Page 44 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
In addition to having an agile and sometimes strange mind, my mother seemed to have an almost photographic memory (especially when my transgressions or those of “the Yaverbaums” were concerned) and was possessed of a quick sense of humor, at least when she was not worrying.
And she loved a good laugh. Somewhere along the way, I became aware that I was capable of inducing laughter in others, a trait that I credit to both of my parents, and I would be gratified whenever I got my most critical of audiences, them, to respond to my humor. I’m certain, however, that I taxed their love of a good laugh from time to time. And I’m even more certain that, in my mother’s case, what passed for my idea of a joke was least appreciated on one occasion, when she decided to become licensed as a substitute teacher. Friends of hers who were fairly high up in public education and knew what was needed to pass the essay portion of the qualifying test told her that, no matter what essay ques- tion was posed, the subject matter of her answer would not matter at all; what would matter was her basic composition skills, sentence structure, rhythm, and the like. Accordingly, she determined that the easiest way to pass would be to compose the essay answer in advance, polish it, and commit it to memory.
She accomplished those tasks by writing and then recording her words on my reel-to-reel tape recorder so that she could continually replay the essay. Just to make sure that she had done well, or perhaps to show off a bit, she invited the same educators over for a thank-you dinner party and, after dessert, proudly played the tape for them. Unfortunately, by the time that she undertook the performance, I had already mastered the technique of belching on command (other asocial talents would be developed and honed later), and I had decided to pol- ish my skill by interspersing throughout her essay on Russian education the products of my labors, which I gave forth at times that were calcu- lated to arrest the flow momentarily. In that way I would let the more pedagogically important points sink in—by punctuating them, if you will. Unfortunately, as I was later told—in a tone that did not appear to convey gratitude—the interpolations that I had created were not
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