February 9, 2007

Silicon Valley Mom

A Big Voice is Silenced

By Dona Nichols
Special to the Times

My father-in-law used to say the only way he’d leave his home in the San Fernando Valley would be in a pine box. He finally gave in to common sense and left there a little over a year ago. He was in our motor home, which, by some standards is pretty close to a pine box.

Mr. Nichols was not an easy man to live with. Some people thought it was strange that I called him “mister,” but these were mostly people who didn’t know him. Maybe it was my Southern Baptist upbringing, or maybe it was because this man had a voice that would make James Earl Jones sound like a pansy. Either way, it was my decision and nothing else seemed to fit.

On more than one occasion I told my husband, Ralph, that every single body part had failed his father except for his lungs and his vocal chords. He had two volumes to his speaking voice … loud and “scare you out of your pants” louder.

Everything Mr. Nichols said was peppered with raunchy expletives, including the compliments. He taught my children words I didn’t expect them to learn until they got to prison. It would have been a whole lot easier to simply put him into a nursing home. Had we done that, his recent death would have been little more than a blip on the map. Had we done that, we wouldn’t have the rich and wonderful memories Mr. Nichols gave us over the last 14 months.

One of my favorite memories about my father-in-law happened just a few years ago while he was still living in Reseda. I had planned to visit some friends in Southern California and he encouraged me to use his car instead of incurring the expense of a rental. Just before reaching my destination the car broke down.

It was no big deal. I begged Ralph not to mention it to his dad knowing that it would be much easier to simply get the car fixed and be on my way. This was not to be. Within five minutes of the breakdown Mr. Nichols called me on my cell phone. Keep in mind the following dialogue had unprintable words in it. I have replaced those unprintable expletives with the word “pickle.”

“Dona, I’m sorry that piece of pickle car broke down on you,” Mr. Nichols screamed in his gruff voice. “I’ll pay you back every pickle cent. Just get the pickling pickle fixed. I’m sorry pickle it, I’m pickling sorry.”

I have since referred to this as "the screaming apology."

When I got back to my in-law's house, Mr. Nichols was waiting for me in the driveway holding a check to cover the repair cost. He continued with a more robust version of "the screaming apology."

Mr. Nichols could have doubled for Peter Boyle (as Frank Berone in “Everybody Loves Raymond”) as he screamed, "Pickle it Dona, I'm pickling sorry."

In contrast to this was my mother-in-law, Ruby Anabelle, who was a genteel Southern woman who never uttered a profane word in her life.

She had a piercing high-pitched voice ... like Minny Mouse or Mr. Bill if they had come from Alabama. In her high-pitched drawl she said, "Oh Ralph, that language ... you need to see a shrink and get anger management."

"Anger management? ANGER MANAGEMENT?" he screamed. "What the pickle is anger management?"
All true.

The other night the kids and I were all fantasizing about what it would be like if Mr. Nichols worked as a greeter at Wal-Mart.

He would yell out, "Hello and welcome to.... uhhh, ummm, what the hell is the name of this place again? Awe pickle it, you know where you are. Get a cart and buy the pickled place out."

RALPH CLYDE NICHOLS (how does a mother look at a newborn and hang this kind of name on him?)

He was a fireman, a cowboy and one pickle of a father.

Born: June 17, 1920

Died: January 8, 2007

He was 87 and a half.

Dona Nichols teaches journalism at San Jose State University and does stand-up comedy on the side at the Improv in downtown San Jose. She lives in Evergreen with her husband and three children. Email her at: DonaNichols@gmail.com.