About six weeks ago we attended a family wedding in
Minneapolis. We spent a lot of time (when not dancing,
drinking or telling stories) comparing thumbs. The
archetype is the fabled "Abelson Thumb,"
an encoding introduced into our family's gene pool by my
late Uncle Murray Abelson. Murray and his wife May were
closer to grandparents than aunt and uncle to me, as they
filled the roles of confidantes, babysitters, and sources
of life-long laughter. The family wedding was that of
Murray's grandson Stephen. He's my first cousin once removed
but by most appearances, he could be my younger brother.
Most appearances. Stephen has the Abelson Thumb.
So do his father, his sister, and two of his first
(female) cousins. The Abelson Thumb crosses gender,
generational and national boundaries (Stephen was born
in Canada).
I do not have an Abelson thumb, being a Stern and not
an Abelson, but I know what the Abelson Thumb can do.
The Abelson Thumb is short and wide,
has a narrow, rectangular nail that appears to have
a tenuous relationship with the rest of the thumb, and the whole
thing sticks out a little bit too low or too perpendicular
to the hand that feeds it. It's this thumbnail sketch that gives
user interface designers at Nokia and Sony heart palpitations.
It's a badge of honor among my cousins.
Murray once drove my parent's station wagon in reverse a block
and a half on a side street in New York. The "One Way" signs indicated
the orientation of the car, not the direction of travel. Murray
wasn't looking for a parking place, but instead for 7th Avenue.
If I happen to catch The Guns of Navarrone or
The War Wagon on what is the equivalent of
late-night UHF stations,
I remember they were among his favorite movies. The
Abelson Thumb carved our Thanksigiving turkeys
and made a staggeringly good potato salad.
Murray was a World War II veteran who, according to
family legend, made a bathroom run in the middle of
a caravan across the English countryside. While thumbing
a ride back to his company, he was hit by a truck, and
landed in the infirmary instead of on the beach at Normandy.
Murray owned only a handful of popular music albums, but
the one played most frequently was Stevie Wonder's
Songs in the Key of Life. He was a speciality
retailer before Wall Street coined the term. Nobody
was allowed into the family without passing his "inspection",
which usually involved hugs and an eating test. Alissa,
Stephen's wife and my newest cousin, would have passed.
If Murray liked
you, we all liked you, and there was no better rule of thumb.