Johnny make him wear underpants

 


Johnny make him wear underpants


     It seems only fair that Grace Sheehy be represented as she was the true show-runner on McNerney ave. and never asked for much in return. She made keeping house an art and was a fine cook, excellent organizer and very good backyard gardener. She could give political opinions, grow nice tomatoes and always had fresh flowers about the house. She also was one of the few Moms who worked a real job and looking back it is even more amazing how clean and inviting her home was despite putting in days of work at CalComp. I never in my life ever called her Grace or him John because we were taught to only address our friends parents as Mister or Mrs. It is weird that as a sixty year old man I still called this woman Mrs. Sheehy but that was the only natural way of addressing her. I ate a hundred dinners in the cozy breakfast nook there and enjoyed countless barbecues out back. Grace treated me like I was one of her kids and always made me feel welcome in her home. She also would sit down at an old IBM Selectric and type/edit my hand-written term papers for college. Again, she was happy just being useful and expected little in exchange. The one thing she did not care for was my beard and she referred to it with a sound like part gag and part groan! Grace also was plain spoken, well-informed and was always the voice of liberal reason. Rambunctious Greg had let it known he was following in a certain cousins britches and going commando. Of course, Grace caught on immediately since she was doing the young man's laundry and noticed an absense of undergarments. When she confronted him he told her briefs were not for him. She turned and uttered the beseeching cry to her husband "Johnny make him wear underpants!" We don't know of the immediate effect but I believe he did return to boxer shorts sometime in the future and continued for the sake of proper hygeine. Briefs were eschewed because Greg was a low-rise guy in his dress pants which were the only full-length pant he wore.




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