Days of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and the World – José, Chapter 1

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – José, Chapter 1

Now, Nina, I’m sure you remember how Uncle Ernest was in the middle of telling me about his strange adventure with José in that primitive city, Daveston. Time had run out the previous night, and Uncle Ernest, eager to party with his friends, had to leave without telling me the end. I was hoping he would be able to continue his tale soon and, sure enough, the very next afternoon he walked out of the house, rubbed his eyes with both fists, stretched widely in the muggy afternoon air, and settled uneasily into our front porch swing. As I scooted in next to him he said, “Where did I leave off, Moose the Goose?”

“Ahhh, well, you had just settled down that crazy guy who tried to kill José. Remember? You, José, and the club members were taking a walk through the streets of Daveston.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right. Well, after that bit of excitement,” Uncle Ernest went on, leaning his head back with pleasure, “we came to a little park furnished with some concrete picnic tables and stools, so we all sat down to take a breather for a while. José sat next to me, and, pulling out some parchment paper and a pen, he asked me to give him a hand with something.

“ ‘Ern,’ he asked quietly, ‘I have some very important speeches to give soon, and I wonder if you could help me with my presentations.’

“ ‘Why, I’d be glad to, José,’ I said, eager to help my good friend. ‘I was once a member of the toastmasters’ club in Wilmington,’ I explained. ‘We’d finish our speeches, talk about the ponies, jaw about some of the hot babes in town, and …’

“ ‘Hold on, Ern; hold on!’ José said firmly. ‘Spare me all of that. Can you help me give better speeches?’

“ ‘Oh, sure thing. Sorry, José. I think you can improve your speeches by developing some proper methods of getting and keeping your audience’s attention.’

“ ‘Slow down some, Ern. Please? I need to write all this down so I won't forget it,’ José said, scribbling on his parchment with the worst handwriting I had ever seen.

“ ‘If you want your listener to really understand an important point—have it sink in totally— you need to relate a story that illustrates the point indirectly. For instance, if you want to stress the value of forgiveness, develop a tale about a father who has two grown sons. Make one of the sons very devoted to his father and family, one who works hard, behaves himself and stays on the family farm as he’s expected to.’ All this time, Moose, José was writing like a mad man, getting it all down.

“ ‘Then,’ I explained, ‘make the other son the total opposite of the first one, a real scoundrel, who, after years of debauchery and trouble-making, returns home to stay with the family to enjoy the benefits of the father’s and the first son’s long-term sacrifice.

“ ‘Now, and here’s the kicker, have the father treat the second son, the rascal who has returned, better than he treats the first son, the devoted one. And when the first son complains, have the father say something like: “My son, we should celebrate and be glad, because your brother was dead, and now he’s alive again.” ’

“ ‘Geez,’ José said, ‘I never thought about that before. Thanks a lot, Ern. As a matter of fact, I like that example so much that I’d like to use it in one of my talks, with your permission of course.’ ”

“ ‘Certainly, José, I’d be honored,’ I said, genuinely complimented by the prospect.”

“ ‘I have so many thoughts to convey,’ José explained, ‘and thanks to you I’ll now have a good way of doing it. But another thing, Ern, pretty soon I have to give my most important speech to a lot of people on a mountain top. How can I hold their attention and reinforce my ideas?’

“ ‘Hmmm … Oh, OK, José,’ I said, ‘you can use a technique called parallelism, a series of repetitive, rhetorical phrases guaranteed to hook your audience. For instance, if I wanted to give an address on karate, which I know a lot about, I might say the following: “Blessed are the aggressive fighters: for theirs is the championship trophy. Blessed are they with hard sidekicks: for they shall prevail. Blessed are the quick: for they shall inherit the crown. Blessed are they with solid back-fists: for they will gain victory.” ’

“ ‘All right, Ern, all right; that’s enough. I get the picture—excellent! I might change the words a bit, but I’ll be sure to put it to use.’

“Yeah, Moose, I’ll tell you,” Uncle Ernest said in a serious tone of voice. “I really felt good about being able to give José a hand like that. José was quite a nice guy on the whole, practically perfect, and I guess the only thing he lacked was a sense of humor.”

“Right, Unk,” I laughed, “but you had enough for the both of you.”

“I suppose,” Unk shrugged. “But seriously, I was having a fun time for those couple of years in that old city. I had José, a great friend and smart leader of our club, Maggie, a sweet, loving girlfriend, and a whole bunch of priests of the city to drink and joke with half the night and play poker with a couple of times a week. What more could I have asked for, Moose?”

“It beats me, Unk, maybe a swimming pool and a dog like my Wiggsey. But crap, from your tone of voice I get the feeling things were about to turn sour for you again. Am I right?”

“I’m afraid so,” Uncle Ernest said, shaking his head slowly. “A bunch of things started to go wrong for José and our club. All of the rich and powerful priests of the town were jealous of José because of his growing popularity.” [To be continued Friday, 10/12/2012]