Wednesday 18 January 2012

Twelve Old Pennies! Quite a Heavy Weight.

Mannie was another foster parent of mine during my difficult hormonally touchy teens. Did you notice that? I am blaming my hormones for my childhood rigours. Well it feels kind of nice to give my poor benighted Mother a bit of a rest from my vituperative written retribution. As I have said before, it wasn't all her fault. Life sometimes deals out a bad hand. She just happened to be sitting at the wrong table, at the wrong crap game. A proper 'crap' shuffle on that occasion.

Where was I? Yes, Mannie, a foster father. In his younger days Mannie managed to scrape together a living of sorts as a fairground boxer. He was a bit of a bullshitter, but he showed me photos of himself at the boxing booth, so I know his claims to be true. When I first met him in his seventies he was still a pugnacious little character, and he had that boxers face. A kind of a battered handsome look.

He told me, that he had spent most of his life as a showman, living in a wagon and traveling all over with funfairs. I wish I could have got him to open up a bit about his life, but he didn't seem to have a lot to say about it, except what a good boxer he had been, and how successful he had been with the ladies.

The old pennies were one and a quarter inches across and heavy.
Boxing and sex! These were his main interests. He taught me a bit of boxing. As for sex, well he spoke about it a lot, but I never learnt anything from him on that subject, except how good he once was at it.

He once confided to me, that he had a very large penis. In his heyday, he was able to balance twelve pennies on it. In a line!

Now I am unable to confirm if this was true or not, because at the time he told me this remarkable fact, he also told me wistfully, and with a genuine sadness in his voice, that he was now down to eight pennies!

11 comments:

  1. A pity you didn't get to know your foster dad better. A lot of people of that generation were not good at communicating at an interactive level!

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  2. Amazing! Sounds like an interesting character.
    Love the header painting, John.

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  3. I absolutely love the header picture. Is it a self-portrait or someone else? It is one of your best. Mannie sounds like quite a character. I found it interesting that you did not mention your feelings for him.

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  4. Mannie sounds like quite a guy. :)

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  5. I dont think I would want to meet,
    A man who could perform this feat.
    It really would be quite a job,
    To accommodate a 'bob'
    and to finish in this manner,
    I'd be happier with a 'tanner'.

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  6. Glad you like the portrait Emma. It is nobody I actually know, but is inspired by a memory of an old black and white photo.
    I was very fond of Mannie. He was a kindly man.

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  7. Mannie must have been quite a guy in his day. It sounds like being a bit of a bullshitter was kind of important for the line of work he was in. I always liked people like that.

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  8. Thank God I'm not a man.

    Having a penis must be like being handcuffed to a maniac.

    Most men appear to think that their todger is their identity, (sweeping generalisation I know)
    they don't realise that the lump of highly prized gristle is just a toy...it's their brain that's the important bit.

    The trouble starts when they think with todger instead of brain.

    SP

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  9. Hahahahah!!! Normally, I'd say 'now that's something I'd like to see' when told something amazing, but in this case I'm not so sure!!

    I remember those old pennies. Yep, you really knew you had money in your pocket in those days.

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