Police in my little city are going down the street ticketing cars that are parked on the grass. Not the grass by the street, mind you, where it could be considered a traffic hazard, but the grass in the people’s own yards. Apparently there is some kind of ordinance here that says a car has to be parked on concrete or a gravel drive.
What a total disgrace to the officers who are supposed to serve and protect.
Okay, just had to get that out of my system. Now on to the humor.
Just for fun I thought I’d share that photo of me when I played a role in the play “War of the Worlds” at the Winnsboro Center for the Arts. We adapted the original radio broadcast by Orson Welles in 1938 that panicked the entire nation when he announced that aliens had landed. Back then, it probably wasn’t the least bit funny, but when we did the play, the rest of the cast and I sure had a blast. When I think about all the good times I had at the art center, it always makes me smile.
Since I’m still in recovery mode from my shoulder surgery, I’ll let Slim Randles and his friend Windy entertain you today. Windy sure does like to massacre the spoken word. Enjoy…
The closed-season school board meeting was called to order half an hour late by its chairman, J. Buckdancer Alcott, because the board members saw Windy Wilson sitting in the audience.
Windy had no children, and he sure as sugar wasn’t a teacher, but he could talk. And he was patiently biding his time. Despite the board’s foot dragging through the agenda, Windy didn’t give up and go home.
Finally, Alcott said it was time for public feedback and asked if anyone wanted to speak. Windy raised his hand. Alcott looked desperately around, but Windy’s hand was the only one raised. He nodded in Windy’s direction.
“My name is Alphonse Wilson,” he said, standing, “and I live here.”
“We know who you are, Windy,” said Alcott.
“Thanks, Buck. I feel it’s my duty to bring to the board’s attention a strategic dearth of learning with these young people today. A paucity of eddyflication. In short, their vocabulary is seriously obfusticated. We have to ask ourselves, what are these young people going to do in polite society when a hostess passes around the horse doovers? Are they going to palaver proper, or just sit there on their sacrolibriums and nod? Are they going to be admitted to the barn association, write them writs of habeas porpoise, or just sue each other out of court? Are we really doing them a favor by not enrichelating their talking prior to a proper propulsion into adultery? I say no!”
At this point, two ladies in the audience quickly excused themselves and dashed into the hallway.
“Instead of being instructed in proper English, our students today spend all their time watching private defective shows on television. So I think teachers should work on getting ‘em more eloquenter than they are now.”
“Mr. Wilson,” asked one of the board members, “what is it about the way our students speak that you find objectionable?”
“They say like all the time. Instead of making a simple declarational sentencing, they say, ‘Oh, I was like this and he was like that, and she like ate dinner.’
Windy doesn’t even charge for these lessons. They’re always, like, free.
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Dave Marash’s in-depth HERE & THERE podcasts keep you hooked on today’s big news. Listen on www.davemarash.com.
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Check out all of Slim’s award-winning books at his Goodreads Page and in better bookstores and bunkhouses throughout the free world.
All of the posts here are from his syndicated column, Home Country that is read in hundreds of newspapers across the country. I am always happy to have him share his wit and wisdom here.
Slim Randles is a veteran newspaperman, hunting guide, cowboy, dog musher, and an all-around good guy. He was a feature writer and columnist for The Anchorage Daily News for 10 years and guided hunters in the Alaska Range and the Talkeetna Mountains. A resident of New Mexico now for more than 30 years, Randles is the prize-winning author of a dozen books and the host of two podcasts and a television program.