My Cousin Joe

Since I grew up as an only child, my cousins were my surrogate 'siblings' since I spent plenty of time with them when I was a kid, especially staying over my cousin Joe's...summer after summer when I was a kid, he always cracked me up then. He was one of those 'terrors' when he was little, breaking every toy I would bring over, with a sense of joy and fulfillment...and a laugh...a sense of humour.
In an earlier post, I mentioned how drawn I am to people with a natural sense of humour, who can laugh easily and anything and everything.
One time when Joe was about 1 or 2, he crawled into the fireplace and covered himself with ashes, my Aunt Carmen shouted, "Godaaammit Joe get the hell outta there!" and he only just cracked up, which made me crack up, "You be quiet Danny! this is not funny!"
ohhhh, but it was funny...ohhh it surely was, to me anyway.
In another time, Joe kept climbing over the seats of the car when I went grocery shopping with them, he did a flip over the seat and landed on the grocery bags, "Goddammiiiiit!"
(heeheeeheeeheeeee when you're a kid)
That evening, my dad, who came to pick me up each night, stayed for dinner, my aunt put this smashed loaf of bread on the table,
"I want you to LOOK at a this bread!"
"what happened? who sat on it?"
"THIS guy landed on it!" hahahaha all around the table...
The one real crack-up came when Joe and I were having lunch over there, chicken noodle soup...my aunt was reading the paper and started laughing...
"hey here's a funny Dennis the Menace, "hey mom! get dad quick! I got Santa Claus locked in the bathroom!"
With that, Joe must have spewed out an entire mouthful of soup, all over the dining room as he cracked up over that, and I did too....half the joke, half the spewing, until....
"Goddaamiiit!"
In high school, Joe's family moved back to San Jose and he went to the same high school I did, I was a senior and he was a freshman...we soon hung out in the same bunch and drove to ball games and whatnot, he was a buddy then, not so much a cousin...all the while...a comic timing, a cartoon soul...he has that. The laugh, that's the thing.
But anyway, lately I find a growing fondness for these things.
Lately Joe is doing fine, two fine sons, and they were terrors just like he was!