Winston Ferguson does not use the phone like ordinary people. But then, Winston Ferguson is far from ordinary.
“Where can someone find a henway around here?” he’ll ask as soon as the person he is calling picks up the line.
“What’s a henway?”, the inevitable retort from the uninitiated, sets Ferguson up for the thing he likes most in life – a good laugh.
“Oh, about six or eight pounds,” he deadpans back, completing the joke with panache.
If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of such a phone call, or heard Ferguson pull something from the massive pile of jokes inside his head and recite it at the drop of a hat, you won’t be surprised that the 71-year-old Glen Huron native and brand-new Stayner resident has compiled some of what exists in that pile into a book, entitled Isn’t It Scantamanious?
If you don’t know Ferguson, you might find this slightly surprising, considering that he has suffered from Parkinson’s disease for the past quarter century. For the past 10 years the symptoms have become so bad they’ve affected his ability to write things down. In fact, a first volume of jokes and humorous stories written out longhand by Ferguson is still being interpreted by his sister. This second version – “Book 2, as Book 1 is still in the making,” according to its back cover – was typed out this past spring on an iPad that Ferguson received from his son last Christmas.
Proceeds from Isn’t It Scantamanious will go toward Parkinson Society Canada, which is Winston’s contribution to a cure he’s convinced he’ll live to see. “I have Parkinson’s, but it doesn’t have me,” he says, and you have to believe him.
Ranging from one-line quotes (“Rich people miss out on one of the greatest joys of life – paying the last instalment,” for example, or “A ship in harbour is safe but that’s not what ships are for.”) to longer jokes and stories (some of which, it must be said, are a little on the ‘blue’ side), the book is great for opening at random and finding a chuckle or something to chew on. And that, says Winston, was the goal. “I’ve always enjoyed a bit of humour,” he says, “and I will go to great lengths, if necessary, to make an individual smile.”
“Scantimanious,” by the way, is a word that Winston’s father, J. Roy Ferguson, used to say when Winston was a child. “It has no meaning,” he says with a twinkle in his eye, “and that’s a surprise because my father was a man who meant what he said.”
Isn’t It Scantamanious – Collected Fun and Wisdom can be purchased for $20 at the Creemore Echo or by contacting the author himself at winston@rifeequipment.com. Be prepared to receive a humorous email in return.