Hello there, allow me to introduce myself. I am summer. I’ll blow into town on the June solstice and will hang around until the summer equinox. I’m warm and giving. In fact, I’ll give you cantaloupes, sweet corn, fireflies and baseball. I’ll give you enough grass to cut to keep you busy and sweating.
I’ll give you a relentless sun that singes all skin showing to produce that golden tan, that sometimes turns into skin cancer years later. I’ll give you backyard barbeques, spitting sizzling flesh dripping on white hot charcoal briquettes and corn on the cob wrapped in tin foil with friends and family all sitting around more naked than needed to beat the heat. Any way you look at it, I’ll give you plenty of exposed meat- both animal and human.
I’ll heat your pools and oceans so you can splash and play all day. I’ll give you humidity. Boy, will I give you humidity! I’ll turn the great outdoors into one big boiler room, complete with hissing steam from broiling car radiators.
I’ll give you twisters that spin from the wind to drop down on your towns, trailers, homes, businesses and farms. Then I’ll suck your lives up into the sky. I’ll interrupt crystal blue days to pour on your parades and picnics and soak your charcoal and chicken.
I’ll burst the bellies of heavy black clouds and let loose Niagara Falls. I’ll short circuit the sky and shoot lightning bolts down to topple your trees and knock out your own puny electricity. Periodically, I like to remind you who is really in charge here. I’ll give you beautiful days during the work week and wash out your weekends. They’re your weekends, not mind. I don’t get any days off.
If you’re young, I’ll give you the best music of the year to blast from boom boxes, iPODS and car radios. You’ll remember my melodies the most because they’re the soundtrack of your youth that’ll hum in your head till death do you part.
I’ll give you sun-splashed rivers so cool that you’ll flock to their banks, float on their currents and frolic in their depths. I’ll give you long lazy days, where lifting a chilled glass to your lips to take a sip is as energetic as you’ll get. I’ll give you balmy nights where you can stretch out your porches and in your backyards to breathe in my bouquet under my moonbeams.
I’ll give you romance with hand holding in the moonlight and kissing that shoots off sparks in the dark. I’ll give you a first love to tumble toss your head or a new love to jump start your heart or renew an old love under the eaves of my warm shadows.
I’ll give you the time of your life. Then I’ll be gone to let the leaves fall where they may.
Thursday, July 16
Sunday, July 5
MAKING BAMBOO SHARK MOVIE
Sunday afternoons are special and Sunday October 12, 2008 was a very special afternoon indeed. I spent it in a Christian youth center outside Harrisburg beating up a male model. What would make me do that? The word “Action!”
I was playing a Mafia thug extra in the movie “Bamboo Shark” starring Mickey Rooney and over 50 celebrity impersonators. In it, the mob is trying to retrieve its money stolen by some college students who’re making a movie.
I answered a movie internet ad for extras given me by aspiring actress/model Rhonda Weader. My wife Nancy, grandson Jack Roddey and his friend, from outside Port Royal, Tyler Dolan went along for the ride. Jack and Tyler were immediately drafted to be in the movie acting as student crewmembers. They were really pumped about that, bouncing around the set like tennis balls at Wimbledon.
Our single scene showed Tom Petty in a top hat wrestling a crew member, a bald guy in a black suit who looked like a stocky Mr. Clean knocking out Sylvester Stallone, Jack accidentally popping out a Mafia thug’s contact ( Mark Bitner) as he and Tyler punched and pushed him around and me socking a sitting crew member, played by a male model.
We did over ten takes, broke and then returned to do another ten from a different angle. The only direction I got was to not hit my guy so much as I was sweating and too red faced the first time. I had brushed my brow pretending to sweat for effect. ACTING! And I get red faced just thinking bad thoughts all the time, but I dialed it down like they wanted, so they wouldn’t think I was having a heart attack.
There was a tender moment off screen when The Terminator spritzed Rambo’s biceps with his tiny spray bottle to make them glisten and gleam under the hot movie lights. I told Jack that an extra was an extra special actor whose mere presence on the silver screen spoke volumes and didn’t need lines. I was told by an assistant that everybody loved Jack and Tyler’s acting because they beat up their middle aged Mafia thug so enthusiastically. They had movie stars in their eyes. Their potential that certain Sunday was unlimited.
Making a movie is fun, but tedious with take after take after take. It’s all in the lighting, that’s why they say LIGHTS, Camera, Action! And the actors speak softly because a movie mike really magnifies.
The next time you see a movie scene, where the star runs down the street past numerous anonymous people, just remember that they are the extras with their own hopes and dreams of making a free sandwich from the meat and cheese platter put out for the actual actors.
A little over three months later my precious goofy grandson, Jack T. Roddey, was shot to death. He was only 14. So treasure those special Sunday afternoons together, because they can be gone in a gasp.
PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED IN COMMON GROUND MAGAZINE
I was playing a Mafia thug extra in the movie “Bamboo Shark” starring Mickey Rooney and over 50 celebrity impersonators. In it, the mob is trying to retrieve its money stolen by some college students who’re making a movie.
I answered a movie internet ad for extras given me by aspiring actress/model Rhonda Weader. My wife Nancy, grandson Jack Roddey and his friend, from outside Port Royal, Tyler Dolan went along for the ride. Jack and Tyler were immediately drafted to be in the movie acting as student crewmembers. They were really pumped about that, bouncing around the set like tennis balls at Wimbledon.
Our single scene showed Tom Petty in a top hat wrestling a crew member, a bald guy in a black suit who looked like a stocky Mr. Clean knocking out Sylvester Stallone, Jack accidentally popping out a Mafia thug’s contact ( Mark Bitner) as he and Tyler punched and pushed him around and me socking a sitting crew member, played by a male model.
We did over ten takes, broke and then returned to do another ten from a different angle. The only direction I got was to not hit my guy so much as I was sweating and too red faced the first time. I had brushed my brow pretending to sweat for effect. ACTING! And I get red faced just thinking bad thoughts all the time, but I dialed it down like they wanted, so they wouldn’t think I was having a heart attack.
There was a tender moment off screen when The Terminator spritzed Rambo’s biceps with his tiny spray bottle to make them glisten and gleam under the hot movie lights. I told Jack that an extra was an extra special actor whose mere presence on the silver screen spoke volumes and didn’t need lines. I was told by an assistant that everybody loved Jack and Tyler’s acting because they beat up their middle aged Mafia thug so enthusiastically. They had movie stars in their eyes. Their potential that certain Sunday was unlimited.
Making a movie is fun, but tedious with take after take after take. It’s all in the lighting, that’s why they say LIGHTS, Camera, Action! And the actors speak softly because a movie mike really magnifies.
The next time you see a movie scene, where the star runs down the street past numerous anonymous people, just remember that they are the extras with their own hopes and dreams of making a free sandwich from the meat and cheese platter put out for the actual actors.
A little over three months later my precious goofy grandson, Jack T. Roddey, was shot to death. He was only 14. So treasure those special Sunday afternoons together, because they can be gone in a gasp.
PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED IN COMMON GROUND MAGAZINE
Thursday, June 18
VAMPIRE, ZOMBIE,GHOULS' FAVORITE JULY 4th
By Professor Heinrick Hemlock, PHD, DDT, ESP
The Fourth of July celebrates America’s birthday with fireworks, food, family reunions and fun for us living large, but what about the undead? Technically though, we the living are the undead too, because we’re not dead yet.
However, in the creature features the undead are zombies, vampires and werewolves. Sorta like The Three Stooges of horror.
So I sent my assistant and cemetery grounds keeper, Ace Hack, on assignment to interview some famous ghouls at midnight under a full moon at Jolly Holly’s Cemetery and Custard Stand. Here’s his tape recorded report.
“You all had dinner, right? ‘Cause I could look like a steak tartar to you guys.” Ace asks haltingly.
All seem to answer in the affirmative with a series of low growls, howls, hisses, grunts and lip smackings.
“Let’s start with you, Bob Zombie. What was your favorite Fourth of July?”
“Well Ace, you know how people say that life is no day at the beach and no picnic? My favorite fourth was a day at the beach when me, and several hundred of my closest fiends, picnicked on a sand dune full of Frenchmen at Omaha Beach.
I’ve always loved French food and they were delicious with a nice chilled Chianti and some warm arterial blood to wash them down. They were like a salad bar of fresh meat. The great thing about being a practicing zombie is that after you bite into somebody and kill them, a few seconds later they come back as your new best friend with the same interest in killing every human in sight. So you’re constantly killing people and making new zombies.”
“You’re a very articulate zombie. I’ve only seen them growl and slobber.” Ace states.
“It’s the media misrepresenting us. Being hungry does make one a bear, but after some fine dining we like a good cigar, a snifter of brandy and witty conversation just like you.”
“Fascinating! What about you Lord Dracula. What was your favorite Fourth?”
“As luck would have it, it was American’s first Fourth of July in 1776 Philadelphia. It was so hot then that my fangs stuck to my gums and I couldn’t get them to shoot out and bite properly. They went up and down like a garage door in my mouth. It’s all in my autobiography ‘Fangs, For the Memories’.”
“I’ll have to pick up a copy. What happened next?” Ace asks quickly.
“I went to several dentists and killed them when they couldn’t help me, but it was like biting their necks with baby teeth. Then I ran into Ben Franklin flying his kite in a thunderstorm. I explained my plight to him and he hooked me up to his kite. A lightening bolt struck it and, consequently me, and jump started my teeth to full bite.”
“And then?” Ace asks eagerly.
“I was so grateful to Ben that I spared him, although he was plump and full of blood. I had to feast on a family of four to make up for this act of kindness. I spent the night pretending to drink beer with the Founding Fathers at the Bleedin’ Like a Stuck Pig Pub, an old haunt.”
“Fascinating! Now Mr. Warner the Werewolf, what was your favorite Fourth?”
‘It was tonight. Right here, right now.’ He slobbers and shines under the moonlight.
“But this isn’t the Fourth of July. It’s more than two weeks away.” Ace explains uncertainly.
“Hey pal; I’m a werewolf who changes into a hairy killing machine every full moon at midnight. I don’t know what century it is, let alone what national holiday. And you look good enough to eat." He snaps.
The Fourth of July celebrates America’s birthday with fireworks, food, family reunions and fun for us living large, but what about the undead? Technically though, we the living are the undead too, because we’re not dead yet.
However, in the creature features the undead are zombies, vampires and werewolves. Sorta like The Three Stooges of horror.
So I sent my assistant and cemetery grounds keeper, Ace Hack, on assignment to interview some famous ghouls at midnight under a full moon at Jolly Holly’s Cemetery and Custard Stand. Here’s his tape recorded report.
“You all had dinner, right? ‘Cause I could look like a steak tartar to you guys.” Ace asks haltingly.
All seem to answer in the affirmative with a series of low growls, howls, hisses, grunts and lip smackings.
“Let’s start with you, Bob Zombie. What was your favorite Fourth of July?”
“Well Ace, you know how people say that life is no day at the beach and no picnic? My favorite fourth was a day at the beach when me, and several hundred of my closest fiends, picnicked on a sand dune full of Frenchmen at Omaha Beach.
I’ve always loved French food and they were delicious with a nice chilled Chianti and some warm arterial blood to wash them down. They were like a salad bar of fresh meat. The great thing about being a practicing zombie is that after you bite into somebody and kill them, a few seconds later they come back as your new best friend with the same interest in killing every human in sight. So you’re constantly killing people and making new zombies.”
“You’re a very articulate zombie. I’ve only seen them growl and slobber.” Ace states.
“It’s the media misrepresenting us. Being hungry does make one a bear, but after some fine dining we like a good cigar, a snifter of brandy and witty conversation just like you.”
“Fascinating! What about you Lord Dracula. What was your favorite Fourth?”
“As luck would have it, it was American’s first Fourth of July in 1776 Philadelphia. It was so hot then that my fangs stuck to my gums and I couldn’t get them to shoot out and bite properly. They went up and down like a garage door in my mouth. It’s all in my autobiography ‘Fangs, For the Memories’.”
“I’ll have to pick up a copy. What happened next?” Ace asks quickly.
“I went to several dentists and killed them when they couldn’t help me, but it was like biting their necks with baby teeth. Then I ran into Ben Franklin flying his kite in a thunderstorm. I explained my plight to him and he hooked me up to his kite. A lightening bolt struck it and, consequently me, and jump started my teeth to full bite.”
“And then?” Ace asks eagerly.
“I was so grateful to Ben that I spared him, although he was plump and full of blood. I had to feast on a family of four to make up for this act of kindness. I spent the night pretending to drink beer with the Founding Fathers at the Bleedin’ Like a Stuck Pig Pub, an old haunt.”
“Fascinating! Now Mr. Warner the Werewolf, what was your favorite Fourth?”
‘It was tonight. Right here, right now.’ He slobbers and shines under the moonlight.
“But this isn’t the Fourth of July. It’s more than two weeks away.” Ace explains uncertainly.
“Hey pal; I’m a werewolf who changes into a hairy killing machine every full moon at midnight. I don’t know what century it is, let alone what national holiday. And you look good enough to eat." He snaps.
JULY FOURTH BEER AND BANGS
ANNCR: Celebrate the constitution, the Declaration of Independence and 1776 by honoring the founding fathers this Fourth of July the traditional old fashioned American way with fireworks and beer at a family picnic.
Slap your weenies down on the grill, grab your buns and a beer then light up a cherry bomb or an M-80, throw it and watch the in-laws scramble.
Give them a silver salute and fire up your flaming balls while knocking back some beers for a more excitable 4th for all. Bottle rockets and bottles of beer go together like George and Washington.
Get boomed and go boom at the same time! Who needs all ten fingers? Blow one off and you still got 9 left! Be patriotic (Sings) “Oh, say can you see.” Well, maybe not if you’re blinded easily by sparklers in your face.
Happy (Belch Burp) Fourth.
SFX: BOOM! BANG!! BOOM! (Screams) Ayeeeee!!!
Slap your weenies down on the grill, grab your buns and a beer then light up a cherry bomb or an M-80, throw it and watch the in-laws scramble.
Give them a silver salute and fire up your flaming balls while knocking back some beers for a more excitable 4th for all. Bottle rockets and bottles of beer go together like George and Washington.
Get boomed and go boom at the same time! Who needs all ten fingers? Blow one off and you still got 9 left! Be patriotic (Sings) “Oh, say can you see.” Well, maybe not if you’re blinded easily by sparklers in your face.
Happy (Belch Burp) Fourth.
SFX: BOOM! BANG!! BOOM! (Screams) Ayeeeee!!!
Tuesday, June 2
THE LONG SAD JOURNEY TO FATHER'S DAY
June 17th is the day you honor your father with a garish tie that’s louder than a 747 taking off or a drunken Picasso painting. You may have already given Dad a comic card mocking him, which is what most fathers want. They don’t want that sentimental slop you told your beloved sainted mother. Fathers want a quick laugh and to go back to the game on the tube.
Father’s Day has never been the big business day that Mother’s Day is. If you think that the promotion of Father’s Day will make or break your business, then I have some GM stock I’d like to sell you. Why does the celebration of Father’s Day rank somewhere below Arbor Day in importance? Let’s go back and find out when Father’s Day really began? There’s some confusion about that. The president of Chicago’s Lion’s Club, Harry Meek (a firm believer that the Meeks shall inherit the earth) celebrated the first Father’s day with his club in 1915.
Harry picked the third Sunday in June, which was the closest date to his own birthday. That’s what a real guy would do, honor himself as a great father, without bothering to ask his wife and kids what they thought about it. Then, as fathers are wont to do, he went back to the game on the radio.
However, the most accepted view of the origins of Father’s Day goes back to 1909 when Sonora Smart Dodd was listening to a Mother’s Day church sermon and she started thinking of her father, who really raised her. She barely knew her mother, who died young giving birth to her sixth child. Her father, William Jefferson Smart, was left to raise his rambunctious brood alone.
Let’s just pause a moment for Sonora’s poor young mother….OK, her father, a Civil War vet, sacrificed a lot to raise them, so Sonora ask her Spokane minister to preach a sermon on fathers June 6th, her father’s birthday.
He couldn’t do it till June 19th. Soon the state of Washington celebrated the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day. So Father’s Day is a her-story, not a history, due to a dedicated daughter’s love for her frazzled father, who raised his kids on his own. This is something mothers do all the time, if the father is gone or too distracted to help much.
Since Sonora’s father acted like a good mother we now have Father’s Day. Way back then the children honored good old dad with a fresh baked pie, not a store bought tie.
The Father’s Day lobby (yes, there’s always a lobby) asked President Woodrow Wilson to declare an annual Father’s Day. Wilson approved the idea in 1916, but it took till 1924 for President Calvin Coolidge to make it a national event to “establish more intimate relations between fathers and their children and to impress upon fathers the full measure of their obligations.” Sounds like a plea to dead beat dads to me, who lose interest in their children right after conception.
But Father’s Day was only an event, like a bake sale or mud wrestling. It didn’t become official until 1966 when President Lyndon Johnson proclaimed that the third Sunday in June was Father’s Day and a great day to have a good old fashioned Texas barbecue. Lyndon was a Texan.
However, a proclamation is not a holiday, like desert isn’t dinner. In 1972, President Richard Nixon made Father’s Day a national holiday before eventually resigning due to the Watergate scandal and returning to his original title as husband and father. Between 1966 and 1972 both Presidents fought the Vietnam War, where many a father was killed.
Father’s Day was a 60 year afterthought to Mother’s day, but we fathers take what we can get. We’re thrilled to be remembered at all once a year and the silly cards and bad ties make us a little misty, but don’t tell anybody.
About the original Father’s Day pie giving tradition, cherry crumb is an excellent celebratory slice of pie. It’s tart, yet sweet and somewhat crummy. Not unlike a lot of us fathers.
Father’s Day has never been the big business day that Mother’s Day is. If you think that the promotion of Father’s Day will make or break your business, then I have some GM stock I’d like to sell you. Why does the celebration of Father’s Day rank somewhere below Arbor Day in importance? Let’s go back and find out when Father’s Day really began? There’s some confusion about that. The president of Chicago’s Lion’s Club, Harry Meek (a firm believer that the Meeks shall inherit the earth) celebrated the first Father’s day with his club in 1915.
Harry picked the third Sunday in June, which was the closest date to his own birthday. That’s what a real guy would do, honor himself as a great father, without bothering to ask his wife and kids what they thought about it. Then, as fathers are wont to do, he went back to the game on the radio.
However, the most accepted view of the origins of Father’s Day goes back to 1909 when Sonora Smart Dodd was listening to a Mother’s Day church sermon and she started thinking of her father, who really raised her. She barely knew her mother, who died young giving birth to her sixth child. Her father, William Jefferson Smart, was left to raise his rambunctious brood alone.
Let’s just pause a moment for Sonora’s poor young mother….OK, her father, a Civil War vet, sacrificed a lot to raise them, so Sonora ask her Spokane minister to preach a sermon on fathers June 6th, her father’s birthday.
He couldn’t do it till June 19th. Soon the state of Washington celebrated the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day. So Father’s Day is a her-story, not a history, due to a dedicated daughter’s love for her frazzled father, who raised his kids on his own. This is something mothers do all the time, if the father is gone or too distracted to help much.
Since Sonora’s father acted like a good mother we now have Father’s Day. Way back then the children honored good old dad with a fresh baked pie, not a store bought tie.
The Father’s Day lobby (yes, there’s always a lobby) asked President Woodrow Wilson to declare an annual Father’s Day. Wilson approved the idea in 1916, but it took till 1924 for President Calvin Coolidge to make it a national event to “establish more intimate relations between fathers and their children and to impress upon fathers the full measure of their obligations.” Sounds like a plea to dead beat dads to me, who lose interest in their children right after conception.
But Father’s Day was only an event, like a bake sale or mud wrestling. It didn’t become official until 1966 when President Lyndon Johnson proclaimed that the third Sunday in June was Father’s Day and a great day to have a good old fashioned Texas barbecue. Lyndon was a Texan.
However, a proclamation is not a holiday, like desert isn’t dinner. In 1972, President Richard Nixon made Father’s Day a national holiday before eventually resigning due to the Watergate scandal and returning to his original title as husband and father. Between 1966 and 1972 both Presidents fought the Vietnam War, where many a father was killed.
Father’s Day was a 60 year afterthought to Mother’s day, but we fathers take what we can get. We’re thrilled to be remembered at all once a year and the silly cards and bad ties make us a little misty, but don’t tell anybody.
About the original Father’s Day pie giving tradition, cherry crumb is an excellent celebratory slice of pie. It’s tart, yet sweet and somewhat crummy. Not unlike a lot of us fathers.
Tuesday, May 19
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH GROUP SPEECH
LIFE IN SIX WORDs
There’s a book out called “Not What I was Planning’ which has numerous people summing up their lives in six word statements. Joan Rivers quipped “Liars, hysterectomy didn’t improve sex life.” Humorist Ray Blount Jr. wrote “Maybe you had to be there.”
Novelist Joyce Carol Oates wrote “Revenge is living well, without you.” I can smell a bitter divorce here. Kelsey Ochs said “Follwed yellow brick road, disappointment ensued.”
“I wrote it down somewhere.” someone wrote. “Never finished anything, except cake.” “I colored outside the lines” and columnist Craig Wilson wrote “Dad was Santa. Down hill from there.
Maybe you could come up with your own summation, if you think you’re old enough. I got to thinking and here’s one reason, out of many, as to how I’ve finally summed up my life.
When I was stationed in the Air Force in England in 1969 I took some leave to see Europe. In Paris I bought a leather pouch where I put some foreign coins in, like French franks and Italian lira, as souvenirs.
I had it hidden in my barracks for two years till I packed it in my duffle bag to take home upon my discharge. Back in the USA I moved several times taking that pouch with me each time.
I brought the souvenir pouch into my office and put it on my desk for 33 years, looking at the coins once in a while to remind me of my travels. Then one night someone broke into our office thru a window the size of a small suitcase. A SMALL SUITCASE! And robbed us. My own office was ransacked and my Paris pouch was stolen.
Several months later the cops caught the thief, but he didn’t have the pouch full of my foreign coins with him. They were gone forever. Then last week I was watching the news and they mentioned the Euro, the standard currency that replaced all of Europe’s different bills and coins.
So even if I made it back to Europe one more time, I couldn’t replace my old souvenir francs and lira, if I wanted to. Which leads to the 6 word summation of my life which is “Hell, I never saw that coming!”
Anyone come up with a six word summation of their life? Anyone?
Before we continue here’s a couple of notes for your church bulletin.
THE SHADOW KNOWS but Cliff McLaughlin and his crew didn’t have a clue when they were painting the fellowship room and ended up repainting the shadows that skipped across the walls during the day.
For those of you who don’t know- the Reedsville Fishing Club is really just an old baseball bat that hits the fish onto the bank when they jump out of the water after they electrify Kish Creek
(And who do you have to thrill to get into the fishing club? Apparently Gene Glick, ‘cause if he doesn’t like you you’re a rod without a reel. Just ask him, he’ll tell you how he feels- always. Gene’s kinda like the Judge Judy of Reedsville.)
After you’re so old you can get the senior citizen discount on almost anything, including life itself. Some things are good about getting old, while others are not so great.
This covers both sides. The positive stuff about getting old is provided by the ubiquitous unknown comedy writer on the WEB. The more negative points of growing old are provided by yours truly. First are the perks on getting old.
Kidnappers are not very interested in you.
In a hostage situation you are likely to be released first, mainly because it’s way past your bedtime.
People no longer view you as a hypochondriac.
There’s nothing left to learn the hard way.
You can live without sex, but not without your glasses.
You enjoy hearing about other peoples’ operations.
Your investment in health insurance is finally beginning to pay off.
Your secrets are safe with your friends because they can’t remember them either.
That’s pretty much the end of the good stuff, so here’s some of the bad stuff with those senior citizen discounts on life.
You get more musical with age as rock and roll is how fitfully you sleep at night in between numerous trips to the bathroom, rap is what you do with presents and hip hop is what you do when you fall in front of people in public, then pretend you didn’t.
Cher is your Britney Spears.
When your wife winks at you and you think she wants to mess around, it’s probably astigmatism because she can’t see you properly and has to squint.
You nap before, after and during sex.
You run in place and get winded just trying to jog your memory.
You’re so old that you can remember when Walt Disney was a person and not a land or a world.
Happy hour and Miller time have long since replaced your youthful Howdy Doody time, which never gave you a hangover. And you feel more like Clarabell the Clown than Buffalo Bob.
You went from being a walker to using one.
The Pepsi Challenge once landed you in the hospital because you broke something taking it.
You’re disappointed if your biggest lottery winner is $1,000 a week for life. So maybe all you’ll win is a couple thousand bucks.
Sugar is something you’re diagnosed with and not supposed to have anymore.
No one expects you to finish a race now, let alone win it. In fact, expectations are so low for you that if you did actually accomplish something significant at your age, there’d be a full investigation by the proper authorities.
The only cutting up you’ll be involved in will be your nurse cutting up your food for you.
You keep seeing the medicines you take regularly showing up on the news as dangerous to your health and TV ads from lawyers saying that if your pills kill you your family can file lawsuits and seek damages against them by just calling this number.
You can now use your senior citizen discount for Depends, but not for Brylcreem because your hair went the way of your continence.
Life is full of moments that take your breath away, but at your age it could mean a blockage somewhere.
You now have trouble keeping your self winding watch going.
You’re so old that one stop shopping means a cemetery next to a nursing home.
You may not live long enough to pay off a new car, which is why you buy one.
The half moons on your fingernails have almost set.
You live for yesterday, because today sucks.
And finally you don’t have to be nice to people you don’t like anymore. What are they gonna do, snub you at the cemetery?
In case you don’t realize that you’re getting old, you’re in denial, here are some HINTS YOU’RE GETTING OLD
.YOU KNOW YOU’RE GETTING OLD
when the only thing that keeps you relevant to top 40 radio is that every few years they release another Elvis and Beatles’ song.
when you want to buy a condo in TV Land and live there, like you’re ten again when I Love Lucy was new.
when you worry more about your bowels than your bad breath.
when the last time you had a date the Vietnam War was going well.
when you download with a cocktail, not a computer, after work.
when you’re too cranky to try to be charming to a good looking member of the opposite sex.
when there’s nothing new under the sun, except for the skin cancer just diagnosed by your dermatologist.
when the only thing that doesn’t give you heartburn is breathing .
when the last time you had a handle on life was when you grabbed the handle on your pharmacy’s plastic bag full of your prescriptions for the next 90 days.
when you start thinking that the speed limit is a tad too fast and everybody beeps “Hi.” and shakes their fists “Hello.” as they speed around you on the highway.
when the next time you move it’s either to the nursing home or the cemetery.
when they don’t want you as an organ donor anymore because the warranty on your body parts has expired.
when you should wear a helmet whenever you go out for a walk.
when the food fad popcorn chicken causes your brain to lock up. Is it popcorn or is it chicken? Make up your #!@&* mind!
when it takes a team of specialists and a string of pharmaceutical companies just to get you to lunch.
when the varicose veins lining your legs is the most attractive part of your body.
Running rampant with my old age theme for today, here’s some AARP bumper stickers.
I’m retired. I was tired yesterday and I’m tired again today.
When I was younger, all I wanted was a nice BMW. Now I don’t care about the W.
CREMATION? Think outside the box.
We got married for better or worse. He couldn’t do better. I couldn’t do any worse.
Florida.? God’s waiting room.
Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
I ask my wife if old men wear boxers or briefs? She said DEPENDS.
Food has replaced sex in my life…Now I can’t even get into my own pants.
Snap, crackle pop in the morning ain’t my freakin’ Rice Krispies.
Senior Campbells… New Large Type Alphabet Soup.
I’d like to end with two philosophical poems from my book BALD AIN’T BEAUTIFUL.
THE MAYTAG PHILOSOPHER
Life is like
The spin cycles
Of a washer.
You begin when
You’re born
And Delicate.
You rinse off
And grow up
To be Regular,
Like everyone else.
You meet someone
Who makes you Hot,
And marry them.
But you soon
Cool Down
And rinse again.
Then are agitated
Till you take
That Final Spin
And become Permanent Press.
THE MISFORTUNE COOKIE OF LIFE
From the day you’re born
Till the day you die,
It’s all just one long goodbye.
So the meaning of life is this-
To love and be loved while you’re here,
Then be missed when you disappear.
There’s a book out called “Not What I was Planning’ which has numerous people summing up their lives in six word statements. Joan Rivers quipped “Liars, hysterectomy didn’t improve sex life.” Humorist Ray Blount Jr. wrote “Maybe you had to be there.”
Novelist Joyce Carol Oates wrote “Revenge is living well, without you.” I can smell a bitter divorce here. Kelsey Ochs said “Follwed yellow brick road, disappointment ensued.”
“I wrote it down somewhere.” someone wrote. “Never finished anything, except cake.” “I colored outside the lines” and columnist Craig Wilson wrote “Dad was Santa. Down hill from there.
Maybe you could come up with your own summation, if you think you’re old enough. I got to thinking and here’s one reason, out of many, as to how I’ve finally summed up my life.
When I was stationed in the Air Force in England in 1969 I took some leave to see Europe. In Paris I bought a leather pouch where I put some foreign coins in, like French franks and Italian lira, as souvenirs.
I had it hidden in my barracks for two years till I packed it in my duffle bag to take home upon my discharge. Back in the USA I moved several times taking that pouch with me each time.
I brought the souvenir pouch into my office and put it on my desk for 33 years, looking at the coins once in a while to remind me of my travels. Then one night someone broke into our office thru a window the size of a small suitcase. A SMALL SUITCASE! And robbed us. My own office was ransacked and my Paris pouch was stolen.
Several months later the cops caught the thief, but he didn’t have the pouch full of my foreign coins with him. They were gone forever. Then last week I was watching the news and they mentioned the Euro, the standard currency that replaced all of Europe’s different bills and coins.
So even if I made it back to Europe one more time, I couldn’t replace my old souvenir francs and lira, if I wanted to. Which leads to the 6 word summation of my life which is “Hell, I never saw that coming!”
Anyone come up with a six word summation of their life? Anyone?
Before we continue here’s a couple of notes for your church bulletin.
THE SHADOW KNOWS but Cliff McLaughlin and his crew didn’t have a clue when they were painting the fellowship room and ended up repainting the shadows that skipped across the walls during the day.
For those of you who don’t know- the Reedsville Fishing Club is really just an old baseball bat that hits the fish onto the bank when they jump out of the water after they electrify Kish Creek
(And who do you have to thrill to get into the fishing club? Apparently Gene Glick, ‘cause if he doesn’t like you you’re a rod without a reel. Just ask him, he’ll tell you how he feels- always. Gene’s kinda like the Judge Judy of Reedsville.)
After you’re so old you can get the senior citizen discount on almost anything, including life itself. Some things are good about getting old, while others are not so great.
This covers both sides. The positive stuff about getting old is provided by the ubiquitous unknown comedy writer on the WEB. The more negative points of growing old are provided by yours truly. First are the perks on getting old.
Kidnappers are not very interested in you.
In a hostage situation you are likely to be released first, mainly because it’s way past your bedtime.
People no longer view you as a hypochondriac.
There’s nothing left to learn the hard way.
You can live without sex, but not without your glasses.
You enjoy hearing about other peoples’ operations.
Your investment in health insurance is finally beginning to pay off.
Your secrets are safe with your friends because they can’t remember them either.
That’s pretty much the end of the good stuff, so here’s some of the bad stuff with those senior citizen discounts on life.
You get more musical with age as rock and roll is how fitfully you sleep at night in between numerous trips to the bathroom, rap is what you do with presents and hip hop is what you do when you fall in front of people in public, then pretend you didn’t.
Cher is your Britney Spears.
When your wife winks at you and you think she wants to mess around, it’s probably astigmatism because she can’t see you properly and has to squint.
You nap before, after and during sex.
You run in place and get winded just trying to jog your memory.
You’re so old that you can remember when Walt Disney was a person and not a land or a world.
Happy hour and Miller time have long since replaced your youthful Howdy Doody time, which never gave you a hangover. And you feel more like Clarabell the Clown than Buffalo Bob.
You went from being a walker to using one.
The Pepsi Challenge once landed you in the hospital because you broke something taking it.
You’re disappointed if your biggest lottery winner is $1,000 a week for life. So maybe all you’ll win is a couple thousand bucks.
Sugar is something you’re diagnosed with and not supposed to have anymore.
No one expects you to finish a race now, let alone win it. In fact, expectations are so low for you that if you did actually accomplish something significant at your age, there’d be a full investigation by the proper authorities.
The only cutting up you’ll be involved in will be your nurse cutting up your food for you.
You keep seeing the medicines you take regularly showing up on the news as dangerous to your health and TV ads from lawyers saying that if your pills kill you your family can file lawsuits and seek damages against them by just calling this number.
You can now use your senior citizen discount for Depends, but not for Brylcreem because your hair went the way of your continence.
Life is full of moments that take your breath away, but at your age it could mean a blockage somewhere.
You now have trouble keeping your self winding watch going.
You’re so old that one stop shopping means a cemetery next to a nursing home.
You may not live long enough to pay off a new car, which is why you buy one.
The half moons on your fingernails have almost set.
You live for yesterday, because today sucks.
And finally you don’t have to be nice to people you don’t like anymore. What are they gonna do, snub you at the cemetery?
In case you don’t realize that you’re getting old, you’re in denial, here are some HINTS YOU’RE GETTING OLD
.YOU KNOW YOU’RE GETTING OLD
when the only thing that keeps you relevant to top 40 radio is that every few years they release another Elvis and Beatles’ song.
when you want to buy a condo in TV Land and live there, like you’re ten again when I Love Lucy was new.
when you worry more about your bowels than your bad breath.
when the last time you had a date the Vietnam War was going well.
when you download with a cocktail, not a computer, after work.
when you’re too cranky to try to be charming to a good looking member of the opposite sex.
when there’s nothing new under the sun, except for the skin cancer just diagnosed by your dermatologist.
when the only thing that doesn’t give you heartburn is breathing .
when the last time you had a handle on life was when you grabbed the handle on your pharmacy’s plastic bag full of your prescriptions for the next 90 days.
when you start thinking that the speed limit is a tad too fast and everybody beeps “Hi.” and shakes their fists “Hello.” as they speed around you on the highway.
when the next time you move it’s either to the nursing home or the cemetery.
when they don’t want you as an organ donor anymore because the warranty on your body parts has expired.
when you should wear a helmet whenever you go out for a walk.
when the food fad popcorn chicken causes your brain to lock up. Is it popcorn or is it chicken? Make up your #!@&* mind!
when it takes a team of specialists and a string of pharmaceutical companies just to get you to lunch.
when the varicose veins lining your legs is the most attractive part of your body.
Running rampant with my old age theme for today, here’s some AARP bumper stickers.
I’m retired. I was tired yesterday and I’m tired again today.
When I was younger, all I wanted was a nice BMW. Now I don’t care about the W.
CREMATION? Think outside the box.
We got married for better or worse. He couldn’t do better. I couldn’t do any worse.
Florida.? God’s waiting room.
Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
I ask my wife if old men wear boxers or briefs? She said DEPENDS.
Food has replaced sex in my life…Now I can’t even get into my own pants.
Snap, crackle pop in the morning ain’t my freakin’ Rice Krispies.
Senior Campbells… New Large Type Alphabet Soup.
I’d like to end with two philosophical poems from my book BALD AIN’T BEAUTIFUL.
THE MAYTAG PHILOSOPHER
Life is like
The spin cycles
Of a washer.
You begin when
You’re born
And Delicate.
You rinse off
And grow up
To be Regular,
Like everyone else.
You meet someone
Who makes you Hot,
And marry them.
But you soon
Cool Down
And rinse again.
Then are agitated
Till you take
That Final Spin
And become Permanent Press.
THE MISFORTUNE COOKIE OF LIFE
From the day you’re born
Till the day you die,
It’s all just one long goodbye.
So the meaning of life is this-
To love and be loved while you’re here,
Then be missed when you disappear.
Thursday, May 14
ADULT - BEATLES SONG PARODIES
These songs were originally written by Lennon, McCartney & Moe and were not hits. Luckily, Mo died in a mysterious explosion high over the Mersey and went down like a truck stop hooker. So Lennon and McCartney rewrote them and the rest is musical legend. These songs, however, are musical history. Feel free to hummer along.
PESTER DAY
Lennon, McCartney & Moe
Pester Day, all my screwing seems so far away.
Now it looks like I have to pray for a lay, Oh
I believe in Pester Day
Suddenly, I’m twice the man I used to be
Swollen with sperm hanging all over me.
Oh, Pester Day, I need to COME SUDDENLY.
Why she says no, she wouldn’t say.
I pulled out my dong, which’s not wrong for Pester Day.
Pester Day, I beg for any sex game to play
Now I need a place (hole) to SLIDE AWAY, Oh
I believe in Pester Day.
Why she wouldn’t blow, I don’t know, she wouldn’t say.
I make my dong long when I plead on Pester Day.
Pester Day, ‘cause love’s such a hard game to play
Now, I need a place (hole) to slide away. Oh,
I believe in Pester Day.
A REALLY HARD DAY’S NIGHT
Lennon, McCartney & Moe
It’s been a hard day’s night, and I been humping like a dog.
It’s been a hard day’s night and I should be croaking like a frog,
But when I get home to you I find everything that you do
Will make me feel uptight.
You know I work all day to get me money for my honeys
But it’s not worth it when I hear the doctor say they gave me
STDs.
So why on earth do I moan? It’s cause when you throw a fit
You know, I feel like shit.
When I’m home everything seems NOT right.
When I’m home reeling it’s cause I’m real tight. Tight (Ummm)
Owww!
So why on earth do I moan? It’s cause when you throw a fit
You know, I feel like shit.
You know, I feel uptight.
You know, I feel uptight
PESTER DAY
Lennon, McCartney & Moe
Pester Day, all my screwing seems so far away.
Now it looks like I have to pray for a lay, Oh
I believe in Pester Day
Suddenly, I’m twice the man I used to be
Swollen with sperm hanging all over me.
Oh, Pester Day, I need to COME SUDDENLY.
Why she says no, she wouldn’t say.
I pulled out my dong, which’s not wrong for Pester Day.
Pester Day, I beg for any sex game to play
Now I need a place (hole) to SLIDE AWAY, Oh
I believe in Pester Day.
Why she wouldn’t blow, I don’t know, she wouldn’t say.
I make my dong long when I plead on Pester Day.
Pester Day, ‘cause love’s such a hard game to play
Now, I need a place (hole) to slide away. Oh,
I believe in Pester Day.
A REALLY HARD DAY’S NIGHT
Lennon, McCartney & Moe
It’s been a hard day’s night, and I been humping like a dog.
It’s been a hard day’s night and I should be croaking like a frog,
But when I get home to you I find everything that you do
Will make me feel uptight.
You know I work all day to get me money for my honeys
But it’s not worth it when I hear the doctor say they gave me
STDs.
So why on earth do I moan? It’s cause when you throw a fit
You know, I feel like shit.
When I’m home everything seems NOT right.
When I’m home reeling it’s cause I’m real tight. Tight (Ummm)
Owww!
So why on earth do I moan? It’s cause when you throw a fit
You know, I feel like shit.
You know, I feel uptight.
You know, I feel uptight
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