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    Downright Funny: Extraordinary Scenes From Everyday Life
    Downright Funny: Extraordinary Scenes From Everyday Life
    Downright Funny: Extraordinary Scenes From Everyday Life
    Ebook103 pages1 hour

    Downright Funny: Extraordinary Scenes From Everyday Life

    By Susan Hawkins Johnston

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    About this ebook

    The trials of living in a dry county...travel mishaps in Italy...my grandfather’s four wives...coping with math nerds...innocent shagging...these are just a few of the true adventures in Downright Funny: Extraordinary Scenes From Everyday Life.
    Why should you read about my life? So far it has not dramatically changed the world or substantially added to human happiness–no Pulitzer Prizes, no medical cures, no revolutionary ideas. You might even call it run-of-the-mill boring. But I have had some extraordinary experiences, some of which are touching and many of which, it seems, are downright funny. I suspect that your life is much the same: its ordinary appearance belies the fact that it is indeed amazing. My hope in creating this book is that you might find laughter and meaning in these stories that will help you relate to your own experience. And that you might discover, as I have by writing them down, how powerful everyone’s stories can be.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSusan Hawkins Johnston
    Release dateJun 3, 2013
    ISBN9781301047895
    Downright Funny: Extraordinary Scenes From Everyday Life
    Author

    Susan Hawkins Johnston

    Check out the Foreword to the book - it's all there!

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      Book preview

      Downright Funny - Susan Hawkins Johnston

      Downright Funny:

      Extraordinary Scenes from Everyday Life

      By Susan Hawkins Johnston

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2013 Susan Hawkins Johnston

      Table of Contents

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Special thanks go to my daughter for the design and creation of the cover!

      Foreword

      Chapter One: A Chattanooga Childhood

      Chapter Two: College

      Chapter Three: The Adventure Begins

      Chapter Four: Married Life

      Chapter Five: The Travel Channel

      Chapter Six: Home Ownership

      Chapter Seven: Timeless Stories

      Chapter Eight: Family

      ****Foreword****

      Why should you read about my life? So far it has not dramatically changed the world or substantially added to human happiness–no Pulitzer Prizes, no medical cures, no revolutionary ideas. You might even call it run-of-the-mill boring. But I have had some extraordinary experiences, some of which are touching and many of which, it seems, are downright funny. I suspect that your life is much the same: its ordinary appearance belies the fact that it is indeed amazing. My hope in creating this book is that you might find laughter and meaning in these true stories that will help you relate to your own experience. And that you might discover, as I have by writing them down, how powerful everyone’s stories can be.

      To get started, here are some quick introductions to the characters in the tales that follow (though real names are changed to protect the innocent). I, the storyteller, am Susan, my husband is Jim, and our daughter is Sadie. My parents (Mother and Daddy in this book) are Julie and Andrew, and my brother’s name is Joe. Jim’s parents are Ann (Mom) and Ted (Dad), and he has three sisters—Meg, Amanda, and Evelyn.

      The stories take place from 1960 (when I was born in Chattanooga, TN) through the present day. Jim and I now live in Indiana, but our lives have traveled a road with many stops along the way. In 1982 we graduated from college and were married. For the next six years we lived in Williamston, VA, while Jim worked on his Ph.D. in mathematics and I on my two graduate degrees (M.A.T. and M. A.) in classics. For the next nineteen years, until 2007, we lived in the small town of Avon, KY, the home of Midland College, where I worked in the admission office and Jim was a math professor. Sadie was born in Avon in 1992. We spent four years back on the East Coast—in Richmond, VA—before returning to the Midwest in 2011 and settling in Indianapolis.

      Please read on, laugh with me (and sometimes at me) as we have fun together, and enjoy these unique adventures that tell the story of my seemingly ordinary life.

      Chapter One: A Chattanooga Childhood

      ****Snow****

      When you grow up in the South, you never have a white Christmas … well, almost never. The one exception in my childhood was December 1969, when I awoke early on Christmas morning to what amounted to a blizzard in southeast Tennessee. We lived on the crest of Missionary Ridge, up a steep slope from the city of Chattanooga, and we gazed in wonder at the picture-postcard scene and appreciated the peacefulness that descends on a snow-covered city that has no plows. Best of all on that Christmas day, my cousins from Florida were visiting, and they had never seen snow before. They would stand outside and just look up at the sky in amazement. I remember my cousin Anne shivering with cold because her red Keds sneakers were soaked and her brother Mark bravely (or maybe foolishly) sledding down a hill that was too steep and brush covered to be safe. When our moms weren’t making hot chocolate or throwing our icy clothes in the dryer, they were out with us having the time of their lives. We have a picture of Mother at the end of the day lying exhausted on the couch, face-down and surrounded by impatiently torn wrapping paper. We joked that it would make a good advertisement for Geritol (the old-time equivalent of Red Bull): This is me before taking the wonder tonic …

      My mother, a native Floridian, loved sledding and was totally fearless. She had once even gone down Brockhaven, a street in our neighborhood that was so vertical that you had to floor a car to get it up the hill. The best sledding spot was the nearby bridge over the interstate (the place known in Chattanooga as the Ridge Cut). A few stalwart people would put chains on their cars and drive there to experience the speedy runs on this unusually steep slope. Whenever we had a snow day, which wasn’t often, all of us in the neighborhood, Mother included, would be out there. What were we thinking? We were sliding uncontrollably down a bridge that was a hundred feet above a major highway. One icy slip and we were history. But Mother was unafraid, so we were, too. It was glorious.

      ****A Fish Story****

      Every summer in our childhoods my brother Joe and I had a great time visiting our grandparents in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. (We, of course, were oblivious to the fact that there were six of us crowding in a one-bedroom apartment.) When we were aged ten and seven, Granddaddy took us fishing at a stocked pond, and Joe caught his first fish—a bream, I think, and only about six inches long. He was so proud of it that he wanted to have it mounted and stuffed just like the big fish we had seen on the walls in restaurants. Since this was definitely not in the realm of financial possibility, Granddaddy proposed we use another method to preserve this fish, which was basically to glue it to a piece of wood and cover it with shellac. Let’s just say he meant well, he really did.

      Because what had not occurred to us was that Joe would insist on taking his prize on the twelve-hour car ride home to Tennessee. The smell wasn’t too bad at first with the windows down, but by lunchtime three of us had realized that drastic measures needed to be taken. This fish wasn’t just dead … it was rapidly and odiferously decomposing. Having given Joe time to progress from tearful protest to tired resignation, we got off the interstate at Perry, Georgia, and unceremoniously dumped the remains in a garbage can outside a Howard Johnson’s restaurant. No one in our family ever talked about why, but we never could bring ourselves to eat at a Howard Johnson’s after that.

      Ironically, I recently read that the city of Perry was the home base of a new effort to promote fishing in Georgia. Maybe we started something.

      ****The Shoe Problem****

      Our summer trips to Florida gave us many other adventures with our grandparents and cousins. The year I was fourteen, and therefore embarrassed by anything that drew attention to me, my parents took us to a planetarium in West Palm Beach. Unfortunately my cousin Mark was barefoot (who goes to a planetarium barefoot?), and there was a sign on the door that said shoes were required. So my mom went inside and asked the staff to delay the show while we retreated to the car to think up a solution.

      The only viable plan was for Mark to wear my dad’s shoes, even though they were white Pat Boone shoes that were five sizes too big. The best he could do was to sort of shuffle along and try not to be engulfed by the boats on his feet. My dad stayed in the car (gladly, I’m sure). As we re-entered the crowded lobby of the planetarium, I heard what seemed to be the loudest P.A. system in the world saying, Is the family with the shoe problem ready? Everyone turned, looked at my cousin’s feet, and snickered—or so it seemed to me and my fourteen-year-old sensibilities. Usually Mark was the perpetrator of practical jokes and creator of embarrassing situations; at least he was the chief victim this time.

      ****Sweet Home Chattanooga****

      It’s a wonder that everyone who grew up in Chattanooga isn’t obese, because two of the best treats in the world are made there: Moon Pies and Little Debbies. Yes, this is half of the storied RC Cola and a Moon Pie, that chocolate, graham cracker, and marshmallow confection that is basically a s’more that’s easier to eat. My childhood friends and I were so unsophisticated that we didn’t

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