I guess I’ll give poor Karen a break here and write about another Dead Tony story that does not involve her.

This happened after Tony died. We were at the wake. Friends and family were filing through giving their last respects. Tony’s parents had dressed him in a suit that was several sizes too small.  Mainly because Tony put on a few pounds while being on long term disability. It was known of his vicodin issue by certain family members at this time, hence the funniness.

In any case, Tony was stuffed in this tiny suit and then stuffed into this casket (very nice one too). His shirt was too tight and his shirt collar was pressed up into his lower jaw. This accentuated the “double chin” into what looked like a hamster with cheeks full of food.

One family member, Chuck, noted as he paid his respects that Tony looked like “he was storing up vicodin for the winter.”

One last thing about that day. I had blown my nose in a tissue and, out of respect for Tony, stuffed it in his casket under his leg. I didn’t do it to be gross or defiant. I did it because I knew that Tony would have thought it was hilarious.

Back in the 90’s, my parents had a house on Lake Michigan in Grand Beach, MI. It was a nice, rustic, log cabin-like house about 2 blocks from the beach. We went up there on weekends to get away from the city. It was big enough to bring our friends (Tom & Karen, George & Alex, and Jim) and, of course, Dead Tony.

One particular late summer weekend we were up there and everyone wanted to go swimming. I’m not really hip to the whole beach scene so I stayed back at the house watching TV.

Of note here is that Karen is a short lady, but, has/had an enormous chest. In fact, Dead Tony usually fawned over her “rack” whenever she was around. That reminds me of another famous quip of Dead Tony’s that I’ll share at a later date. One involving him drunk in the back seat of my car and Karen and I in the front. It was classic Dead Tony.

Anyway, back to the story. So they all go swimming, and it’s windy as hell. The waves were probably 2-3 maybe 4 feet. Unusual for this side of the lake. They were gone about an hour when Dead Tony comes running in the house yelling. I can’t quite make out what he’s saying, I yell downstairs, “What?” 

“Those things aren’t real!” he screamed.

“What things?” I said.

“Those tits! They can’t be fucking real!” Again, screaming.

I shook my head, not knowing what to make of all this. About that time the rest of the crowd showed up, Dead Tony skulked off snickering and giggling (as he usually did). The full story was then revealed.

Karen was in a bathing suit that was a few sizes too large and didn’t quite “stay up”. While they were cavorting out in the waves, a large wave hit Karen from behind and knocked the top of her bathing suit off and revealed the “fantastic monster tits” as Dead Tony put it. Apparently, the moment he saw them, he ran back to the house to tell me, yelling the entire way “Herman! Herman! Those things aren’t real!”

Ah, good times…

P.S. Thanks Karen for reminding me of that story.

I first met Tony in 3rd grade. We both attended St. Barnabas grade school in Chicago.

In the morning, after roll call, the attendence sheets where placed outside each classes home room. Each week, two kids were chosen or volunteered to go around and collect all the sheets in the school and bring them to the front office. One day, both Tony and I were chosen.

So we’re walking through the halls collecting the sheets, he from one end, me from the other. Our hallway was in an “L” shape and we couldn’t see each other at opposite ends. So Tony starts making this bird call noise, softly, but loud enough that I could hear. I heard, and made the noise back. We could see where we were by doing this. It was fun and silly, and in hindsight, disruptive, rude, and childish (hell, we were in 3rd grade).

We finally meet at the corner of the “L” and we’re giggling about it and he says:

“What would you do if Sister Jeanine (our principal) heard us and was pissed?”

I said, “I’d probably shit my pants.”

Tony said, “Start shitting…”

As I turned to look behind me I felt that oh-so-evil nun ear-grab manuever as Sister Jeanine grabbed my lobe and Tony’s at the same time and dragged us to the Principal’s office for a stern reprimanding.

Needless to say, we were labeled as troublemakers and started our friendship.

I used to have a good friend named Tony.

He’s dead now, but his memories live on and I regale my non-dead friends with stories about Dead Tony on a regular basis.

One such friend suggested I create a web site so others can share stories about their dead friends. This is that site.

See, at the time that Dead Tony was alive, I had a few friends named Tony (who are not dead still). To differentiate between they living and the deceased, we just called him Dead Tony. It just worked out that way and seemed best at the time. So the name stuck. He was forever “Dead Tony”.

So anyway, enjoy my posts about Dead Tony, as I’m sure some will make you laugh, some will make you cry, and others will probably make you vomit because he was a sick fucker.