Throwback Thursday Tales

Prince Michael's Command Performance.

January 2026 © 2026 sverdlin
all Rights reserved Dan D Sverdlin

Tonight we're doing a Milwaukee State Fair show. Last night Dennis made a golf date with my mom. We grabbed a limo at noon and drove to the family home in Bayside. I hung back at the house while they hit the links.
My bedroom's been enshrined. A nap in the "land that time forgot," has me ready willing and able. There's a tiger in the tank of Mom's GTO, so I take it for a joyride.
WOKY plays Chuck Berry's, No Particular Place To Go as the "Goat" peels rubber down the Old Port Road. G force is me pinning me to the seat while I pass Uncle Al's turn off.
The wheel whips to the left as my brakes squeal like a jailhouse stoolie. The beast pirouettes and then comes to rest on the shoulder engulfed in dust. It's time to do a little visiting.
My uncle's boy Michael is a 22 year old simpleton who walks in the shadow of congenital brain damage.The observable symptoms are similar to autism.
Dad's brother endured widowerhood eight years before a penultimate mate replenished his well. Bess hails from a one-horse whistlestop boasting fewer inhabitants than a WNBA mid-season matchup. From Rice Lake's perspective Milwaukee is Gotham City.
Fly casting a big city physician from such a small pond was somewhat of a Make A Wish Foundation miracle. Their engagement made "hold the presses" headlines in Rice Lake's Chronotype weekly.
Beth acquired assorted airs as she assumed her new mantle. My brother Jim and I were instructed to stop calling Uncle Bemel ( rythmes with Dremel) by his Yiddish nickname. He was heretofore was only to be referred to as Uncle Allen. We ignored her, so did the rest of our clan, but conceded an occasional Uncle Al for decorum.
His Queen convinced Bemel that Buicks were beneath their status.They began sporting around in shiny red Jew Canoes, which certain Milwaukeeans call Cadillacs.The predilection created a stir among patients, who began casting a scrutinizing eye at their bills:).
Coronating herself personal stylist, closets were cleared and repopulated with Bemel's man-trousseau. Color coordinated leisurewear of exhaustive pastel gradations hung to the left and custom tailored suits to their right.
Precisely matching shoes and socks for the Alexandrian library of casuals coalesced into harmonious ensembles like rabbits breeding in a magician's hat. Doc's look would have been trendsetting for Mid-Western men, if any of them had felt inspired to follow it. 😆.
When it came to her son's abnormalities Bess eschewed special ED in favor of rigorous tutoring. She passed 12 years' worth of classes with flying colors and gained him admission into college as easily as slipping on an unshoveled sidewalk in December.
Michael (Bess never called him Mike), had not known the bonds of friendship growing up. During campus life, his social deficit reached critical mass. Some dorm-mates were catching a buzz on w**d when a little bird from Milwaukee informed the administration. For his attaboy, Michael was shredded into pieces then parcel posted home with an honorary degree in How To Make Enemies.
The summer preceding his brief exposure to the upper echelons of education Mommy and Daddy took Mike to L.A.. I gave him a tour around Beverly Hills' and Belaire. As we cruised the gated golden calves grazing on manicured hillsides he opened up about his future aspirations. Michael's biggest dream was owning a record store.
Through the pale light of loneliness The Beach Boys music has reached out and befriended the lost boy. He especially identifies with In My Room (from the Surfer Girl album). It's resonated against his bedroom walls every day since he discovered music.
Two summers after Mike's tour, I've come to town with his BBFs ( "best friends forever").
"I'm going to take you to The Beach Boys show tonight."
A sonic boom of exuberant but unintelligible verbosity outpaced his larynx. He stuttered and jumped around like a puppy whose master just returned from pulling a 12 hour shift.
"Stay home until somebody comes to pick you up, okay?"
An indelible smile served as confirmation.
I was sure I would be beat them home but Dennis and Mom are back from hacking up the course.18 holes for a pair of sand trap dwelling divit diggers should have taken all day.
"What's up Ma?"
"Some stinkers at Ville Du Park reported Dennis for having his shirt off. The greens keeper was on his way to give us a warning when he noticed our cart zigzagging. Then he called out and Dennis turned his head to see who it was."
"And when he saw it who it was, what happened?"
"The cart veered and ran over some schnook's ball while he was teeing off."
It was the best time she's had since Dad passed away.😆
Dennis's heart is the only thing bigger than his capacity for hell raising.
"I invited my mentally challenged cousin to the gig tonight."
He chugged a snoot full of vodka flavored grapefruit juice and grinned,
"We're going give this kid the royal treatment."
An hour before showtime the limo driver delivered Michael. He has never been to a concert before, let alone backstage.
Dennis likes using two hands when he shakes. Still holding Mike's right with both of his he said,
"This is a Shelly. She's your es**rt for tonight."
The beautiful docent has taken Michael into her custody.
"This is going to be a lot of fun handsome. Let's get started. "
Mike and Shelly are occupying the two best seats in the house as the lights dim. He's washing down a cotton candy with coke when the announcer's voice bellows,
"California's boys of summer, THE BEACH BOYS!".
Dennis grabs a mic as the band walks onto stage,
"Ladies and gentlemen, we have a special [emphasizing the word], guest in the audience. Milwaukee's own Michael Sverdlin. Stand up so they can see you Mike."
Shelly hooks her right arm cross his left and stands him up. She kisses a blushing cheek as the Wisconsinite's ovation rivals a reception for The Packers or The Pope.
The applause thin as the Boys launch into Be True To Your School. After a few shouts of "Down in front," Shelly tugs him into his seat.
Mid show Dennis comes from behind the drum kit for Surfer Girl.He dedicates it to Mike and coaxes more love out of the audience,
"Let's s hear it one more time for my special friend with special needs,
Michael Sverdlin!"
The show has ended. Shelly has Mike's hand in hers while Good Vibrations reverberates through the chauffeured hovercraft. It skims across the city and then delivers Prince Sverdlin back to the castle.
We've stuffed the trunk with Beach Boy shirts, an autographed satin jacket and a copy of Dennis's solo project inscribed "To my favorite fan, Dennis."
Today began like nothing special, now it is highlight of Mike's life. My Mom fondly calls senescence second childhood. Michael's first will never end.

January 2026 ©2026 Sverdlin
all Rights reserved Dan D Sverdlin

The Toddler and Momma Theresa
November©2025 Sverdlin. All rights reserved Dan D Sverdlin.

The Toddler and Momma Theresa

On Friday nights relatives used to gather at our home as far back I can remember. One of the key weekly figures of was my Uncle Bemel (pronounced like rhyming with "them" plus the letter L).
Bemel was a cool guy for the times. He dressed well, played in a high stakes gin and poker games, had a doctor's practice, owned a piece of a local soda company, and scooped a pension from being a Colonel in WWII.
He loved to joke with my 6 year old brother,
"Jimmy, could you get me a nice cold glass of toilet water."
This went on week after week. Jimmy dutifully fetched a cold glass of water until the ritual was unexpectedly discontinued. One Friday Bemel gulped down a frosty tumbler full and said,
"Ahh, that was best ice cold toilet water I ever drank!"
Little Jimmy proudly announced,
"That's where I got it. "
The rest of our family found the repartee between man and boy hysterical. Uncle Bemel took his bows kneeling his head over the source of origin.
Although his younger brother lived in the suburbs with two kids and lovely wife, Bemel, his sister Lucy, and my Grandfather cohabited an aging flat. Eventually he began to catch up with my father, Harvey.
Bemel married a wonderful Greek girl named Terri. While she was expecting the couple moved into a home a few blocks away from ours.
Mom had Terri babysit for me one day while Jimmy was at school. I couldn't have been older than pushing three. She feed me lunch in a high chair the couple had for their new arrival.
Terri came down from the second story steps to help me eat. As she did an internal narrative invaded,
"She's so nice. It's a shame she has to die."
I wasn't fully toilet trained, yet in some arcane way had associated death with childbirth.
Time passes differently for toddlers. A few weeks can seem like an eon. At some point after the highchair incident and the next 1000 million years, my Mom and Dad were talking about Terri. I asked why,
"Terri has died."
The mysterious internal narrator returned,
"Oh, I knew that already."
It was old news.There was no ascertainable reaction.
Mom and Dad paid a visit with me to Terri's family somewhere between 2 and a billion years later. Shortly after our arrival I was given my first baseball mit.
Sitting at the top of a dog legged stairway I envisioning major league heroics on the field and home runs at the plate.The landing held a magnetic alure. I didn't reflect upon why.
For many decades the subject of Aunt Terri had an unwritten taboo about it. At some point I mentioned her dying in childbirth. Mom rectified my misapprehension,
"Oh, know. She was visiting her parents and fell down the stairs."

According to leading Child Development Specialists, toddlers do not think in sentences. Their endoaphasia (internal dialogue) speaks in truncated phrases like, "more juice," "mama go way", "sleep now", or "kiss doggie."
Fully grammatical syntax such as,
"She's so nice. It's a shame she has to die.", and "Oh, I knew that already."
are just as confounding as the contextual meanings they had conveyed.
Sometimes thing's happen between the middle ground of light and shadow. They can give rise to fear of the unknown or foster hopes that there is more to life than meets the eye.
What happened should not have happened, but it did. As to why, your guess is as good or probably better than mine.

November©2025 Sverdlin. All rights reserved by Dan D Sverdlin

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