Darn, Wrong Alison

Stories! Love Letters!! Nonfiction Prose!!! Movie Pitches!!!!

07.25.2016

My uncle Ralph Hughes worked in Baton Rouge for Cargill many years, and this made sense given he had married a French Canadian named Marie. When Ralph died suddenly, my father made no arrangements to attend his funeral. I even offered to pay for the flight, but all he would say is, “I don’t like the way Marie is talking.” Last year, desperate for political help, I called a U.S. Senator’s office down there. He had a very smart female aide who said, “I’m not afraid of bad neighborhoods” [Like mine]. When I called a state official, he said, “Mister Hughes, welcome to Louisiana.”

This is another example of how, like in the entertainment business, lately people tell you anything to move on, terminate the call, get you off their back, etc. I never did that on the other end of a state government phone when people were looking for HELP. Back to Uncle Ralph, he laughed and cut-up almost the entire limousine ride when granny died. As with my maternal grandmother, she died poor, but the funeral procession looked like an heir to the brewery died. When I said, “Did you guys spend all of the insurance money on this funeral?” the driver looked in the rear-view mirror.

It took me from 1997 to 2007 to figure out what was so funny to Ralph. The limo driver was very old, 6’3” with a neatly trimmed gray beard, and for some reason got out of the vehicle to stretch his long legs at the VA Cemetery. J. Edgar Hoover did not think Howard had died, and I can prove granny died twice. (The records at the cemetery and funeral parlor do not match on the date). Where are the hospital records? At a hospital corporation with the same name as the one I’ve claimed to be born at in Canada. The Canadian consulate gave me an appointment on my birthday. No lie; and Richard/“Ricky” would not change his story about it. Second City is in New York now? The Cubs moved to Phoenix? How would I know with so little internet?

I made an 8mm production in 1966 with sound-synched tape lampooning The French Chef. Possibly Meryl Streep found out about this and played Julia too. If I had so much as high-tech U-tube money, I’d find an Obama look-alike for a voice over of: “President Obama personally joined the fight against ISLE today, as his motorcade was ambushed by several gunmen with AR-15 rifles.” You can guess the rest.

If only my Manhattan Theater Club honcho hadn’t died young. The “Freshman Challenge” at his college theatre department was to do something impressive straightaway. They built an identical “Hollywood Squares” set in 48 hours. When I saw it, I said, “How are the actors getting to the third floor?” Mike gazed at the set and said, “I didn’t think of that.”

Bill Hughes

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