dinner, knowing — knowing —that he died a year and a half ago.... well, it was a bit unnerving. Not enough to make me a "believer," but unnerving just the same. I couldn't take my eyes off this guy. I tapped Mrs. Pincus's hand and discreetly pointed in the direction of the man eating his dinner. "Who does that guy look like?," I asked. She glanced behind her and needed no further direction. "Holy shit!" she exclaimed, trying to lower her voice to a whisper. Her reaction let me know she understood exactly which guy I was asking about.

Next thing I knew, I found myself doing something very un-Josh Pincus-like. I went over to the guy. "Excuse me," I began. He looked up from the open sectioned Styrofoam container from which he was extracting Americanized Chinese food. "You look just like my father.," I continued, "Do I know you?" The man smiled and identified himself as "Harold Simons." I instantly recognized "Simons" as my paternal grandmother's maiden name. My memory also scrambled to register his name as my father's first cousin. Coincidentally, "Harold" was also my father's first name, leading me to believe that, in the early part of the 20th Century, there was only a limited amount of male names available. Evidently, other more exotic names like "Tristan" and "Chase" had not been invented yet. (There were several "Max"s on both sides of my wife's family.) 

I told the man my name and noted our familial relationship. He chuckled in much the same way my father used to chuckle. I invited my father's cousin over to our table and introduced him to my wife and son. We talked for quite a while. He was much nicer and way friendlier than many of the members of my father's family — most of whom were not on speaking terms with one another. After some time, we excused ourselves, explaining that we had to be getting home. We expressed parting pleasantries and went our separate ways.

I sometimes think about one day being out in the world somewhere and a kid coming up to me, having been spooked by my familiar looks. You see, every time I look in the mirror lately, I see my father looking back. It's very unnerving, making me revisit my encounter with my father's cousin/doppelganger all those years ago. I suppose that's why I avoid shaving so much. I don't want my father watching me from such a close distance.

No. That's not an "up in heaven looking down on me" reference. That's a "Jeez! I'm getting old" reference.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

searchin'

This story appeared on my illustration blog twelve years ago, complete with a drawing of my father. It's a funny story that wasn't too funny while it was actually happening.

I'm pretty sure my dad's intentions were good, but he had his own quirky method of making them known.

My father followed an old-time, though slightly skewed, set of ethics. He was a hard worker and blindly devoted to the company he worked for — no matter how little that company gave a shit about him. He tried to instill his work ethic into my brother and me and he somewhat succeeded, as we are both hard workers. However, the Pincus boys just never bought into the "blind loyalty" part, as we came to know after years of working for various employers, that most employers feel that their employees are expendable and easily replaced.

My father loved his family and his way of showing love was to keep constant tabs on their schedules and their whereabouts. As my brother and I came into our teens, that task proved increasingly difficult for my father. Where are you going? How long are you staying there? When will you be home? Who will you be with? these were all part of the regular barrage of questions my brother and I were riddled with when we made a motion toward the front door during our adolescent years. My older brother's teenage antics made a wreck of my father's sense of family order and when I reached "driver's license" age I was no better.

In the summer of 1980, when I was 19, I ran a sidewalk produce stand for my cousin at 16th and Spring Garden Street in downtown Philadelphia. My cousin awakened in the wee hours of the morning and would spend several hours purchasing stock for the stand at the massive Food Distribution Center in South Philadelphia. He'd load his van with crates of fresh fruit and vegetables and I'd meet him at the stand around 8 a.m. to help unload the van and set up for the day. I did this every weekday for the entire summer and, even though I would sometimes stay out fairly late on weekday evenings, I was never on that corner later that 8 a.m. the next day. No matter what. Never.

At the beginning of that summer, I went on my first vacation without my parents. I went to Florida with three of my friends. When I returned home, my cousin recruited me to hawk plums and lettuce and I was just getting into the daily routine that the job required. I had also just met a girl at a local record store and we made plans for a date. Late one afternoon, I came home tired from a full morning of weighing out cherries, bagging bananas and persuading passers-by to pick up some tasty spuds for their family's dinner. After a shower and a change of clothes, I was ready to take this new girl out to a restaurant and who-knows-what-else. I met my father on the front lawn as I was leaving the house and he was arriving home from work. Right on schedule, the questions began.

He opened with his old favorite — "Where are you going?"

"I have a date."

"When will you be home?"

"I don't know. Later, I guess."

"You know, you have work tomorrow.," he informed me, as though I would not have otherwise been aware of my employment.

"I know.," I answered as I opened the driver's door of my mom's car and slid behind the wheel. My father stood on the lawn, arms folded across his chest, and watched me drive off. It was apparent that he was not pleased with my limited answers to his inquiries.

I arrived at Jill's house and offered her the passenger's seat in my mom's tank-like Ford Galaxie. We chatted as we drove and at one point I glanced in her direction as she nonchalantly popped a Quaalude into her mouth. We pulled into the parking lot of the Inn Flight Steakhouse on Street Road and I helped Jill through the entrance doors as her self-medication affected her navigational ability on the short walk from my car. At dinner we talked and joked and exchanged other typical "first date" pleasantries. Before we knew it, we had spent several extended hours at that table, although I'm sure I was more aware of the time than she was. (Under the circumstances, I sure I was more aware of a lot of things than she was.) She invited me back to her house, explaining that her parents were away for a few days (hint, hint). We drove to her house and, once inside,  she motioned to the basement, telling me she join me in a few minutes.

Meanwhile, my father was manning his usual post at the front door. He stood and stared out through the screen with an omnipresent cigarette in one hand, checking his watch approximately every eight seconds.

"Where the hell is he?," he questioned my mother.

"He's on a date. He told you. You saw him when you came home from work.," she replied, as she had countless times before.

"He has to go to work early tomorrow morning. Doesn't he have a watch? Doesn't he know what time it is?" My father was convinced that if he personally didn't inform you of the current time, you couldn't possibly know. He fancied himself humanity's "Official Timekeeper". He would have made a great town crier.

My mother — that poor exasperated, sleep-deprived woman — tried to reason with my father. "He'll be home. He knows he has to work. He's responsible. You know  he's responsible."

Suddenly, he grabbed his coat and scanned the living room for his car keys. "What are you doing?," my mother asked, suspiciously.

"I'm gonna go look for him. Maybe he has a flat tire.," he said, trying to sound concerned, but my mom was not convinced.

"You don't even know where he is. You don't know where the girl lives. You don't even know her name! Where are you going to look?" My mother knew he was up to something. No one could get anything  past my mother. Especially my father.

"Then, I'll drive around and look for him." Ignoring her words, my dad got into his car, backed down the driveway and sped off to a planned destination. He had no intention off driving around. He knew exactly where he was going. Somewhere around the time that Jill was descending her parent's basement steps wearing little more than a blanket and a smile, my dad was bursting through the doors of a police station several blocks from our home.

"My son is missing.," my frantic father shouted at the policeman on duty, "I don't know where he is!"

The unfazed officer grabbed a pen and, with it poised above a notepad, asked my father, "When did you see him last?"

"About seven hours ago," my dad replied, "when he left for a date."

The policeman dropped the pen, cocked one eyebrow and stared blankly at my father. "He's probably still on the date, sir." He instructed my dad to go home, assuring him that I'd probably be home any minute. Annoyed and dejected, my father shuffled back to his car and drove home. A few minutes after he pulled into the driveway, I steered my mom's car along the curb in front of my house. As I walked up the front lawn, searching for my house key, the front door opened and the shape of my father was silhouetted by the living room lamp. My mother was lurking several feet behind him.

"What are you still doing up?," I asked.

"Where the hell were you?," my father yelled, "I just came from the police station looking for you."

With this information coming to light for the first time, my mother and I simultaneously emitted a loud, angry and incredulous 'WHAT?'

"You went WHERE?,"  I screamed, "You knew I was on a date! Are you INSANE?"  I glanced down at my watch (contrary to my father's beliefs, I did own one and I referred to it often). "I don't have time to talk about this. I have to wake up in a couple of hours to go to work." I echoed my father's ingrained work ethic and looked him square in the face. "And so do you.," I finished.

With that, I stomped upstairs, flopped down on my bed and drifted off to sleep to the muffled tones of my mother's reprimanding voice coming from my parent's bedroom below.

I know my father's main concern was my safety and well-being and his intentions were honorable, but he desperately needed to take a course in Parental Behavior. Lucky for him, I think my mom taught those classes.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

yes, I remember it well

When my mom died in 1991, she took the entire family history with her.

Every family has an unofficial family historian. You know, that one person you can go to and ask any question about any family member for whom you need a little bit of information or possible clarification. How are you related to this person? Who's child is this and when did they get married? Is that guy we call "uncle" really my uncle? For as long as I can remember, my mom was that person. She was the keeper of the Small family (her maiden name) history and she eventually served in the same capacity for the Pincus family when she married my father. (Curiously, there was no one in my father's family that could be relied upon to give an accurate account of family relations. My father's family all shared one common trait. They were habitual liars.)

My mom knew facts about generations that pre-dated her own 1923 birth. She could rattle off names, dates, locations, offspring, offspring's spouses and countless children — some of whom she never even met. Right off the top of her head, she could tell of long-forgotten incidents, including explicit detail, as though they had just taken place the day before. She could sift through a box of mismatched photographs — ones spanning numerous time frames as exhibited by an assortment of black & white and color examples — and identify the subjects, the location and the approximate date on which the photo was taken.

My mom was the youngest of five siblings — her oldest brother being eighteen years her senior. I recall my mom settling many an argument among her siblings. The phone in our house would ring regularly as a brother or a sister would call to confirm with my mom which one of their uncles owned a produce pushcart or which aunt was especially promiscuous. My mom always had the answer. "Call Doris! She'll know!" was a phase that was spoken frequently among the Small clan and eventually the lying Pincuses came to rely on my mother's encyclopedic knowledge.

In October 1991, after a long, up-and-down battle with cancer, my mom died and left her family in a state of confusion. Not only was she beloved among her immediate and extended family, but she one of the few family members (on both sides) that nobody had an issue with. She was always helpful and pleasant and funny. And when she died, family history began to rewrite itself. Surviving family members were left to piece together their vague, mostly inaccurate memories. This left the Smalls and Pincuses with a legacy that resembled a poorly-sewn patchwork quilt.

There is one story that I really wish my mom were here to set the record straight. It's a story that has become a "bone of contention" between by brother Max and I. Max, as is the way of most big brothers, is always right. This story has been discussed many times since my mother's passing and the way I remember it and the way Max remembers it couldn't be more different. It's as though it isn't even an account of the same incident. Personally, I am fuzzy on the exact time frame. I don't remember exactly how old I was when it happened. But I do know that the way Max tells it is not the way it happened. The way I remember it was....

My mother had purchased a cake for an upcoming birthday — maybe mine, maybe my brother's. I don't remember who would be the eventual recipient. The cake was in a bakery box on the second shelf down in our over-stuffed refrigerator. (I always remember our family's refrigerator being packed so tightly that items needed to be constantly rearranged in order to accommodate new purchases from the supermarket or even a plastic container of leftovers. How my mom managed to find space to fit a bakery box in that frigid Tetris game remains a mystery..... but, I digress....)

The box containing the cake had the string that secured the lid removed and it sat on the shelf with the lid just loosely protecting the pasty within. As was typical for the Pincus family, I sat with my mom and dad in our den, watching television — most likely a program of my father's choosing. My brother was not with us. He was upstairs in his room doing whatever it was that he did up there. At some point, he came downstairs and visited the kitchen, perhaps for a snack or a beverage or both. From the den — adjacent to the kitchen in our small Northeast Philadelphia house — we could hear the refrigerator door open followed by my brother clinking bottles and moving covered dishes in an effort to see what sort of after-dinner nibbles were available. Suddenly, we heard a noise — a sort of a bang! — followed by my brother angrily muttering "OH!"

My mom, my dad and I scrambled into the kitchen to find my brother standing in front of the refrigerator. The door was open. At his feet was the cake box. It was upside-down and its visible contents were smashed on the kitchen floor — a scattering of crumbs and icing in a small, misshapen arrangement on the linoleum. We all stood silently for a few moments staring at the unexpected scene that surrounded my brother's feet. Finally, my father spoke. 

"What the hell happened?" he bellowed, gesturing with his omnipresent cigarette towards the destroyed baked good strewn across the Pincus kitchen floor.

My brother, with not a lick of fear in his voice, plainly stated, "I dropped the cake."

My father was positively dumbfounded. Dumfounded! He jammed his cigarette into his mouth, knelt down and awkwardly gathered up the cake box in his hands. He frowned and spat, "How do you drop a cake?" He repeated this like a mantra several more times, until he forcefully shoved the unwieldy mess into my brother's hands and screamed — demanded! — "Show me how you drop a cake!"

The words sounded downright stupid coming out of my father's mouth. It was one of those things where your anger is so out of control and over-the top, that your mind can't form coherent sentences to express the serious tone of the situation. My mom and I stifled our laughter knowing it would have made my mad father even madder. My always-defiant brother, however, just rolled his eyes as he accepted the dented cardboard box from my father. He placed it on the kitchen table. Of course, he wasn't about to demonstrate the procedure of dropping a cake for my father. This was a one-time performance. Max just stood by quietly and waited for my father's tirade to wind down. Finally, my father let out an annoyed exhale, lit another cigarette and retired to the den, shaking his head muttering about dropping a cake.

My brother returned to his room with a couple of slices of cheese from the refrigerator.

And that's the story. For years — years! — the phrase "Show me how you drop a cake!" — was repeated in the Pincus household for comedic effect. My son, whose birth came decades after the notorious "cake-dropping" incident, has made use of the phrase from time to time. It's a funny story with all the elements you'd expect in a funny story — a silly accident, an over-reaction from my father, my brother standing his ground and my mom and I hiding our amusement.

My brother, however, remembers the event completely different — right down to the action taking place on the sidewalk in front of our house instead of in the kitchen. Because of this, the story is never ever told in my brother's company.

He may have to start a blog of his own.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

sunday will never be the same

My dad liked things a certain way.

Just add sugar

He liked dinner as soon as he came home from work. (It had better be some kind of meat.) He liked a cigarette as soon as he got out of bed in the morning — even before be brushed his teeth or changed out of his pajamas. He liked to watch certain TV shows on certain nights. The FBI was a Sunday night staple. All in the Family (a show that my father viewed as a documentary) and Kojak were loyally tracked down and viewed on the various nights and timeslots in which they were broadcast throughout the lengths of their respective runs. In the morning, my dad liked a bowl of Kellogg's Corn Flakes with the sugar equivalent of six Hershey bars sprinkled liberally on top before the milk was added. (Why didn't he just eat Frosted Flakes? Two reasons. 1. My mom ate Frosted Flakes, therefore — in the mindset of Harold Pincus — it was a woman's cereal. 2. Those pre-sweetened flakes didn't have nearly enough sugar for his liking.) 

My dad was, by no means, an example of physical fitness. As far back as I can remember, his physique was that of someone smuggling a wok under his shirt. He got little to no exercise and smoked like a chimney. Despite this, before bed each and every evening, my dad would sit down at our kitchen table with a giant glass of chocolate milk and a Tastykake Chocolate Junior (two layers of golden cake cemented together with a rich helping of chocolate frosting and blanketed on top with more of the same) from a renowned local commercial bakery and — until recently — only available in the greater Philadelphia area. And he capped this pre-bedtime snack off with a couple more cigarettes to end his day.

Sunday mornings were something special, though. On Sunday mornings, instead of breakfast cereal poured from a box, my mom would cook breakfast. She'd fire up the stove and prepare scrambled eggs or pancakes or — if she was feeling particularly ambitious — French toast. But before my mom would pull a frying pan out of a cabinet, my dad would have to run his little Sunday morning ritual errand. He had to get donuts.

You know. Donuts.

? ? ? ? ?

See that picture at the very top of this blog post? Those — as far as I knew — were "donuts." If you went to the store to get eggs, you came home with a dozen little white things in a molded cardboard container formed to protect their fragile shells. Those were eggs. They could not be mistaken for anything else and they fit into  no other category. If you were tasked to go out and return with a baseball, you better come back bearing a nine-inch round, leather-clad sphere reinforced with 108 red stitches. Anything else would not be a baseball and you would have failed your mission. For young Josh Pincus, "donuts" were a specific thing. They were round, airy cake-like pockets stuffed with an overflowing abundance of viscous sugary jelly (Maybe grape, maybe raspberry. There was no real discernable fruit flavor.) and covered in a dense coating of clumpy powdered sugar, opaque enough to obscure any hint of yellow-gold pastry beneath. The jelly would seep out of a tiny hole at one end. To avoid getting squirted with jelly, you had to strategically place your first bite where that little "fill hole" was. That, my friend — and only that — was a donut. Those round things with a hole in the middle and covered with frosting and sprinkles? I didn't know what those were, but they sure weren't donuts. 

Free,
if you look like a girl.

On Sunday mornings, my dad would venture out to a nearby bakery to buy "donuts" and he would return with a plain white box sealed with several tight wrappings of twine. Once the twine was cut and the lid lifted, there were a dozen of those things I just described and they were donuts. On rare occasions, I would go with my dad to the bakery, where one of the stout Teutonic frauen would smile at me and offer a free cookie from their stock. "Isn't she cute?!?," they'd announce with an inflection reminiscent of Marlene Dietrich. That's right! "She!" My mid-1960s locks often led to being mistaken for a girl. But, I didn't correct them, fearing it would jeopardize this and any future free cookies. Munching my justifiably earned treat, I'd watch my dad point to the donuts in the case and instruct the Germanic abeiterin to fill a box with a dozen of them. I gazed at the other baked goods on display behind the glass-paneled cases. There were strudels, cupcakes and the giant tray of cookies from which my free one was chosen, along with other sugary bounty. Of course, there were those round things with frosting and sprinkles... but I didn't know what they were. I only knew we never brought them home. We came to get "donuts" and they — most definitely — were not donuts.

Admittedly, I was sheltered as a young child. The most influential people I came in contact with were my parents. But, as I got older, I began to notice things. Things I never really noticed before. I noticed that other kids' dads ate pizza. (My dad did not.) I noticed that other kids' dads drank Coca-Cola. (My dad did not.) I noticed that other kids' dads never used the same words my dad used for Asian people and Hispanic people and even that one he regularly used for black people. I eventually learned that those round things with the hole in the middle and covered with frosting and sprinkles were also donuts... just another variety. But they were donuts, just the same.

I learned a lot from my father. Most of what I learned, he didn't teach me.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

fishin' blues

On Father's Day, my son took my wife and I out for sushi — the traditional Father's Day meal.

To be honest, I only started eating sushi a few years ago. The thought of raw fish was not exactly an appetizing concept to me. It was only on rare occasions that the thought of cooked fish was something I would happily and voluntarily consume. As a vegetarian (actually a pescatarian, for those of you keeping score), my "fish" preferences are limited, because in addition to being a vegetarian, I also loosely follow the guidelines of kashrut (keeping kosher). I do this not so much for religious reasons, but more out of respect for my wife who follows the stipulations in a much more stringent manner. According to the  rules of hashgacha (Google it, if you're that concerned), shellfish and certain other varieties of seafood are off-limits on a kosher diet. So when I decided to "take the plunge" and subject myself to the wonders of sushi, I was limited to the all-vegetable selections first. Once I found those to be palatable, I ventured on to the ones topped with a slice of salmon or tuna. Eel, shrimp and octopus — common ingredients in traditional sushi — were off the menu for me. I don't think I would have eaten them anyway. Didn't matter, as I was surprised by how much I liked the sushi I had eaten. So, along with broccoli, cauliflower and gefilte fish (as mentioned in previous posts), a new item entered the JPiC diet that would surprise my mother.

In the short amount of time since I began eating sushi, I didn't exactly seek it out. The scenario has been pretty much the same. I either discovered it as one of many offerings on an all-you-can-eat buffet (either at a casino or on a cruise ship) or I got it from a take-out station at a market or — oddly — a pizza place that I happened to be in. The place that my son took us to was neither of those. This place was an honest-to-goodness sushi only restaurant... and I don't think I had ever been to a sushi only restaurant.

Kura Sushi is a chain straight from Japan. If you are reading this and you live in California, you are lucky enough to have nearly twenty Kura locations from which to choose — a dozen of them in the Los Angeles area alone! If you are reading this on the East Coast, then the Kura location near you is the Kura location near me. The Philadelphia location just opened a few months ago and my son has been there quite a few times already. He figured Father's Day was a good enough time to introduce his "recently adventurous" parents to what is fast becoming his favorite restaurant.

And, honestly, it's hard not to love this place.

Kura is no ordinary sushi restaurant. Upon first glance, the place appears very sterile with small booths situated in the center of the main room. Between the lines of booths run two conveyor belts, upon which a wide variety of sushi selections are silently delivered. Once you are seated, just pick your favorites from the seamlessly never-ending parade of sushi as it quietly glides by your table. Each selection is "announced" by a sign explaining what dish will follow on two plastic-domed serving vessels. If this piece of sushi piques your interest, simply grab the exposed edge of the plate accessible through as small notch cut out of the plastic dome — at which point the dome pops open and the plate is yours! You may add soy sauce, wasabi or pickled ginger (my favorite!) if you like. When you're finished that plate (or even if you're not finished), you start the simple procedure all over again. When my son explained the process to me, I immediately thought "Wow! the plates must really pile up on the tables!" But, alas, the good folks at Kura have that problem licked. 

Every booth is equipped with two unusual components not found in most conventional restaurants. First, there is a large touchscreen mounted just above the conveyor belts. This serves as a menu, as well as a source of information for each available sushi offering that whizzes by your table. With a few taps on the screen, you can find the ingredients of each piece of sometimes unidentifiable sushi. For the impatient, each sushi dish can be ordered straight from the unseen kitchen, arriving with a whoosh! on a separate conveyor belt just above the communal one — the ordered plate stopping miraculously right at your table. Drinks can be ordered from the touchscreen, too. Soft drinks as well as alcoholic beverages arrive by — get this! — a robot! Yep! A robot, whose electronic eyes wink as it spins around, revealing your drink order on its rear shelves... ready for you to remove and  transfer to your table. That's right. I said a robot!

The other feature at your table is a slot into which you deposit your empty plate once you've eaten the delicious contents. My worry about the possibility of "plates piling up" on the small table was alleviated once my son pointed out the small slot at the end of a short, metal incline and its purpose. But the "self-bussing" of your table doesn't end there. No sir! As plates are fed into the little slot, the touchscreen displays a running tally of how many plates have been accepted. Once the total reaches 15, a vending machine, behind the screen just out of immediate view, dispenses a small, round, non-descript capsule containing either stickers or a keyring charm or a cable tie or another cute novelty. The novelties feature little anime characters, most of which change on a monthly basis. And the prizes keep coming with each fifteen plates finished. When the touchscreen isn't serving as a menu or a research tool or a plate counter or a prize distributor, it entertains guests with short cartoons centering on characters trying to steal Kura's coveted recipes.

For a long time, I have joked about waitstaff at restaurants condescendingly asking patrons: "Have you been here before?," as though the concept of going to a restaurant is something totally unfamiliar to humans in a city the size of Philadelphia. My answer has usually been (delivered with a certain amount of palpable sarcasm), "Not here. But I've been to restaurants before and I kinda know how they work." Upon entering Kura, my son politely asked me to put my smart-ass comments on hold. I would soon find out that this place didn't work like any other restaurant I had ever visited. In reality, the robot that brought our drinks would have probably ignored my snide remarks anyway.

This was a Father's Day to remember. Actually, the day after Father's Day was the more memorable... because all I could think about was sushi.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

dance with my father

See that guy? That's my father. My father was the greatest Phillies fan ever! I mean ever! And he was the textbook Phillies fan as well. He loved them when they were winning. He hated them when they were losing. He watched Phillies games on TV and either cursed or cheered them, depending on how they were playing. He'd grumble and call them "bums." He'd cheer and proclaim "Never a doubt!" He'd fall asleep in the fourth inning and wake up in the eighth and start cursing (or cheering) right where he left off.

In 2008, the Phillies headed to the World Series for the first time since my father died. Just after my family and I watched those scrappy little bastards clinch the National League pennant, I wrote a piece for my illustration blog about my father and his relationship with his beloved Phillies. (You can read it HERE, if you like.)

Back in 2008, I was a rabid baseball fan. It was kind of strange, since I never had an interest in baseball when my father was alive. He used to take my brother to Phillies games at Connie Mack Stadium while I stayed home with my mom. As a family, we went to a handful of games on free tickets provided by my father's employer at the time. But, just a few years after my father's death, I suddenly developed an interest in baseball. My wife and I purchased a Sunday season ticket plan... and the games we didn't have tickets for? We never missed watching them on television. We even traveled to other ballparks in other cities. Our devotion to baseball lasted for nearly twenty years (or seasons, for the initiated)... until it was done. After we gave up our tickets, our interest in baseball waned. However, early in the spring of this year, while running through the hundreds of channels available from our cable provider, my wife stopped on a Phillies game and commented on how beautiful the ballpark looked in high-definition. So we watched. And we watched again the next night. We knew none of the players on the current roster, save for a couple of holdovers from the last game we attended a few seasons ago. Soon, we found ourselves buying tickets to a game, a result of looking for outdoor activities in the still-iffy clime of a post-pandemic world. Then we bought tickets to another game. And another. We traveled to Nationals Park in Washington DC. And we went to a few more regular season Phillies games. And our affection for this scrappy band of underdogs grew. At the beginning of the season, we knew none of the players. Now, names like Kyle Schwarber and Ranger Suarez are spoken with the same familiarity as Chase Utley, Steve Carlton and even Richie Ashburn.

My father saw the 1950 Whiz Kids, a scrappy bunch of underdogs who won the National League pennant on a tenth inning homerun by Dick Sisler on the last day of the season. Sadly, they got swept by the mighty New York Yankees in four games. My father saw the infamous "Phold of '64," when that year's team of scrappy underdogs held a healthy 6 game lead headed to the close of the season. Unbelievably, they lost ten games in a row and finished in second place, just one game behind the pennant-winning St. Louis Cardinals. My father saw those lean years of the 60s and the glory years of the 70s right up to the 1980 World Series — which the Phillies won, I might remind you. My father died on October 13, 1993, the very day that the Phillies — that year's group of scrappy underdogs — beat the Atlanta Braves, entitling them to another trip to the World Series.

Just a few hours ago, the current crop of players taking to the grassy diamond under The Philadelphia Phillies mantle won Game 5 of the National League Championship Series, securing themselves a spot in the 2022 World Series. This bunch of shaggy, swaggering kids aren't old enough to remember the soul-crushing home run that Joe Carter hit to seal the fate of their '93 counterparts. That doesn't matter. That's ancient history. This new generation of scrappy underdogs calling themselves The Phillies are going to the World Series.

And I can only think of how proud my father would be. My father, the greatest Phillies fan of all time.

(By the time you read this, two games of the 2022 World Series will have been played. My father would either have been cheering or cursing... just like you.)

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

pardon the interruption

My dad was a quirky guy. He liked things to be a certain way. He liked to sit in one particular chair in our house when he watched television. He fumed if he saw anyone sitting in his chair and, in a move reminiscent of his hero Archie Bunker, he had no qualms about telling the offending keister to vacate his chair immediately. He'd sit in that chair from the time he finished his dinner until the 11 o'clock news concluded, smoking approximately eleven thousand cigarettes.

My day liked — no, make that expected! — to have his dinner ready and served within minutes of arriving home from — as he often phrased it — "a hard day at work." As much as he complained about it, my father liked to work. In his mind, it showed his family (and the world) that he was responsible for their luxurious [insert sarcastic eyeroll here] way of life (again, from his POV). My dad would wake up at the crack of dawn to go to work, no matter what the job. He was a butcher, by trade, but over the years he worked his way up through the ranks to department manager, then supermarket manager and later, corporate office executive... and eventually back down the employment ladder to working butcher near the end of his life. Still, he never seemed to have two nickels to rub together and always struggled to pay bills. My dad did not live an extravagant life. We rarely took family vacations aside from the occasional overnight trip to Atlantic City (which he hated). One weekend every March, my mom and dad would go to a resort in the Catskills, where my father would actually display the characteristics of someone experiencing a good time. They'd return on Monday morning and things went right back to normal — work, home, dinner, TV, cigarettes, bed.

Without a scowl 

My father's dinnertime ritual was just as regimented and predictable as the other things in his life. When he sat down to eat, there better be some kind of red beefy meat that was once part of a cow, a vegetable of some sort, potatoes prepared either mashed or baked and bread somewhere on the table. And, most importantly, the avocado green telephone that hung on our kitchen wall just above the clothes dryer better not ring. My father hated when the phone rang in our house. Hated it! He hated anytime it rang, but especially during dinner. When the phone would ring outside of the Pincus dinner hour, my father would grumble: "Who the hell is that?" If it was answered by my mom, my brother or me, he would glare at the answerer for a few seconds before returning to his cigarettes and television. If — God forbid! — he had to get up and answer it himself — holy shit! — you'd think he had just been asked to help his kids with homework, mow the lawn and fold laundry (three things he did not do). He'd angrily extract himself from his chair, shuffle to the phone and snatch the receiver from its cradle. "HELLO!," he would bellow. If it was anyone but his mother on the calling end, he'd bark out the person's name and slam the receiver down on top of the dryer. Pick it up yourself, he'd think, I'm not your goddamn secretary, too! If, by chance, it was my grandmother, he'd change his tune. He'd offer a rundown of the day's events to her and — believe me — she didn't give a rat's ass about his day. 

However, if that phone rang during our precious dinnertime.... Oh boy! Watch out! My dad would furrow his brow, turn an infuriated shade of scarlet and seethe through gritted teeth: "Who is calling NOW? Doesn't anyone eat their goddamn dinner?" My designated chair at the dinner table was closest to the phone, so, invariably, it was my responsibility to field and screen dinnertime phone calls. The rule was if it wasn't a close family member gasping for their final breath or calling from a burning building, it could wait. I was instructed to take a message and the call would be returned when we finished our evening meal. No exceptions! And this little exchange was to be kept as brief as possible.("Close family member" was the defining criteria, as determined by my father. If, for example, it was my Aunt Clara — my mom's sister — well, she could wait... from my father's perspective. She could for-fucking-ever!) Conversely, it was drilled into our heads, by my father, that no outgoing phone calls were to be made from the Pincus household between 5 PM and 7 PM... got it? Good! He was respectful of other families dinnertime.  And as long as we are making rule about telephone usage, positively no phone calls — incoming or outgoing — after 10 PM. Period!

I got married in 1984 and my wife and I, like most households, had our own set of rules. No longer were we required to follow the same rules laid down by our parents. None of that "as long as you live under my roof" bullshit. No sir! We would make and receive phone calls when ever we darned pleased. Hell, we could talk on the phone during dinner, if we so chose.

As I grow closer to the age that my father passed way, I find myself growing less patient and more "rule aware".... just like the Mr. Pincus senior. And, to tell you the truth, its pretty unnerving. I find myself silently stewing when one of our cellphones (something my father never had to deal with) rings during the time my wife and I are eating dinner. (Honestly, it's rarely my phone. I don't get a lot of phone calls... and that's just the way I like it. Ooooh.... did my father just write that sentence?) My wife will happily engage with anyone who calls her on the phone, sometimes putting her dinner "on pause" until her conversation has concluded. Me? I will rudely continue eating, trying to chase my father's voice out of my head. Who the hell is calling NOW?

When did this happen? Am I slowly taking on my father's undesirable traits? I get an uneasy feeling when I catch myself channeling my father's decidedly weird behavior. I try to make a conscious effort to combat any of my father's quirks when I see them appear in my speech or actions. I should probably talk to someone about it.

Just not during dinner.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com