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Where Art Thou Ape Man?
I read the story about the presidential candidates’ family trees with more than a passing interest.
I, you see, am a direct descendent of Sir Isaac Newton by way of Molly Malone. Shakespeare is back in there someplace, as is Maureen O’Hara of “Me Tarzan, you Jane” fame.
But I get ahead of myself.
Ol’ Isaac made himself famous by getting bonked in the head with an apple. Why, he asked himself, did that apple plummet to my royal noggin? Why did it not float off to bonk Robin Hood or, maybe, that stupid Sheriff of Nottingham?
Oh, I get it, he said. There is a force at work that cannot be seen, smelled, or felt. I shall call it gravity, in honor of nothing in particular.
Meanwhile, in Dublin’s fair city, Molly Malone was pushing her wheelbarrow through streets broad and narrow. She sold shell fish, cockles and mussels mostly, alive alive oh.
She was a forlorn lass. She did not want to be pushing that smelly wheelbarrow. She wanted to be with Isaac. Unfortunately he had become a dunderhead since the apple thing. He no longer wore his wig. He walked about with his head up and his mouth open. He looked as stupid as the Sheriff of Nottingham.
That disorder got into his genes. The generations that followed him suffered from vertigo. From Molly they received an allergic reaction to shellfish.
It wasn’t looking good for the home team. Fortunately, William Shakespeare happened along and herded the gang around the bend.
Willie – the family called him Willie – knew all about Isaac and Molly. He kept that under his hat while he wrote about some nut job in Denmark, a chieftan getting ready for battle while some hags messed with his mind, and a banker who invented sub-prime mortgages.
Finally it was time to go under the hat for the piece de resistance.
He would make them Italian for no apparent reason.
Isaac would be this impulsive young man who could be talked into anything – that was inspired by Isaac’s slack-jawed demeanor.
Molly would be a calculating young woman who had no idea how to drive a wheelbarrow and didn’t know a cockle from a shrew.
Molly’s parents didn’t want her playing for the other team. Same with Isaac’s parents.
And then they died in this horrible, loving way.
Willie called the play Romeo and Juliet and with it he made a mint.
We’ll fast-forward through this part. After Willie there were pirates, frontiersmen, the guy who invented potato chips, a couple of dancehall girls and a painter. Because of the Isaac disease the painter spent most of his life doing bizarre portraits of his mother. His real name was Cunningham. Folks called him Whistler. Don’t ask why.
Finally it became Maureen O’Hara’s turn to join the tree.
Not much was happening for her until she made the Tarzan movies. Her role was to run around in skimpy britches, getting slapped by a chimp, chased by lions, captured by fierce dudes, slapped by the chimp again, and darned near devoured by a crocodile.
Tarzan, that would be Johnny Wiesmuller, would rescue her in the nick of time.
Tarzan was a simpleton. He lived in a tree house and pestered the fierce dudes. He swung through the trees with the greatest of ease, and rode elephants on long distance travel.
He, too, ran around in skimpy britches. He carried a big knife, and he wasn’t afraid of anything.
After Maureen the family tree started filling up with soldiers, farmers and truck drivers. They were backbone American. They didn’t go to college. They dropped out school as soon as they were big enough to tote a bale of hay.
They don’t like monkeys, and they don’t trust the other team. They’ve never read Shakespeare, but they intuitively understand why he felt the way he did.
If an apple conked them in the head they’d eat it.
They do like Molly Malone. They sing a song about her when they’re half in the bag and Saturday night is turning into Sunday morning.
What do you mean you don’t believe me. You’re buying into Obama being related to George Bush and Hilary Clinton being a descendent of Joan of Arc or whatever but you can’t handle yours truly being related to the fish lady?
Heathens. You probably watched the Tarzan movies and cheered for the fierce dudes because they had homefield advantage.
I know your kind.
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