Ish Kabbible

[From the Pointless Internet Search Files, Case #26118.]

I suppose we all have our Ish Kabibbles.

They are different for each of us, of course. Maybe yours is Foghorn Leghorn. Or Clem Kadiddlehopper. Clyde Crashcup. Fatty Arbuckle. Or Felix Mantilla. I've already mentioned another: Joe Blow from Kokomo.

Ish Kabibbles. They seem to turn up in the most unlikely places and when you least expect them. I recently encountered mine at McDonald's.

I was there with the boys when I noticed a man who was acting just strangely enough for me to keep an eye on him. He was loud, disheveled, and borderline disruptive; I overheard him attempting to initiate conversations with strangers several tables away. The boys didn't seem to pay any attention to him and eventually he settled down with his meal and a book.

Nosey guy that I am, I was curious what book this guy was reading so as I rose to toss our trash I stood where I might glimpse the title. And that's when it struck me like an arrow from the past: "Ish Kabibble."

Ish Kabbibble?

Ish Forgodsakes Kabibble?

It echoed with familiarity while sounding both ludicrous and unlikely. Surely if I'd ever heard of an Ish Kabibble I'd still know who he was. But I didn't. I kept turning the name over in my head, reciting it like a mantra, one moment thinking I had it and the next losing it again.

So I used my cell phone to call home and leave myself a message on the answering machine. Ish Kabibble was too good to let slip back into the dim recesses of my brain. Sure enough, when I got home I Googled Ish (so to speak) and within moments I'd found him:

Ish Kabibble, it turns out, was the stage name for a cornet player named Merwyn Bogue who played for a band named Kay Kyser in the 40's. He derived his name from an old Yiddish song, "Isch Ga Bibble" which supposedly translates to "I should worry?" (It sounds like something from Afred E. Newkabibbleman, doesn't it?)

Of course none of this explains why I should ever have heard of Ish Kabibble in the first place (another question for mom). Or why some character in McDonald's (third generation Kabibble, maybe?) was reading an obscure book about him.

But thanks to the internet, at least I didn't have to stay up all night wondering who the heck he was.

Although I did ponder for a while which bit players from my past will become the Ish Kabibbles of my sons' future.