While attending a memorial service yesterday, I learned that the owner of the funeral home and I had a mutual acquaintance, the man who lives upstairs from my father at his retirement home. Jerry, the funeral home owner, told me a tale about a little joke they had played on "Klondike", my father's upstairs neighbor.
Jerry got a call from one of his friends, "Jerry, bring some of those teeth up here to the cabin." I guess as the owner of a funeral home, Jerry had some spare false teeth that the owner no longer required. So Jerry cleaned and boiled a set of them and took them up to the cabin where his friends were waiting. Klondike, having had a bit too much White Lightnin', was sleeping it off in one of the bedrooms with his teeth in a glass by the bed. Jerry and his friends substituted a glass with a new set of teeth for Klondike's own. When Klondike awoke and put the teeth in, he said, "I'm going to have to quit drinking that White Lightnin'. Its made my gums swell!" He was spotted that afternoon out back with a knife whittling away at the teeth to make them fit. That night when they went to bed, they made the switch back to Klondike's original teeth in the glass by his bed. The next morning when he woke up, he was amazed that the swelling in his gums had gone down and his teeth fit again. He again swore off of the White Lightnin'.
I haven't had a chance yet to question Klondike about this story, but it should make for some lively conversation at the retirement home the next time I visit!
