Mr. Winston

Mr. Winston… I hate when people call me that. Yeah, it might be respectful and all; but my thinking is that Mr. Winston, Sid Winston, that is, passed away a few years ago. He was Mr. Winston.

So when I hear it… “Mr. Winston” my reaction is: you must be mistaken.

Lucky for me I don’t have to look in the mirror that often. I shave in the shower or the sauna… so how folks see me — the image that would be laid bare by a mirror — is lost to me. Thank God.

I can be as young as I want to be… in my mind… even when my appearance suggests that “Mr. Winston” would be appropriate.

OK… even I steal a look in the mirror, it is pointless to pretend the contrary. Thank God beauty is in the eye of the beholder… and thank God there will be those who can see beyond the way I appear… to the way that I feel… to the way life moves thru me.

But that still side steps the Mr. issue, which I think is age and maturity related.

Is it ok to be called Mr. Winston and still think that the four greatest achievements of the 20th Century are the rubber dog turd, Groucho glasses w/big nose & moustache, rubber barf and panty hose.

A Mr. Winston doesn’t put on a scary monster-from-the-green-lagoon mask to terrify his daughters going to take a bath.

A Mr. Winston doesn’t prey on folks, warm and snuggie in bed with a case of the “cold hands”.

But I will tell you what Mr. Winston did… there was a time that I approached him on a Sunday morning with an egg in hand and asked, “Dad… is this a hard cooked egg?”

He inspected the egg carefully, turning it this way and that… even adjusting his glasses to the bridge of his nose. He then deposited the egg in question in the breast pocket of my white buttondown oxford shirt… and crushed it against me.

“No.”

Maybe I’m not Mr. Winston; but I am told by those who knew him, that the resemblance, in many ways, is startling.

And it doesn’t seem to end there. Shaina and Suzy have both pointed to early pictures of me and see the similarities to Zack. But it was Ellen’s kid Brother, Rick, who noted over this past Thanksgiving weekend that the sound of Zack’s voice, the texture of his laughter, put him to mind of me.

Seems like we have another Mr. Winston in the on deck circle.