CSotD: Old Jokes from an Old Man
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This is one of those “I’m so old …” things, but I have to be careful, because one of my sisters has an AOL account and she also has my name in this year’s Christmas gift lottery. An ex-GF also has one, I think, though we mostly see each other on Facebook, so maybe she changed it. It has one of my old dogs’ names on it and she used to use it when we were living together and she was new to the online world.
When we broke up, I gave it to her, and that was about 30 years ago. And speaking of being an old man, when we were together, I was in my mid-40s and she was in her mid-30s, which she called a “May/December relationship” but I insisted was more May/July. But at 35, your warranty is still good, and I was prematurely gray, so people sometimes mistook her for my daughter. I thought that was funny; she did not.
But it meant that she was only 4 when the Beatles came to America and I was 14, so we had some serious cultural gaps. Speaking of which …
Things seemed a little messed up when I first came across this Buckets, because nobody said “Pew Pew Pew” until Star Wars. We said “Bang!” or “Pow!” But then I realized that my Star Wars era kids are now in their 50s, so they’re not quite on the park bench yet, but they’re awfully close to it.
OTOH, I don’t think they ever played Cowboys and let’s not sugar-coat it, it was “Cowboys and Indians.” In fact, we didn’t play it that much, though my older brother was a big Hoppy fan. But Davy Crockett differentiated between good Indians and bad Indians, and the Andy Burnett stories came out when I was seven, which was part of what sparked my interest in native cultures.
Living in the woods, we played a lot of Swamp Fox, but mostly we played war, which was largely based on Combat, which for us was appointment TV.
IMDB says, of Swamp Fox, “Under the command of Colonel Tarleton of the Green Dragoon cavalry, Francis Marion strives to free South Carolina from the British.”
Which shows their youth: Banastre Tarleton was Marion’s most deadly enemy, a bad guy both on television and in real life.
They may have been thinking of his brother, Newlpost Tarleton.
Whamond is younger than I am, but that just means I know the lyrics to every 60s song ever written instead, and have a different persistent earworm. The more comforting difference is that, while I still remember all the awkward things I did, it was half a century ago and most of the witnesses have since died.
I don’t have the Naked Dream very often anymore, and, when I do, it’s alarming how little it bothers me. I used to have the Actor’s Dream, where it’s opening night but you have no idea what play you’re even putting on, but one night when I was being chewed out by a cast-mate for having skipped every rehearsal, I asked him just to tell me what the play was about, and he said, “It’s a Chekhov.” I woke up laughing because I knew all I’d have had to do to fake it was to be a bored semi-wealthy Russian. Never had it again.
My version of the Student Dream wasn’t about taking a final in a subject I hadn’t studied, perhaps because I never gave a damn about grades, which my transcript would confirm. The only reason I graduated at all was that my ADD came with a heapin’ helpin’ of hyperfocus, so I could buy the textbook the day before the final and still get a B or a C.
No, my version of the Student Dream was where we had to clean out our lockers in June and I had no idea where my locker was, much less my combination.
Which is silly. My locker senior year had a combination of 34-16-28 and was third from the end at the far side of the row, which meant I could slip around the back of the row and make out with MaryAlyce and Mrs. Climenson wouldn’t see us.
You fixate on the things that matter.
Juxtaposition of the Day
I assume most people realize that “dog shaming” is really “owner shaming,” since dogs do what dogs do, and if it isn’t a good thing, it’s your fault, at least after the first time. I had a ridgeback who was a thief, but all I had to do was put things farther back on the counter.
However, my aforementioned ex-GF had to buy child-proof locks for her cabinets and refrigerator, because while she was at work, her ridgeback would go hunting and would drag out, for instance, a flat of little yoghurts for lunches, then puncture and lick out every one of them. And, of course, meet her at the door with “Glad you’re home! What’s for dinner?”
Corporal Mittens is a recurring crew member on the R.U. Sirius, but this is brilliant and would only work on a Sunday strip. Having eight panels to work with allows Rickard to start from “Hmm …” and progress to “Omygod Omygod Omygod,” just like a real cat confronted with unexplained, repetitive motion.
It wouldn’t have worked at all on a daily.
Edison Lee is, as DD Degg reported, celebrating his 20th anniversary by noting famous inventors, and today’s sent me to the Googles. Turns out Morgan invented a type of stop light, but the concept was well-established by then.
His name was familiar and I remembered that he was African-American. The stoplight issue reminded me of a different African-American, a cab driver who frequently worked our campus when I was in college.
It was good to take his cab because he had great stories to tell. One that stuck with me was that, when they added the amber caution light to stoplights, the police would ticket Black drivers for entering an intersection under a yellow light, or perhaps just before a yellow light.
I think of him whenever I hear this song:
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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