Eulogia

Eulogia (eu-lo’-gi-a): Pronouncing a blessing for the goodness in a person.

We were huddled on an iceberg headed down the Hudson River toward New York City. There were four of us: me, Mom, Dad, and my little brother Jolly. It all started when we were watching the river in Troy, New York on a cold March morning. Dad decided he wanted to take a family portrait with the Hudson River in the background. Dad made a snow pile, set his phone camera on timer, stuck the phone in the snow, and we linked our arms together and backed toward the riverbank. We stepped onto a shelf of ice, the camera took our picture, the ice cracked, separated from the shore, and we were on our way to NYC via iceberg.

At first we kept our arms linked and gave thanks we were still alive. Then Mom punched Dad in the nose and called him an asshole. I agreed with Mom, but I wasn’t allowed to say asshole, so I called him a “smelly poop.” Jolly, was true to his name, sitting on the ice and spinning around on his butt yelling “Kudos!” He had just learned that word in the 5th grade and had started saying it frequently for no reason at all.

Dad decided we should all lay down on the iceberg spelling the word “Help.” He was sure that an airliner pilot would see it on his approach to Newark or JFK. Mom had injured herself trying to be the letter “E.” Consequently, she looked more like an “F.” Dad said “HFLP” would have to do until he thought of a four letter synonym for HELP that Mom could handle. My butt was getting cold and wet from laying on the iceberg. I stood up. We were passing the Old Fishermen’s Home in Poughkeepsie. There was an old man in a yellow raincoat waving his arms. He had a piece of coiled rope. I yelled at Dad and he stood up and yelled “Praise the Lord!” and held out his hands. The old man threw the rope and Dad caught it. Dad slid off the iceberg into the river. We watched as the old man pulled him ashore. Mt mother yelled the longest string of obscenities I’d ever heard her summon. I stuck with “smelly poop.” Jolly yelled “Kudos!”

We were giving up hope after one day when we floated under the George Washington Bridge. The banks of the Hudson were lined with people holding signs welcoming us to “The Big Apple.” There were fire boats spraying streams of water all over us and there were fog horns honking. The Coast Guard’s rescue boat smashed into the iceberg breaking it in half. Jolly floated off yelling “Kudos!” The rescue boat picked me and Mom up and then we went after Jolly. He refused to leave the iceberg and the Coast Guard guy had to throw a net over him and haul him into the rescue boat. The first thing Mom said was “Where the hell is my shit-headed husband?” The Coast Guard guy told us that Dad had brokered the George Washington Bridge celebration. For some reason, ESPN had offered him $100,000 for exclusive rights to cover the iceberg rescue.

We were all alive, but Mom was really rally angry. When Dad came running up to us to greet us at the boat slip, Mom tripped him and he fell into the water where he was chopped to pieces by the ESPN camera boat’s propeller. It was sickening to see. Nevertheless, Jolly yelled “Kudos!”

Now, Mom’s under house arrest. She wears an ankle bracelet that will set off an alarm if she tries to go anywhere. She has a picture of Dad with a noose made out of a piece of Dad’s old fisherman rescue rope.

oas ld fisherman rescue rope tied around it as a frame. She swears at it at least once a day.

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

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