Copping a Giggle

As I mentioned in my previous post, it’s the 15^th anniversary of the passing of my grandfather, Benny Bell, the comic songwriter who gave us “Everybody Wants My Fanny,” “Take a Ship for Yourself,” “She Got Her Tidbit,” “Shaving Cream” and dozens of other classic novelty songs.

            His mission was to make a least one person laugh at least once a day. 
            He was successful in that pursuit—if not always in his life's goal of making a living from his music. Too bad he couldn't have been paid to tell stories about things that really happened to him. I know several of them. I told one in last week's post, called "Pulp Nonfiction." Here's the second.

            He was driving down Knapp Street in Brooklyn and came to a stop sign. He slowed down, looked both ways, but didn’t make a full stop. A New York City police officer pulled him over and started to write out a ticket. So my grandfather began chanting in Yiddish—what’s called davening—while simultaneously swaying gently back and forth in the front seat of the car, the way religious Jews do in temple. When my grandfather got home he saw that the date on the ticket was wrong. The cop wrote in the date of the previous day. So instead of paying the ticket by mail he opted to go to traffic court. The judge asked the cop why he wrote the wrong date on the ticket—an action that rendered the ticket unenforceable. The cop said that he got confused when he saw my grandfather rocking back and forth and praying in another language. The judge turned to my grandfather and asked what he was praying for. Said my grandfather: “I was praying that he’d write the wrong date on the ticket.”