When my husband was a kid, his friends used to call him Jamsey. In fact they continued to call him that when they all became adults.

Although  some of them flat out refused to grow up, I guess they were having too much fun to do so. It could be because of alcoholism.  One of my husband’s friends was Harold Foy. I once wrote a column about him called  “THE SEVEN LITTLE FOYS.”  After doing some research on this, I’ve discovered that in 1955 a movie came out with that name. In real life Harold had two sisters, Rita and Theresa – bringing the total of kids in his family to nine.  

Harold was funny in a goofy way.  He reminded me of Kramer on Seinfeld. Harold was once hit by lightning which might have contributed to how he acted  but some of us, me included, act goofy at times without any lightning involved. Here are some of the antics I remember Harold performing:  We were staying at a very fancy hotel in Pennsylvania where a top band was playing. Unfortunately we were in the front row when the leader of the band asked if there were any requests.  Harold stood up with his request, “Do you know The Three Little Fishes?” 

As I sunk down in my seat I heard the director reply,” We don’t know that one but maybe you  will enjoy the one we are about to play.”  Next they played a waltz for a couple who were celebrating their 50th  wedding anniversary. Harold squeezed past me and cut in on the couple. He didn’t know the couple, nor did he know  how to waltz. No one else was dancing. And I suddenly lost my sense of humor.  

Harold wanted to marry a girl named Joan when they were both very young. When they spoke to the priest at the Catholic Church they both attended, he told them they would have to wait until they were both 17, which they did. They had their first child who was a boy when they were 18. They named him  Harold Jr.  Twenty one years later, they had a baby girl. When Harold Jr., who had just gotten out of the Navy, visited his mother in the hospital, who had just given birth to his sister, the nurses assumed that he was the father. They asked him what plans he had for his future. He told them that  he would take his time looking for a job.  

They were shocked when they heard that and asked Joan if she was okay with the man they thought was her husband doing that. After some explaining, they all had a good laugh over their assumptions.  

Now about Jim’s friendship with Walter, another one of the Foys. When Jim and Walter were both teenagers, they both walked to school one day and Walter talked my husband into going to the bakery with him for his mother.  What Walter didn’t tell Jim was that he had a note from his mother saying, “Please excuse Walter for being late today,” and poor Jim was left standing there with no note.  

On another occasion, both Jim and Walter showed up for class without completing their homework. The nun who was in charge of that class locked them into the room they were in while they completed it and  she went to dinner. After dinner, she forgot to return  to set them free. They had to crawl out of a window  on the second floor where they were, and then walk along a narrow ledge until they reached the fire escape, where they climbed down to the street. The next morning the nun never mentioned it or asked how they got out of that room.  

I have one more story about Harold and his brother, Walter.  Harold had a nice new suit and Walter would often borrow it, without asking, whenever he had a Saturday night date. This especially annoyed Harold, when he reached into the wardrobe for his suit to put on for HIS Saturday night date and there was nothing there. He thought he had the problem solved when he bought a lock to put on this free-standing wardrobe. But Walter was three jumps ahead of him by buying a saw and putting a hole in the back of the wardrobe, where it wouldn’t be seen and removing the suit anyway.  Once they passed  each other in the street and Harold saw Walter  in the suit and was glad to see that he had bought himself a suit exactly like the one he kept “borrowing.”    

All Hell must have broken loose when Harold returned to the apartment and found out that his brother had not only taken his suit, but sawed a hole in the nice wardrobe he had. I’m done with the Foys but in my next column, I’ll be writing about another childhood  friend of my husband’s named Bobby Schloesser.