70 years and counting:
A 98-year-old man pens limericks to his wife every Valentine’s Day, and on just about any other given day.
There’s a man out there named Rudy
Married to Joyce a real cutie
His words are his art Aimed right at her heart His rhymes a true thing of beauty
Now I just have to write a million more limericks to catch up to Rudy Ursic, who at age 98 continues to crank out the playful little poems.
He already has one ready to go as a Valentine for Joyce, his wife of 70 years. She thinks Rudy’s wordplay has been coming her way since they met and married in 1946, shortly after he returned from serving in the Pacific Theater during World War II.
Rudy can’t say for sure when he began, but he enjoys the challenge of capturing special people and occasions in rhythm mixed with rhyme.
“What I like is that it’s a short little piece,” he said when I met the couple last week at their Muskego home. “You’ve got two lines of eight beats, then two lines of five beats, and the punchline is supposed to be eight beats.”
Sometimes he sits down and writes two or three limericks in a day, while keeping a rhyming dictionary handy. Certain words are a devil to rhyme, but Rudy toughs it out. He even wrote one on pulchritude, playing it off conclude and good mood.
Rudy has saved hundreds of his limericks in a notebook that’s indexed by topic.
In 2002, he took third place in the Journal Sentinel’s limerick contest judged by one of the best in the business, Milwaukee attorney Harry Franke. Rudy used to volunteer at a nearby elementary school, challenging the children with riddles, tricks and wordplay.
Cindy Schaus, who joined in our interview, is a longtime family friend who looks out for Rudy and 94-year-old Joyce. Of course, that has earned her quite a few limericks of gratitude.
“I just had them at their primary care doctor, and he had written one for his doctor. She was very touched,” Cindy said. “A lot of his thank-you cards will have a limerick. Or if something happens. My daughter had a kidney stone and he wrote a limerick about it.”
“I have limericks,” Rudy said, “for just about all the neighbors around here and various things they do.”
He usually writes himself a verse on his birthday, and already has a couple done for when he turns 99 and 100. No sense waiting till the last minute.
“I even did one for you,” he said, and then delighted me by reading it aloud: If Jim Stingl uses your name It produces a certain acclaim Enjoy the day Remarkable way To get your 15 minutes of fame
Rudy sometimes adds a syllable to his wife’s name and calls her Joyous. They are playful together, and they credit healthy eating and exercise with keeping them trim and going strong well into their 90s.
Well, reasonably strong anyway. Rudy has a few limericks that capture the maladies of living so far past retirement, in his case after a 34-year career at Harnischfeger. Consider the aging physique Declining, flaccid and weak So many brave hearts Are coping with parts That are broken, worn out or leak
But every day and always, Joyce is at his side. Rudy is an Austrian who grew up in Milwaukee; Joyce an Irish lass from Chippewa Falls. They raised a daughter, Coreen. They have traveled and done everything together. Their home is decorated with Rudy’s oil paintings, another talent he has explored over the years.
We don’t want to give away the clever rhymes waiting in this year’s Valentine from Rudy to Joyce, but we’ll leave you with one from a year when Rudy apparently gave her a caramel apple: Good morning my Valentine chick Here’s a gift that’s pretty darn slick Without further ado I present to you An apple that’s stuck on a stick