This is my family's burp story:
When my father was growing up (new england, ca. 1955) his family often played host to visiting professors from the University of Rhode Island. His mother was very highly esteemed, highly placed on the staff, loquacious and welcoming, and so her table would often entertain guests of some eminence. My pop's got a lot of stories about foreign dignitaries eating his mother's mashed potatoes, but the best story takes place during Thanksgiving, 1956:
An extremely prominent professor of international relations was visiting the college from Beijing, on his way to Washington DC for some important diplomatic function. He had never visited the U.S. before, and wanted an 'American Experience' before heading on his serious mission. My grandmother invited him (as well as translators, department of state handlers, associated personalities, ambassadors, the president of the university, etc...) to a grand thanksgiving dinner.
For weeks in anticipation of this dignitary's visit, Gram drilled my father and his brother in fine etiquette, having been informed by her contact in D.C. that it was essential with this particular professor. He was very stiff and serious, the contact warned.
When Thanksgiving arrived, my pop and his brother conducted themselves with utmost gravity and a kind of put-on noblesse, eating lightly, with elbows off the table, cloth napkins, and ultimate deference to their guests. The professor was a serious man, my father remembers, dour and quiet, bespectacled, (a photo still exists) nattily dressed, but button-popping fat. During the course of the dinner he put away as much as food as the rest of the table combined, and ate a slice of each of the three pies for dessert. Even the other diplomats were impressed.
My grandfather brought out a bottle of cognac after the meal, poured a tiny glass for himself and each of his important guests. The professor abstained, waved a hand in front of his face, and let loose a gut-ripping, roof-raising, six-syllable BELCH, more or less right in my grandfather's face.
Mindful of the etiquette in which they had been trained for weeks, my eleven-year-old father and his brother desperately tried to swallow their laughter. With a stern look from my grandmother they succeeded admirably.
Somewhat humbled, a little unsure, my grandfather pushed aside the cognac and opened a pack of cigarettes. Each of the guests, including the professor from Beijing, took one. The table sat in silence for the next few minutes as all the men smoked. My grandmother brought out coffee and poured it for the professor first. He smiled at her – and is if it were the greatest joke in the world – and let out a second, greater, and more impressive burp than the first. This one full of cigarette smoke, thick and visible. "Like a factory smokestack" said my grandfather, when he told me the story years later. "Loud enough to wake the dead" remembered my grandmother. "A plain damn foghorn" says my uncle.
My poor eleven-year-old father and his brother practically choked trying to hide their laughter. Even my grandfather was a little pink in the cheeks. My grandmother, returning to the kitchen, had to bite her lips and recite 'while sheep may safely graze'.
The taciturn professor looked at the quiet (and surely strange-looking) table, and began to speak:
"In America," he said, in thickly-accented English "you have funny university system. Yes? You have associate professor. You have visiting professor. You have full professor. And you have me. You know who I am?"
Nobody knew. The strange man from Beijing smiled.
"I very, very full professor" he said. And belched a third time.
And with that, my father and his brother lost it. They pretended to laugh at the joke. Pretended it was the funniest thing they had ever heard. And in front of two dozen dark-suited government types they howled. My grandfather had to join in, as did my grandmother, and (shortly) many of the ambassadors and dignitaries. Even the professor laughed, believing himself to have told the best joke in history.
Since that day, apparently, belching has become totally acceptable in my family. Provided, of course, that one convers afterward by saying "I full professor."
NB. One of the dark-suited ambassadors remained friendly with my father's family for fifty years after the dinner. The ambassador's son attended my grandfather's funeral in 1996 (or was it 1997?). At the reception he cornered my father and told him one final piece of the story: the Important Professor had traveled very successfully through Washington and accomplished his mission with great success. He had been invited to a state dinner hosted by Mamie Eisenhower, and in the waning hours of the evening he had tried to tell a certain joke. According to the son of the dark-suited ambassador (who had been at the state dinner), not a soul laughed. The Important Professor had seemed briefly miffed, before explaining to the first lady "they find that joke hilarious in Rhode Island."
― remy bean, Monday, 7 January 2008 21:09 (eighteen years ago)