Schlemiel! Schlimazel!

It wasn’t the first time we Laverne and Shirley’d our way through a rough shift, and it wouldn’t be the last. The porter hadn’t shown up for work that day and I was trying to haul a huge, heavy, overflowing garbage bag from the can behind the bar and bring it outside. Having no spatial awareness but an inflated estimation of my own abilities, I first thought I could lift it right over the bar all by myself. (My poor spatial awareness is rivaled only by my poor upper-body strength.)

Mary was in the dining room doing battle with an unwieldy mop/bucket thingy on wheels, but when she heard me call for help, the mop clattered to the floor and she came to my aid. First we tried to lift the bulging bag over the bar together, but it was too heavy even for two.

“Nope, we’re gonna have to drag it out,” Mary, the logistics specialist, advised.

Together we hauled the huge bag of garbage down the length of the bar, and then out the side door to the street and—on the count of three—heaved it up and into the bin. Success! We slapped a high-five and broke into song: “We’re gonna do it—give us any chance we’ll take it, give us any rule we’ll break it, we’re gonna make our dreams come true—doing it our way…!”

Photo: Dino

For those too young to remember, that’s the theme song from Laverne and Shirley, a great sitcom that ran from 1976-83 starring Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams. It was about two gals in Milwaukee who worked as bottle cappers in a brewery and got up to all sorts of hijinks. Now in terms of jinks, Mary’s and mine were not so hi, but there were some pretty good ones. Like when we decided to hop on the no-carb bandwagon thinking we could all benefit from ditching the bread and tried to peddle pickle sandwiches. With enough enthusiasm (and that pesky inflated estimation of our own abilities), we were sure we could sell them. We were wrong.

But back to the Laverne and Shirley song; it begins with an old childhood hopscotch chant from Brooklyn, where Penny Marshall grew up:

"1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, Schlemiel! Schlimazel! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!"

I never knew what those words meant, but I googled and it’s Yiddish; something along the lines of:

Schlemiel: a clumsy, inept person who always spills the soup

Schlimazel: an unlucky person on whom the soup is always spilled

(Hasenpfeffer is a German stew made with hare, and apparently Incorporated was, well, just stuck in there—incorporated, if you will—at the end for rhythm)

Anyhow, over the years it’s sort of become our theme song at McManus. Because Mary and I are often mistaken for sisters, though, we briefly considered adopting the The Waltons theme after we were labeled “Homespun,” by a drunken tourist. (We could easily channel the Baldwin Sisters while serving up Papa’s “recipe,” but the tune just wasn’t catchy enough and it didn’t stick.)

Last Sunday was Gay Pride in New York City, and Dino and Roger—a couple of favorite regulars who always play great music on the jukebox—added the Laverne and Shirley anthem to the rotation and took this impromptu video:

Mary and I need to work on our routine, but you get the gist.

Tomorrow is July Fourth, and America is turning 250. The last time America celebrated a big birthday was the bicentennial in 1976. Gerald Ford was President, I was 14 years old and had just graduated from eighth grade. Hilariously, our graduation song was Laverne and Shirley as we solemnly marched out of St. John’s Church clutching our diplomas. (I still can’t quite believe the nuns gave that song the green light rather than, oh, I don’t know—“Onward Christian Soldiers,” or something.) Anyhow, we were all looking forward to starting high school in the fall, and celebrating America’s 200th birthday in the coming weeks. I still remember the excitement, pride and fun surrounding July 4, 1976.

And now here we are, 50 years later. Mary and I will be working tomorrow, July Fourth, and that’s just fine by me. I don’t feel like I’m missing out; the national celebration has been hijacked by a lunatic, so all in all, working is the better option. (Especially with Mary—no matter how much soup is flung our way, I know for certain there will be laughter, and fun.)

We’re all struggling, but whatever you do tomorrow, resolve to have some fun in spite of it all. “The pursuit of Happiness” is right there in the Declaration of Independence; don’t let him take that away, too.

But let’s reserve some fireworks for the big celebration coming in 2028; by then I believe we’ll manage to once again elect a president worthy of this great country built by immigrants—a country that gave us Laverne and Shirley, the Knicks, New York, jazz, movies, John Prine, The Adirondacks, baseball, Mrs Robinson (my high school English teacher), Patti Smith, Bad Bunny, tater tots, Carol Burnett and especially that most American thing of all: optimism.

So don’t lose hope, change is coming—the midterms are exactly four months from today.

Until then, hang on and remember all the good things that are uniquely American. What are the first five that come to your mind? (We’re a big country; my list doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface.)

Happy Fourth of July, America!