Saturday, June 26, 2004

Smoking and Talking


My Uncle doesn't smoke anymore, but some of our best conversations and some of his best stories were told with a cigarette and coffee.

The other day I was visiting and we were talking and reminiscing about what it was like when he first came to Canada. I reminded him of a few that I remembered, and he didn't...and he told me a new one.

It went like this:

"Bora an me, ve go feeshink, an ve drivink bek hom...an ve get laast.
Bora, he mek a u-toorn an da politz dey stap aas.

Da politz-man he say,
"Yu don see da sign say 'NO U-TURN'?
and Bora say to da politz, he say:

"No, you turn...bat me o.k.!"

Da politz-man he leff an leff..an ve look at each odde an tink...
mah...he crasy.



Bat den ve see da sign...an den ve leff too."

I love these stories.
There are so many of them that I forget until he tells them again, and they never get old for me.
I suppose that it's the way that he tells them, or that I love him so much that it doesn't matter how many times I hear them.

I don't know which, and I guess it doesn't matter.
So long as he's here to tell them.