Remembering Mr. Win

   When I was growing up, my household was full of catch phrases. This is mainly because my parents were notorious repeaters. If you repeat something enough times it tends to take hold, becoming a catch phrase, like it or not.
 
   Eighteen years of living with my closest kin made me a repeater too. It took me another thirty years out in the wild to unlearn my catch phrase ways, put the brakes on the old legacy wagon. That’s an unlearning-to-learning ratio of 1.7:1. Meaning it took me a helluva lot longer to unlearn it than it did to learn it in the first place. Nothing to brag about, I realize.

   I didn’t even do all of that unlearning on my own – it required tons of heavy lifting from friends and loved ones. Unrecognizable catch phrases with hidden meanings don’t play well abroad, so people can spot ‘em real easy, and maybe offer a helping hand. The people in my life who’ve given a damn about me have always called me out on it, from subtle say-wha pushbacks to all-out interventions. Over time this has helped me develop self-awareness about some of the oddball stuff in my head, the rogue code in my registry files. I’m not 100% cured just yet, and I may never be – but I’m a lot better off than I used to be. Looking back, it must have appeared to others that I was speaking a foreign language at times – which, in effect, I was. More than that, it was a dangerous language.
 
   Here’s the thing: The catch phrases I grew up with were not like the ones you might get a kick out of on, say, a sitcom. There were no charming witticisms, inside jokes with accompanying wink-winks. There were no “Whatchu talkin’ ‘bout, Willis’s?” followed by comforting laugh tracks. My family’s catch phrases were reality-bending declaratives and narrations about what was happening or about to happen.
 
   Am I being too vague? I understand. Maybe some examples will help explain what the hell I’m talking about. So here’s a few to chew on, including translations:
 
“That’s good.”                  
Translation: Say this when something is not good. Can also be used as an expression of patronizing judgment and disapproval.
 
“Let’s lay low today.”    
Translation: Lock-down imposed due to lack of creative thoughts about what to do out in the world. No one should try to leave the house. Nor should anyone attempt to have any fun while staying inside the house.
 
“It’ll be easy (easier).”   
Translation: Say this to side-step or ignore a challenge that ought to be faced head-on.
 
“Let’s zip over to…”         
Translation: Don’t make any plans today because we're all going to pile into the car and take an inordinately long time to drive to a local destination that is not actually the declared destination. As a bonus, there will be some road rage along the way.
 
“Here’s what I’m thinking…”       
Translation: Say this right before announcing a plan that’s intended to dominate other people, impose upon their Will, or otherwise inconvenience them and/or ruin their day.
 
“…Nellie and Win…”       
Translation: Using these words, in any context, is a celebration of procrastination. The celebration will include beating a dead horse, e.g., announcing forty-four times that you’re going somewhere before you actually go. (This one’s a little obscure, so I’ll explain more about it down below.)
 
“Well, I don’t know…”   
Translation: This means I do know, but I’m afraid to speak my truth about it.
 
“Alrighty then.”
Translation: Weasel words that make it seem like you’re agreeing to something, but later you’ll probably deny having ever agreed to it.
 
“This is really nice.”        
Translation: Used to describe an object or situation that’s uncomfortable, agitating, or repulsive.

*     *     *

   I bet a lot of families have a few pet phrases like this tucked away on a back shelf behind a couple cans of beans – but just a few. They could be little sound bites that only reveal themselves during times of stress. Often times, a hint of sarcasm or body language will be thrown in to alert everybody of the real meaning. For example, I once had a girlfriend whose family used the phrase “Butter, please” at the dinner table to open their Confrontation Portal. But in cases like this, here’s the thing: Anyone – even outsiders like me – could easily pick up on what was going on. So I’d be remiss if I didn’t nominate my family for some sort of special award.

   Not only does my family have a nearly infinite repertoire of fucked up phraseology (believe me, the short list up above is just the tip of the iceberg), but we're also skilled enough to dish it out with a straight face, without giving away the game to the uninitiated. We can also construct entire conversations out of this catch phrase crap. I’m not kidding. If you doubt me, here’s a little sampler, something close to a real conversation you could have overheard while sitting at my kitchen table on any of a hundred Saturday mornings in, say, 1979:

 
   Mom: “This is really nice.”

   Dad: “It is really nice. It’s nice to have a day like this to lay low.”

   Mom (addressed to me): “This is really nice, isn’t it?”

   Me: “Well, I don’t know…”

   Dad: “Here’s what I’m thinking… Later on we could all zip over to Keller’s [hardware store]. Then we’ll stop over and say hi to Nellie and Win, since they’re right there [near the hardware store].”

   Mom: “Well, I don’t know… I guess that’d be good. Since they’re right there.”

   Dad: “It’ll be easy. We’ll lay low for a while. And then later we’ll just zip over there.”

   Mom: “Alrighty then.”
 
  
   Knowing what you now know, dear readers, I’ll leave the translation to you.

*     *     *

   I’d be leaving you in a lurch if I didn’t cough up at least a little background on Nellie and Win, so here goes nothing…
 
   Nellie and Win were real people, an elderly couple that lived in town. They had befriended my parents, or vice versa, back before I was born, when my parents were twenty-somethings living in the apartment building next door to them.
 
   Nellie (her first name) was in her own 70s back in the 1970s. She owned a tidy, old brick house with an enormous wrap-around front porch that was about a block away from Keller’s Hardware, and next door to the aforementioned apartment building where my parents lived before they moved out to the country. The entire inside of Nellie's house – every single room – smelled like roses and cigarettes. There was a permanent haze in there too, from the endless lighting, extinguishing, and puffing of her beloved Salem 100s. You could stand in the kitchen and look straight down the hallway toward the front of the house, and, I swear to God, you’d only barely be able to make out the front door. The Salem fog hung that thick.
 
   Nellie was as polite to my dad and me as she had to be, but she was generally stand-offish with us. Not so with my mom. Nellie adored my mom. Pretty much all old ladies adored my mom. And the feeling was mutual. Whenever we visited Nellie and Win, my mom and Nellie would park themselves at the kitchen table, chain smoke their Salems, competing with one another on who could build the longest un-flicked ash stacks, and whisper secrets to each other. Their conversations would halt abruptly if I came into the house to use the bathroom, or if Mr. Win came in to pour himself or my dad another bourbon. During visits, us guys were relegated to hanging out on the front porch. Stepping inside the house for any reason was clearly an intrusion. The squeaky screen door gave us away every time.
 
   Win’s name wasn’t really “Win.” Win’s my homophone for his last name, which was actually spelled something like Wynn or Whyn – I’m not entirely sure. We generally called him Mr. Win, except when his name was used in the catch phrase “Nellie and Win,” in which case he was just plain old Win. When I was little, I assumed Mr. Win was a title rather than a real name. I figured Mr. Win was called that on account of some amazing accomplishments in his past. I imaged he’d beaten the house out in Vegas, or that he’d made it to the bell on a 2,200-pound rodeo bull.
 
   I reality, I don’t know if Mr. Win had many wins. He grew up in the worst part of Appalachia in the early 1900s, poor as a Job’s Turkey. He was a retired over-the-road trucker. He had driven Peterbilts, and had plenty of stories to prove that Peterbilts were the best. He met Nellie because he used to rent a room from her in her tidy brick house, way back when. Nellie and her husband had rented out rooms to truckers and other outlaws as a side hustle. Anyway, when Nellie’s husband died, Mr. Win made his move, becoming more than just her favorite renter. That was the story anyway. Nellie and Win never married, but they were an item. Mr. Win drank like a fish.
 
   The only time I ever saw Mr. Win sober was in the hospital, about a week before he died. His poor liver was shot and his poor skin was all yellow. That’s what drinking bourbon instead of water for most of his life had done to him. In a private moment, when my family had stepped out of the hospital room for a minute to do something or another, Mr. Win called me over to his bedside. He grabbed my forearm with his old, yellow, emaciated hand and squeezed me pretty hard. I didn’t mind it in the least. Honest. I liked Mr. Win, and I knew he had something important to say.
 
   “I want to tell you something,” he said. Then Mr. Win took a deep, raspy breath and let it rip. “Back in ’48 I got fired for drinkin’ on the job. Terrible, just terrible. I had to hang my head. I was ashamed of myself.” He paused and then drew in some more air. “I went independent for a year,” he said. And then, giving my forearm everything he had, he added, “I drove a Kenworth when I ran independent, and I want to tell you something. That Kenworth wasn’t bad.”  

*     *     *

   I never understood how going over to visit Nellie and Win was simultaneously such a procrastinated obligation for my parents – earning itself a family catch phrase and all – and yet also something they clearly enjoyed. After all: My mom and Nellie got to have their secret club meetings in the kitchen, which my mom seemed to relish. And my dad got to hang out on the front porch and get sauced with Mr. Win and hear cowboy stories about driving big rigs out west – which I'm sure held some appeal for him.
 
   My best guess is that my folks were trying to work through some deep ancestral wounds. For instance, I can say with certainty that my dad was never invited by his own dad to sit on a porch and throw back a few. Nor was my mom ever invited into an intimate (or pretty much any) conversation with her mom. So maybe Nellie and Win, just by being older and reasonably friendly, were, in some weird way, like surrogate parents for my parents. Maybe it was therapeutic for my folks to go visit them once in a while and shoot the shit. Therapeutic. I can imagine someone procrastinating the hell out of going to therapy, but then enjoy it alright once they're there. “Nellie and Win.”
 
   By comparison, I figure I’ve had an easier go of it in the old Generational Game than my folks. Not easy. But easier. For example: Me dealing with some psychological catch phrase warpage doesn't hold a candle to my parents dealing with their parents never talking to them.

*     *     *

   Mr. Win was an avid fisherman. He had more fishing equipment than anyone I’ve ever met. Rods, reels, lures, tackle boxes – you name it – most of it brand new, still in the box, never opened. The thing is this: He had most of his fishing gear squirreled away in little nooks throughout the house or in the trunk of his car. He hid all that stuff from Nellie so she wouldn't give him hell for it. No one could possibly need that many bait-casting reels.
 
   My dad’s theory was that the compulsion that drove Mr. Win to hide his fishing gear from Nellie was connected to him having to hide his booze from her for years and years. She knew he drank, of course. Anyone could see that. He always had himself a highball glass in hand or within easy reach. Nellie just didn’t have an accurate count of the number of refills that were happening. For some reason, my dad got a real bang out of his theory about Mr. Win. He loved to talk about it. “Mr. Win hides his new fishing equipment just like he hides his hooch,” my dad would say. “Isn't that somethin'? He just has to hide things. He can’t help it!”
 
   Mr. Win would take me fishing down at the river a lot in the summertime. We would drive there, and he'd be one-handing the wheel with his left hand, sipping from his silver flask with his right. This was his fishing flask, and it had an etching of a jumping, splashing trout on one side. Why my parents allowed Mr. Win to drive me anywhere, I have no idea. Maybe they figured that anyone who could have survived driving giant Peterbilts from sea to shining sea for thirty years while completely pickled could surely manage to get me down to the river and back in his Oldsmobile.
 
   Anyway, I remember clearly the last time he took me fishing. It was just before he got sick and got his one-way ticket to the hospital. He landed an enormous musky that day. That fish must have weighed thirty pounds. It was as long as I was tall. There was a newspaper guy on the scene. I think the newspaper guy must've lived nearby and got called down to the river bank by someone from the small crowd that had gathered to watch Mr. Win battle and land the beast. The newspaper guy interviewed Mr. Win right there on the spot, and he snapped a picture of him holding the huge musky just before he released it back into the river. The picture ended up making the local paper.
 
   Mr. Win was so happy, so genuinely satisfied with his accomplishment that day, his win, that he forgot to drink on the drive home. He didn't even take a little nip. His flask sat untouched in the middle of the Olds’ beige front bench seat the whole ride back, trout side up. Mr. Win still one-handed the wheel, though, his right hand confidently up at twelve o'clock. His left hand was occupied. Grinning ear-to-ear, he had his left elbow propped up on the sill of the rolled-down driver’s side window, trucker style, and his left hand was out in the wind, riding up and down, up and down, like a little airplane wing.

 
– O.M. Kelsey

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