Hey kid, watch out for Gizint.

A few years ago, when both of my folks were going though an unusually difficult time regarding their health, my father sat me down and talked about grandkids. Only half jokingly, he implored, "I don't care how you do it, or who you do it with, I want grandkids soon. I don't care who it is that you pick-up off the street to make this a reality." How very sweet. He even promised to help out financially since, at that time, I was hardly employed, and the employment stability of the proposed future-mother-of-my-children was directly tied to the level in which the Williams administration punished ladies of the night.

Thankfully, both of my parents have been in great health(physically) for some time, and my sister has since gotten hitched, so the responsibility for reproducing has fallen on her shoulders with the weight of 10 Passover briskets. My mother puts on her best old-Jewish mother voice and kvetches to her other old-Jewish mother friends "Ahch, she will never give me a grandchild!."

Well, all of that changed when a few months ago Bek found out that she will become a mother. My father cried when he found out, mother mother screamed, my aunt did this really funny dance and shouted "all right, all right!." (watch video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57L0YpsDgQ4)

My sister and I are super close. She is hands down the funniest person I know and we get along very well. But this was not always this case. She and I, especially as children, were very different. She could most often be found crying in public, tears streaming down her face, embarrassed at some benign action of my mothers (grinding with drunken Polish mummers during the mummers parade for example). I on the other hand, was a soft spoken, complacent kid, happy to ponder why tears came so easily to my sister.

As we got older, our relationship took on new dynamics. For example, my folks would often punish her for some transgression or another, and then would put me in charge of carrying out her punishment "Josh, Bek has been grounded from TV for the night, we are going out for a while, make sure she doesn't get near the TV." These actions would often leave me with bruises, broken skin or both.

Recently, she married a man, who like my mother, will happily embarrass her in public. He has a life-size Lawrence Taylor cutout, a once large collection of pleated pants, and a sense of humor directly connected to the degree in which my sister will get red in the face. He is a good man. Last Thanksgiving I witnessed a truly epic fight in which my sister discovered that the peanut butter she uses for breakfast was the same peanut butter that her husband dips their dogs bone into everyday. It was awesome. Back to the point of this long winded tale...

Bek is going to make a rad mother. But she will have to learn to deal with a child that will turn out almost exactly like me. Hairy, drawn to loud music, lover of beefaroni from a young age, critical of most events around him. It should be an interesting fit and one that I intend to laugh at and nurture with smiles, joy, and secret packages of metal records and leftist literature.

Lee Kohn at 70, or, if the world converted its primary energy source from petroleum to fart jokes there would be universal peace

On November 3rd, both the great fulgelhornist, Chuck Mangione and my father, Lee (short for Lee) Kohn will celebrate their birthdays. My father is a year older than Mr. Mangione and would have told him where to shove his flugelhorn if they had gone to high school together (answer: where the sun don't shine).

My father's influence has been vast. Andrew Richman probably would be half the man his is today if it weren't for my father. Ed Brant would have never learned the word "pisser." Rebekah Klipper would have far less jewelry. Berlin, NJ would still be receiving their gold purchases in brown paper bags.

My father has an active and inventive mind. I have hung around my fare share of dads over the years, and generally, they put their mental energies towards your typically fatherly obsessions- golf, piss-poor carpentry, pondering the best shortstops throughout the history of the Phillies franchise (answer: Dickie Thon). These were not activities that ever interested Lee Kohn. Instead, my father has spent much of his down time doing one of the following:
1. Napping: No man can match the athletic prowess that my father shows in his napping abilities. Even Cathy is outmatched.
2. Watching cooking shows: He can watch a mean cooking show. I have only really seen him "cook" boiled hot dogs, shrimp scampi, and an occasional bloody mary, but the amount of cooking he should have amassed over the years would put Emeril to shame.
3. Mediocre financial planning: My father is a champion average investor. Ask him for advice, he will give it to you.
4. Getting manicures: the man likes well-maintained nails, what can I say.
5. Coming up with jokes/stories/insults that would appeal to a 13 year old boy/Andrew Richman: Seriously, my father is king of the bathroom humor which makes him my hero.
This final (and most important) time-consumer leads me to one of my father's greatest inventions, and one of the true great ideas of the last century:

ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, SICK THING!

When we were young children, the Kohn family (Sherry, Lee, Rebekah, and yours truly) would take long and painful vacations to such educational destinations as Williamsburg, VA (I purchased a clay pipe, Bekah scowled), Bar Harbor (I purchased tadpoles, Bekah scowled) Niagara Falls (fresh peaches! Bekah scowled) and many a colonial military base (I purchased a fife, Bekah scowled). On these excruciatingly long car rides, my father had to come up with something, anything to keep Bekah from abusing her poor, innocent brother, and thus, the game "Animal, Vegetable Sick Thing" was born. The rules are as follows:

1. Basically, the game runs exactly like "Animal Vegetable, Mineral" but "Mineral" is replaced by "Sick Thing" since seriously, nobody wants to try to figure out that you are thinking of zinc.

2. You get 20 questions, or actually you get as many questions as you want since the Kohn's were never really that good at math.

3. Although the answer might be anything that falls under the three main catagories, the truth is, the answer is always:
1. Enema Bag
2. Diarrhea
3. Vomit
4. Fart
5. Poop (while you might think diarrhea and poop would be the same, they, in fact, warrant their own categories.

And that is the game. The key to winning the game is not getting the answer, but asking the grossest leading question to get to the answer.

Example round (answer is fart)

Bek: Does Josh smell like this?
Dad: yes
Josh: Did Bek just do this?
Dad: Yes
Bekah: When Josh trys to be cool, does this sometimes happen?
Dad: yes
Sherry: Is is a birthday cake?
Dad: no
Josh: Is it ugly like Bek's face
Dad: yes
Bek: Do you want to stay away from it like all of Josh's "friends"
Dad: yes
Bek: Is it a fart
Dad: YOU WIN.

As you can see, my father is a great man.

Happy 70th pop. I hope you eat a lot of meat and do not let one damn vegetable on your plate.