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Tours de Farce: Hey! Hey! Hey!
She told me she was conceived at Woodstock between sets by Arlo Guthrie and Joan Baez. Maybe that’s why she loved concerts so much.
Judy also loved 60s cartoon characters. Her favorite was Fat Albert. We’d go to shows like Tori Amos and Cowboy Junkies, and at the end of each song she’d stand on top of her chair, shake her belly and let out with a “Hey! Hey! Hey!”
After Fat Albert came her bootleg whisky. Heck, I can’t remember how many times that little brown jug got us booted from shows by The Manhattans and Blueground Undergrass. Or how it got us backstage at a David Lee Roth concert.
And she loved puttering in the backyard with her still. She’d be tending the fire or checking the coils, all the while dancing around to a Jessica Simpson CD. Then she’d take a long pull from her jug, look up at the moon and yell, “Hey! Hey! Hey!”
Gosh, it was almost like watching Marilyn Manson.
But then something happened that would change my life. She became addicted to reruns of a certain television show about an Army medical hospital in South Korea. She’d be glued to that TV, watching the Korean War as it was played out over 10 long TV years. After a while she forgot about the concerts like Leftover Salmon and Stereophonics. She forgot how much we were looking forward to Stereolab, and I couldn’t even pry her away from that TV for a Gordon Lightfoot concert. I can still see her sitting in that Lazy Boy, drinking her white lightning, flippin’ the finger every time she saw Major Winchester and yelling, “Hey! Hey! Hey!”
Then one day she was gone. That’s right, she left me for Alan Alda. I hope Alan’s happy.
They say you should remember the good things and forget the bad. But I have only one clear memory of my sweet Judy with the blue eyes. It’s a memory of her plopped in that chair with a jar of fresh moonshine by her side. It’s a memory of her watching reruns of Hawkeye, Hot Lips and Radar. It’s a memory of “Hey! Hey! Hey!”
“But more importantly, it’s a memory of Cosby, stills and M.A.S.H.