After-Word

By J.J.

Well, there you have it.  The small exemplification of that which is the life and times thus far of the man and those and that around Jonnie Gill—Jonnie 7-11—Nacho Steppinstone—Rebel Leady Boy.  The every-day life of the man whose days are not unlike those of every-life, but more satisfactory when the absurdity of that life’s days is recognized.

On an everyman afternoon in every-day high school in 1988, long before the internet or blogging hit any of our lives, when people put their most mundanely absurd thoughts in diaries that were then put in their top drawer before going to bed at night rather than posted for the world to think about and when something funny or awkward could only be circulated to the people that you saw in the days following, I stood laughing myself into hysterics in the corner of the boys’ restroom in our school in Northeast Indiana as I witnessed the impromptu Opera mentioned in the Introduction.  I heard the King of the Urinal—Jonnie—call out for the audience to “hear my flush, fear my flush” as he struck the handle of the urinal to an orchestrated flash, while his confederate Duane sang response as the Queen of the Stall.

It was a shining moment of nonsense that makes me laugh every time it revisits, and one that would be lost but for the memory and rumor of the few there and those that heard about it in bars afterward.  The Opera was a spontaneous tick.  Jonnie’s collection grabs moments like that and serves the dual purpose of memorializing them and sharing them with pretty much anyone that is willing to take the time to read about it.

Each account in Content will revisit you long after the reading while you sit in a quiet office or in the solitude of a bus during your evening commute when you have a moment to yourself to remember them.  And they will make you happy.