“DUCK TAPE”

“Be careful”, Merry scolded. 

“I will”, Hanger smiled at her. 

Then he saw the stern look on her face and knew she was serious. 

“I mean it, Henry. No more zigzagging or loopty-loos like at the festival. You nearly scared half the town to death and Dexter Dolby had a heck of a time getting those poor turkeys back in their crates,” Merry looked sternly at Hanger. 

Merry was referring to the flyover Hanger did at the Harvest Film Festival. 

“It’s a good thing Roger had ‘duck tape’ on hand.” 

“That’s ‘duct tape’, my dear, Hanger giggled. 

Merry looked perplexed. 

“You say, ‘duct’. I say, ‘quack, quack’. 

Hanger got in his Ol’ Jenny and flew off in the direction of the Connelly potato farm. He worked many summers on that farm digging potatoes for Ol’ Man Connelly and daydreaming of the day when he could fly.  

Hanger joined the Army shortly thereafter, got married and raised a family. Now, all these years later, he finally has his own plane. He still works at the Connelly farm fertilizing the crops. Ol’ Man Connelly passed away shortly after Hanger went into the Army. His son owns it now. 

Hanger thought back to the festival that day and the chaos that followed. He couldn’t help but smile as he remembered how Justice, Ol’ Man Connelly’s son and Garrett Storm, Letongaloosa’s leading weather man had dared Hanger to buzz over Dexter during his speech because he tended to be a tad longwinded. The boys thought it’d be fun to shake things up a bit. 

Everything was going fine. Hanger was all set to fly when his knob to his radio fell off. Hanger was caught off guard, but he was able to pull off scaring Dexter, but he got a little too close to the crowd and the turkeys. It caused all sorts of commotion, not to mention a disgruntled   mayor.  

After Hanger apologized and helped Dexter gather a few angry birds, everyone in town was laughing at what had just happened. Including the speech presenter. 

“You sure gave me a start!” Dexter quipped. Your flyover gave me an idea for a new project. My boss at the studio has been asking me about writing a new script and I couldn’t think of anything until today thanks to you. I mean a sequel to my film, ‘Attack of the 50-FootTurkey” would be…”  

“Glad to be helpful,” Hanger sighed and walked toward the hardware store to find a quick fix for the radio knob for his Jenny. 

Justice Connelly was standing with a roll of duct tape in hand by the time Hanger reached Rollins Hardware. 

“Here you go!” Justice grinned. 

“Thanks. That should hold it till I get back to the shop. Merry is going to be upset with me for this stunt.,” Hanger sighed. 

And he was right, 

“I know Dexter talks a lot, but those poor turkeys!” Merry said. 

She was trying to sound stern, but Merry was having a hard time trying not to smile as she saw the look on Mayor Turners face once the turkeys broke free from their pen. 

“Seriously, Henry. You could have been hurt.” Merry said. 

“I know,” Hanger said as he kissed her cheek and headed toward his shop to fix the knob that started all the commotion and the inspiration for Dexter’s potential upcoming blockbuster. 

Oh, that was a fun and memorable day. Hanger smiled as he got into Jenny. He looked over at the knob. The outline of the ‘duck tape’ was faint.  

Heading off in the direction of Ol’ Man Connelly’s, Hanger grinned, looked over his shoulder to make sure no turkeys were in flight and did al oopty loo for luck. 

Ribby Falls in Love ©

       Long time readers of this column will remember Ribby Von Simeon. More recent readers probably won’t be acquainted with Ribby, so here’s a brief introduction.

Ribby Von Simeon is the son of internationally renowned movie star Sippa Margarita and Balderdash Von Simeon, the news and entertainment magnate.

Ruthless Von Simeon, Ribby’s grandfather, was a Western mining tycoon. Between them they acquired a heap of money.

Miss Margarita’s media profile says she was born in Valencia. Her public  relations packets contain photos of her in and around Valencia, Spain.  Reality insists that Josipa Margarita Ruiz was born and raised in Valencia, Kansas.  The couple had one son, Ruthless Ignacio Balderdash San Bernardino Cortez Ruiz Von Simeon, known all his life as Ribby.

Ribby Von Simeon was raised by his Latino grandparents in Kansas.  It was all his mother could do to handle her fast-paced movie career.  Ribby’s one enduring childhood memory of his mother was of a voyage they took. He flew to Europe and together he and Sippa sailed back on an ocean liner.

The voyage was bittersweet for Ribby.  He had his mother all to himself. But he was seasick from the moment he stepped on board until the ship docked. He spent the whole voyage in bed being tenderly cared for—this to her credit—by his mother.  She brought him broth and hard rolls and read to him.

Ribby didin’t come into his inheritance until he was in his thirties. By that time he was living simply but comfortably as an adjunct professor at Letongaloosa Community Junior College.  The news that he had inherited a pile of money came at the same time news reports said that the luxury liner Santa Maria de la Valencia  on which he and his mother had sailed the Atlantic had been decommissioned and would be sold for scrap.

The thought of that dearly remembered vessel ending up as scrap iron infuriated Ribby. That fury transformed him from a diffident and taciturn academic into a man as rapacious as his grandpa Ruthless Von Simeon and as vociferous and belligerent as his father Balderdash Von Simeon.

Ribby used his resources to attack the astonished lawyers, financial conservators, bureaucrats, politicians and shipping company executives. When it was over, Ribby owned the ship and had permission to do anything he wanted with it.  He had the ship carefully dismantled and transported piece by piece to Kansas. Then Ribby had the ship reconstituted, refurbished and moored  at the top of a hill on a large tract of land he owned a few miles outside Letongaloosa.

After the re-commissioning of the Santa Maria, Ribby dropped back into academic anonymity until 10 years later when another crisis arose.

Newly elected county officials were young and eager to raise tax revenue. They changed zoning regulations. Ribby’s property became part of an urban renewal project. The officials knew little about Ribby except that despite being a lowly professor at LCJC, he owned the land and the ship. They ordered him to dismantle and remove the vessel at his own expense.

That order transformed mild-mannered Sippy Von Simeon into an amalgam of his forebears Ruthles and Balderdash.  Within hours highly placed officials were threatening to strip the county of federal funding, bankers had cancelled favorable interest rates.  Bureaucrats, politicians and diplomats denounced the county officials and demanded that they cancel the project or leave Ribby’s land out of it. The county capitulated.

About that time Angie Appleton, a pert thirty-year-old who had focused her life and energy on her academic career, joined the LJCC faculty. Ribby fell for her the moment he saw her across the room at the first faculty meeting of the semester.

A first Angie ignored him. Then she was curious. Then intrigued.

For his part, Ribby was, at first his shy, taciturn self. But love is powerful. After an agonizing few days of despair, Love awakened Ribby’s Balderdash qualities—appropriately softened for the occasion—and LOVE won out.

Angie and Ribby snuck away and got married, went on a honeymoon, came back to Letongaloosa and settled down—more or less.

-30-

Dr. Larry day is a retired J-School professor turned humor writer. His book, Day Dreaming: Tales From the Fourth Dementia is available for purchase via his website: http://www.daydreaming.co



The Letongaloosa Register-Journal-Challenger-Sun Chronicle, Christmas Edition ©

Looking at the pages of the Tuesday edition of The Letongaloosa Register-Journal-Challenger-Sun Chronicle, managing editor, Isabella Frost knew it was going to be a long night.  Ever since she was a young, bright-eyed copy editor, ignoring the clock on the wall had been a tradition. There was a lot to do and she had a “to-do” list a mile long to prove it.

After nearly 40 years in the newsroom, that was one thing that never changed. Isabella was used to working late. To be honest, she enjoyed the time it took and the excitement of putting out a newspaper, especially during the holiday season. She liked seeing all of the brilliant colors of pictures and the heart-warming stories of the town coming together splashed all over the pages.  After all these years, they always filled her heart with joy.

Isabella closed her eyes, took a deep breath and remembered she needed to make room for the full-page ad that would accompany the feature for Dexter Dolby’s new movie, Attack of the 50-Foot Reindeer. She also needed to include milk to her list of things to pick up on her way home before she continued gazing at the words and pictures intermingling across tomorrow’s layout.  She was content with her life and the work she had done.  Then something peculiar caught her attention—she couldn’t look away.

Every story seemed to be in a “Top 10 List” format. As she clicked through each section, there were lists after lists scattered all throughout the pages. In the age of social media, Isabella knows that lists are a quick and effective way to tell a story. She, herself, has used them and keeps countless lists stored in her phone: “to-do” lists, lists for potential articles she wants to write, even her grocery list on her refrigerator is synced to her phone so even if she forgets to write milk to her shopping list, it’s not a big deal. Isabella can just send the list that is on her refrigerator to her phone and call it a day.

There is “Top 10”lists for everything nowadays. Every newspaper, magazine and media outlet around the globe seems to gravitate towards using them, not as just an element to a story, but as the primary way to relay information to the masses.

And Isabella saw that The Letongaloosa Register-Journal-Challenger-Sun Chronicle is definitely keeping up with current trends. The headlines staring back at her were: Top 10 Best Christmas Gifts for Chefs, The 10 Best Christmas Yodeling Albums of 2017, Merry Duggins’ List of the 10 Best Christmas Movies to name just a few.

Thankfully, the piece on Dexter’s new movie premiere would add an element of tradition to the paper. He was a longtime friend of Isabella’s and a beloved movie legend of Letongaloosa. His premiere film, Attack of the 50-Foot Turkey, lead him to head to job at a film production company on the Pacific Coast. He was home for the holidays to showcase his sophomore film, Attack of the 50-Foot Reindeer.  It was only fitting that Dexter come back to where his first began and it was only right that Isabella conduct his homecoming interview.

Excited, seeing Dexter and writing about his newest movie was an article that Isabella had looked forward to writing. Dexter was a student at Letongaloosa Community College where Isabella taught a writing course. She supervised his internship here at the paper and had been following his career ever since. She made sure Dexter’s story would be front and center highlight of the Lifestyle section.

After giving the Tuesday edition a final glance, she checked some final things off of her “to-do” list and headed off to the grocery store. It had been a long day. She was happy to go home, close her eyes and relax.

 

As Isabella woke the next morning, she reached for her phone to check her schedule for the day. It was going to be another long day. Making her way to into the newsroom, she grabbed a paper and flipped to the Lifestyle section and saw Dexter Dolby’s big smile, sparkling eyes and his “Top 10 Favorite Scifi Movies” staring back at her. She was filled with joy!!

-30-

Dr. Larry day is a retired J-School professor turned humor writer. His book, Day Dreaming: Tales From the Fourth Dementia is available for purchase via his website: http://www.daydreaming.co

Do You Do the Jumble?©

 

 

Years ago I wrote a column titled “Code Blur.”  That story revolved around a World War II decoding device that I saw on display as “relics of technology,” at a local department store. As the story evolved, the feds thought I was involved in some  espionage plot. I had a  dicey time before it all got straightened out.

Welcome to déjà vu all over again

Emmaline and I have a mid-morning routine.  We sit in the living room and read the local newspaper.  Once we’ve noted the condition of the nation, the state and the community, we read the comics.  Sometimes we wonder which individuals are the comic strip characters and which are  our leaders, who are acting like comic strip characters.

Then we turn to the puzzle page and work on the word puzzle. That’s a grid with vertical and horizontal numbered boxes.  Printed opposite each box is a set of scrambled letters that spell

the answer to the clue if you put them in the right order.

Most days between us, Emmaline and I solve the puzzle without help.  Sometimes though, there’s a weird clue.  After we have tried the combinations of letters, I trudge upstairs to the computer  to try to unscramble the letters.  I type in the random letters from the puzzle trying to figure out a pattern.

There’s nothing sinister about that, right?  Wrong!  The other day while we were working on the puzzle, two black SUVs drove up in front of our house. The first SUV drove into the driveway. The other one blocked the driveway at the curb.  Four suits got out of the SUV in the driveway, and came to the door.

“Federal agents.  Open the door.”

I opened the door and they poured in.

“What’s this about?”

“We’ll ask the questions,” said the shortest suit—a bald guy with horned rim glasses.

“Show me some identification first.” I said.

Agent Horned Rimmed flashed an ID.

“Who are you?”

“We’re from the Department of Electronic Citizen Surveillance.  Our algorithm devices have detected coded messages coming from your computer.”

“I type random letters on a search engine looking for clues to the Jumble Puzzles in the newspaper,”

Agent Horned Rimmed ignored my answer and said, “Do you deny communicating with an alien who uses the code name KB 11.2?”

“KB 11.2?  “Kaybe,” are you kidding? Kaybe is the alien robot character I created for my monthly humor column?”

“There’s nothing humorous about espionage,”  said Agent Horned Rimmed. “Or aliens, either, for that matter.”

“”But Kaybe is fiction.  He’s a character in my book,” I said.  “Show them, Emmaline.”

“Don’t move,” said the tall suit standing behind Emmaline.

“I just want to show you the book,” said Emmaline.  It’s right here.”

Agent Horned Rimmed made a quick lateral move with his head, and said, “Get it.”

Emmaline crossed the living room and picked up my little book, Day Dreaming. She opened the book to a story titled “I Speak Alien,” and handed the book to Agent Tall Suit.  Agent Tall Suit leafed through the story, grimaced, and handed the book to Agent Horned Rimmed.

“It’s a humor book, Deke,” he said.

Emmaline handed Agent Tall Suit a page from the local newspaper.

“Here is the puzzle those words came from,” she said.  You can see that the letters in the grid match the written clues.  You solve the puzzle by putting the right words in the grid horizontally and vertically.  Sometimes we get stumped, so my husband types the letters into an Internet search engine to see  if it will unscramble them.”

Outside, the neighbors were beginning to gather in their front yards.  They were staring at the guys standing around the SUV that was blocking the driveway.

“It’s another surveillance network screw-up, Deke,” said Tall Agent.

“@#$%^&*,” said Deke. Then Deke gave his trademark lateral move of the head and the suits melted out through front door.

As they were running, one of them yelled,  “wrong address!”

Then they jumped into their SUVs  and sped away.

“Who were those unmasked men?” asked Emmaline.

-30-

Dr. Larry day is a retired J-School professor turned humor writer. His book, Day Dreaming: Tales From the Fourth Dementia is available for purchase via his website: http://www.daydreaming.co

The 50-Foot Turkey Goes To Hollywood ©

Dexter Dolby had to confess. When he started writing the screenplay for Attack
of the 50-Foot Turkey he never thought he would end up here. How he got from
his own red carpet premiere at the Letongaloosa Fall Film Festival to being stuck
in bumper-to-bumper traffic along the Pacific Coast Highway was a blur. One
day he’s a writer and movie critic for the Letongaloosa Register-Journal-
Challenger-Sun Chronicle. The next, it seemed to him, he was here sitting behind
the wheel of his old blue Wrangler, a week before Thanksgiving, staring out at
the turquoise waters and waiting to begin life as a Hollywood screenwriter.
How a film gets made had always been incredibly important to Dexter. As a kid
he’d sit for hours absorbing every detail of every plot line, camera angle and
costume in movies like The Giant Claw, Dementia 13, and The Terror. He wanted
to be a film writer, and he knew if he was going to be taken seriously he had to
pay attention to every detail of the production.
It was that attention to detail that caught the eye of Paul Peterson, the CEO of
Talking Pictures Productions (TPP). The way the camera captured the detail and
movement of a giant 50-foot turkey as it toppled the tiny country town made
the hair stand up on the back of Paul Peterson’s neck. He prided himself in
being able to spot creativity and talent wherever he saw it—even in a
backwater town like Letongaloosa. Peterson wanted Dexter working for his
company.
For Dexter, thinking back to the events of that fateful night after Halloween was
better than a prize-winning movie. Incredibly, Dexter had said goodbye to the
small circulation newspaper and to small-town life. The turkeys at the wildlife
conservatory had changed is life and provided him with the future he had
longed for. With a firm offer of a job, Dexter bid goodbye to friends and family,
packed up his Revere 8Mm, and headed for Hollywood.
The weeks following the movie premiere had passed like a whirlwind. After “Mr.
Hollywood,” Paul Peterson showed up that night outside of the Cineplex, the
people of Letongaloosa had treated Dexter like a celebrity. The managers of
the burger stand told him he’d never pay for a burger and fries and shakes
again. The manager of the movie theatre assured him he’d have free movie
tickets. The president of the Wild Life Sanctuary presented him a certificate that
made him a lifetime member. He could visit the turkeys that turned him into an
up-and-coming filmmaker any time he wanted.
All of the attention at first mystified, then , humbled Dexter. He was delighted
that people liked his work. He was ecstatic about the attention Paul Peterson
paid him in the following weeks. They became friends.
The two discussed everything from to do with the creation of films and
screenwriting, to the nitty gritty of post- production editing. One day Paul talked
to about turning Attack of the 50-Foot Turkey into a one-day classic for the big
screen. All of those conversations resulted in an offer for Dexter to go to
Hollywood and make movies for TPP Productions.
I was a dream come true! Dexter loved his job as writer and movie critic in
Letongaloosa, but he was thrilled with his new life, even when he had to sit in this
traffic jams on his way to write and make movies. Slowly, the sea of cars began
to inch forward. Dexter felt a warm breeze on his face. He was on his way to
HOLLYWOOD. He was going to make movies. The cars started to move and
Dexter felt the Wrangler roll. It moved closer and closer to his future as a
Hollywood filmmaker.
In front of the offices on the TPP Studio lot, noted the palm trees. He sat and
marveled for a moment at the studio’s white stucco façade. Then he stepped
out of his sturdy old vehicle, grabbed his Revere 8Mm, and walked confidently
toward the studio. He was no longer that kid from a small town in the Midwest.
He was Dexter Dolby, Hollywood screenwriter and filmmaker.
-30-

 

Dr. Larry day is a retired J-School professor turned humor writer. His book, Day Dreaming: Tales From the Fourth Dementia is available for purchase via his website: http://www.daydreaming.co

Attack of the 50-Foot Turkey ©

What Dexter Dolby saw before him that Friday night, was unlike any spectacle

he had ever seen. It was the night after Halloween. Police had blocked off the

streets in front of the La Mancha Cineplex where a crowd was starting to form.

Lights and camera bulbs were flashing.

Looking up at the marquee, Dexter, a writer and movie critic for the

Letongaloosa Register-Journal-Challenger-Sun Chronicle, couldn’t believe what

he saw. The marquee announced the premiere of his one-day, iconic film,

Attack of the 50-Foot Turkey.

Dexter couldn’t pinpoint the age that his obsession with cult classics, indie films

and campy “B” movies truly started. He always wanted to make them. Now he

was the winner of the La Mancha Fall Film Festival, and had received the

Trailblazer Award for Up-and Coming Filmmakers. And he was coming face-to face

with his creation.

As a kid, Dexter took the bus to La Mancha and got off in front of the old Odeon

Theatre. Every week, he bought a ticket for the afternoon matinee, headed to the

hamburger stand for a burger and a chocolate shake and then visited The La

Mancha Wildlife Conservatory. He loved to see the animals, particularly the

turkeys, before the movie started.

It was always a fun afternoon, but it was inside the theatre that Dexter felt really

alive. It always excited him to see the creatures come to life onscreen. With

popcorn and candy in hand he sat on the front row and watched the strange

plots evolve, and enjoyed the weird costumes and odd camera angles of

movies like Attack of the Puppet People, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and It

Came from Outer Space.

As an adult, Dexter was a behind-the scenes kind of guy. He preferred observing

and capturing life’s quirky little oddities from behind the lens of an old Revere

8Mm movie camera, a present from his grandpa, George. Dexter filmed

whatever walked in front of his camera. Frequently what walked in front of his

camera were turkeys from the conservatory. The strutting birds often escaped

and paraded through the center of downtown. One Saturday, Dexter picked

up his camera and followed them.

Later, he learned everything he could about turkeys from the biology of their

beaks to the grandeur of their gobbles. He learned that turkeys are related to

dinosaurs. They have the same chest structure as the giant T-Rex.

Now, all these years later, Dexter stood on the red carpet, lights of the

photographer’s flashbulbs capturing his image. He wasn’t used to the frenzy

that came from being in front of the camera, But he was a filmmaker now and

he was loving every moment of it.

People had told him that Hollywood directors and producers were attending

the film festival. If that was true, he’d love to work in Hollywood. Regardless,

hoped they liked what they saw. He hoped everyone did.

The audience began to take their seats and as he took his usual position in the

front row, almost frozen with excitement.

People loved the movie. They complimented Dexter on the strange plot lines,

the weird costumes and the odd camera angles. And a Hollywood director did,

in fact, approach Dexter that night.

He was wearing a black tuxedo, a long white scarf around his neck. “That was

quite a film, Mr. Dolby,” he said. “I’m Paul Peterson. I own a production

company in California and I think you’d be a good fit for us. He handed Dexter

his card.

Dexter felt good as he walked away from the Cineplex that night. It had turned

out to be quite a night for this small-town movie critic.

The next day, Dexter did what he had done every Saturday since he was a kid.

He headed to the La Mancha Wildlife Conservatory to visit the turkeys that

helped him realize his dream of becoming a filmmaker. He ate his usual burger

and chocolate shake. But as he walked into the theatre to watch the campy

movies he loved so much, Dexter Dolby did a little dance in front of the box

office. He wasn’t just going to watch campy movies, he was on his way to

Hollywood to make them.

-30-

Dr. Larry day is a retired J-School professor turned humor writer. His book, Day Dreaming: Tales From the Fourth Dementia is available for purchase via his website: http://www.daydreaming.co

Grant Us Redux ©

Letongaloosa Community Junior College, where I work, has two departments: the Department of Technology, et. al., and the Department of et. al., et. al. Years ago Dr. Ima Farseer, dean of the college, asked me to help two professors submit a grant proposal.

They were both smart and competent but one was a punctilious neat freak and the other was incredibly lackadaisical. Working on their own, they had completed 99 percent of the grant proposal.   They needed to meet face to face to work out the one percent and sign the proposal.

But they couldn’t. The neat freak freaked out at the thought of approaching his colleague’s trashy office, and the lackadaisical professor broke out in hives when the dean suggested he meet at the neat freak’s office.   Neither could abide meeting in a neutral setting.

I solved the problem (and got much needed summer salary as a reward) by fitting the two with virtual reality goggles. Each thought he was meeting in his own office, when in fact they were both sitting in mine. They completed remaining details, signed the grant proposal, and LCJC got its percentage of the grant funds for overhead expenses—which made Dean Farseer very happy.

Fast forward a dozen years. Dean Ima is poised for retirement. She wants to spend her golden years in someplace more exotic than Letongaloosa (who could imagine such a place?). Problem: how to check out interesting retirement venues on the salary LCJC pays her. Solution: apply for a grant. Problem: how does she make the grant proposal sound realistic when Dean Ima has never traveled beyond the state borders. Solution: hire a grant writer who has extensive overseas experience.

My phone rang. It was Dean Ima.

“Would you like to make some money?” she asked.

“Very much.”

“What do you know about Tahiti?”

“Quite a bit actually,” I said. I did a quick Google search. Instantly my computer screen came up with “15 facts about Tahiti.”

“Tahiti is made up of 118 islands and atolls spread out over five archipelagos. The whole archipelago spans 4,000,000 square km, which is the equivalent to the size of Europe,” I read aloud from the information on my screen.

“Can you figure out a tie with Letongaloosa that would make it logical for me to do research in Tahiti?”

“I’ll try,” I said.

A couple of days later (to make it look like work) I called Dean Ima back.

“What did you find?” she asked.

“Marlon Brando once owned an island in Tahiti, and the Letongaloosa Daily Ledger-Clarion-Telegram always published favorable reviews of Marlon Brando’s movies.”

“That’s close enough,” said Dean Ima. “Get busy and write a grant proposal.”

Getting research grants isn’t as easy as it used to be. We submitted Letongaloosa-Tahiti grant proposals to dozens of institutions but came up dry. Those institutions even ignored the Marlon Brando connection.

Reluctantly, I phoned Dean Ima. “No one will give us a grant.”

“I’ve got to get to Tahiti, “she said.

I got an idea for another funding source.”

“Get on it.”

Some readers will recall “One if by Land.” It’s a story about Ribby Von Simeon,

the son of Letongaloosa-born movie star Sipa Margarita and billionaire

Balderdash Von Simeon.   Sipa was too busy being a movie star and Balderdash

was too busy being Balderdash to bother with Ribby, so he was raised by his

grandparents in Letongaloosa. When Ribby inherited the Margarita-Balderdash

fortune he memorialized the only quality time he had spent with his mother—an ocean voyage.

Ribby purchased the ocean liner they had sailed on when it was about to be

chopped up for scrap. Ribby had the ocean liner dismantled and shipped piece by

piece and reconstructed on a hill outside Letongaloosa.

Ribby Von Balderdash was interested when I explained Dean Ima’s Letongaloosa-

Tahiti Project, and he was sold when I mentioned that Marlon Brando owned

an island down there. Ribby offered to pay for Dean Ima Farseer’s initial trip to

the South Seas. It was love at first sight. Dean Ima took immediate retirement, cashed in her accrued retirement, closed her substantial savings account, and never

came back to Letongaloosa.   Dean Ima did send Ribby a picture of her with one of

Marlon Brando’s great grandchildren. Ribby treasured the photo.

 

-30-

Dr. Larry day is a retired J-School professor turned humor writer. His book, Day Dreaming: Tales From the Fourth Dementia is available for purchase via his website: http://www.daydreaming.co

Do You Swear??

As far as I was concerned “yuck” was not a swear word, and I didn’t think that
tearing the label off an empty tin can created indecent exposure, but that was before
my alien friend KB-11.2, filled me in on the finer points of galactic decency.
Kaybe and I were having a soft drink together at The Enchantment, a dingy
roadhouse north of Letongaloosa. The Enchantment is the kind of joint that college towns
like Letongaloosa must have to qualify for academic accreditation.
My alien friend Kaybe isn’t one of those scary bug-eyed, green-skinned beings
that you see in sci-fi movies.. Kaybe looks like a giant tuna fish can. Erector Set® arms
sprout from the curved sides of his body, and three spindly metal legs drop from the flat
underside of his stainless steel torso. He has ball bearing wheels for feet. Three sensoreyes
wave at you from the ends of floppy antennae on the top of his lid.
No one at The Enchantment even raises an eyebrow when Kaybe rolls in and
joins me at one of the back booths. Customers are used to seeing unusual folks around
the place.
One night Kaybe and I were chatting in our favorite booth when Recycle Rick
came in carrying a big black garbage bag.. Rick picks up cans and bottles along the
highway. He starts in town and when he gets to the Enchantment he stops in to sort
everything. Then he mooches a ride back to town.
Rick is meticulous. He takes the items out of the big bag one by one, tidies them
up, and sorts them. Then he puts them into smaller plastic bags. He knows all the recycle
rules and regulations.
On the night in question, Recycle Rick came in and set up shop right across from
Kaybe and me. The first item he pulled from the bag was covered with mud. “Yuck,”
said Rick, and wiped away the mud .
“He shouldn’t swear like that,” said Kaybe.
“Yuck,” isn’t a swear word,” I said.
“It certainly is,” said Kaybe. “The Commission on Foul Communication has
banned that word throughout the galaxy. All it would take is a complaint from an alert
cosmic citizen and that guy’s communication license would be jerked, and he’d face a
seventy thousand mazimba fine.”
“Recycle Rick doesn’t have a communication license,” I said.
“Of course he has a communication license,” said Kaybe. “Everyone in the
galaxy has a communication license. Every word you say goes far beyond these walls.
Your words go out into space. Children on other planets could be listening.”
“So, if I say, @#$%^ and someone turns me in, I can be censured by the Galactic
Commission of Foul Communication?”
“No,” said Kaybe.
“Why not?”
“Because ‘@#$%^’ isn’t a swear word.”
“But ‘yuck’ is?”
“Yes, of course, everyone knows that.”
“I didn’t know that, and Recycle Rick certainly doesn’t. Mild mannered Rick
would never swear.”
Just then Rick pulled out an empty tomato juice can from his bag and began
ripping the label off.
Kaybe rotated away and lowered his antennae with their three sensor-eyes to
the table in a gesture of acute embarrassment.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“You saw that,” said Kaybe. “He stripped that tin can bare. It’s indecent. I can’t
look.”
“You can look now,” I said, “he put it in a sack. You’re weird.”
Kaybe raised his antennae from the table and winked at me with one of his three
sensor-eyes.”
“You’re jerking me around,” I said.
“Guilty as charged,” said Kaybe.
“So ‘yuck’ is not a swear word?”
“Not in this galaxy.”
“And there’s no Galactic Commission on Foul Communication?”
“Oh there is, but it doesn’t concern itself with words like ‘yuck.’ The Galactic
Commission on Foul Communication deals with such reprehensible terms as ‘federal
regulator,’ ‘plausible deniability,’ ‘social justice,’ ‘politically expedient solutions,’
‘federally mandated diversity,’ ‘combatant rendition,’ ‘enhanced interrogation
techniques,’ and the like.”
“People on Earth use those terms all the time and the Galactic Commission on
Foul Language has never done anything about it,” I said.
“You live on a third-world world,” said Kaybe. “The commission doesn’t waste its
efforts on backward planets like Earth.”
“Lucky for us,” I said.
“If you say so,” said Kaybe.”

Dr. Larry day is a retired J-School professor turned humor writer. His book, Day Dreaming: Tales From the Fourth Dementia is available for purchase via his website: http://www.daydreaming.co

Bound For Buenos Aires ©

Hello!!

This is a true story. It chronicles one of my many adventures as a foreign correspondent. I was a young 27-year old writer back then and throughout the years, life has taken us on quite the journey!! My wife and I just celebrated 58 years of wedded bliss. Enjoy!!

Chris and I got married in mid December (1960) and in early February were scheduled to take a freighter from New Orleans, bound for Buenos Aires. We were supposed to sail at noon. Chris gets really seasick so she took two Dramamine tablets. Then, when we got to the dock, the ship was still being loaded. The Purser said it would be a three hours before we could board. he suggested we go to a movie at a theater near the dock. We went. Chris fell asleep before the movie started, and was still asleep when it ended. I had to practically lug her back to the ship. We boarded and got to our cabin. There were six other passengers. We ate with the captain and the crew. Chris was encouraged by my father, who had sailed to fight in WWI by way of the Caribbean. He said, “The Caribbean is a smooth as glass.”
We sailed that afternoon. As we got out of the Gulf of Mexico and into the Caribbean the sea got rough. The Caribbean wasn’t as “smooth as glass,” as my Dad had experienced. It was rolling and pitching. The captain said, “I’ve never seen this part of the Caribbean so rough. Chris said, “That’s because I’m on board.
Passengers ate in the dining room with the crew. There were eight passengers on our freighter: Chris and me—the young marrieds; a mother and her late teen daughter; a Brazilian couple bound for their home in Santos; a pair of American Catholic priests, bound for Rio de Janeiro to spend the rest of their lives in in church service in Brazil. One priest was in his fifties, the other in his late twenties. The younger one, like Chris, didn’t have “sea legs.” He said that he belonged to the “Railroad Irish,” who didn’t respond well to travel on water. The young priest and Chris didn’t come up on deck much during that Caribbean crossing, and neither came to meals in the dining room. The captain told me to tell Chris to limit liquid intake and to eat hard rolls. I took hard rolls to our cabin for Chris after every meal. Somewhere off the northwest coast of South America the sea became calmer and both Chris and the young priest got feeling better.
Ships continued to steam into Santos Bay until at the height of the dock strike and port congestion there were 26 ships waiting to be serviced. It was a week before the dispute was settled and the port authority authorized ships to dock and let passengers debark. The port authority took the ships in order of their arrival—virtually all ships were cargo vessels. A few, like ours, had passengers as well as cargo. Those were allowed to land first. So Chris and I and the passengers got to the dock and into Santos. The ship was going to be two days in port unloading and taking on supplies. Passengers were allowed to stay onboard but were encouraged to go into town, and, if they wished, take public transportation up the steep coastal mountain to Sao Paulo. Sao Paulo then, as now, was one of the most populous cities in the Western Hemisphere.
Before we left the U.S. Chris and I had contacted a member of the LDS Church who was a friend of a friend. Gary Neeleman had been a Salt Lake City broadcaster and reporter. He spoke fluent Portuguese because he had served a two-and-a-half-year mission for the LDS Church in Brazil. He returned to Brazil with his wife and two-year-old at Sao Paulo bureau chief of the United Press International. Chris and I had contact information for the Neelemans so we got in touch by phone. Gary was at work but, when apprised of our circumstances—that we had to be in Santos/Sao Paulo for two days, she invited us to come stay over night. The Neelemans took us out to dinner and gave us a very welcome bed for the night. The next morning we were awakened , early, by the Neeleman’s little boy who came into our room and said good morning. That boy, a toddler at the time, grew up to be the founder and owner of the international airline Jet Blue.
Meeting Gary and Rose Neeleman was to be a crucial and vital part of our time in Argentina.
After rounding up our hand luggage, we debarked at the docks of Buenos Aires, wishing a kind farewell to the crew and remaining passengers. We got a taxi into town and checked in the Fulbright Commission, then part of the United States Information Agency (later subsumed into the U.S. State Department) that was a contact entity for U.S. citizens. I was on a private, not government fellowship (with the Inter American Press Association) but the staff at the Fulbright Commission was very helpful. They suggested we check in at a new hotel down near Rivadavia (a major thorough fare that runs across much of Buenos Aires). We had gotten some dollars changed into Pesos at an commercial money exchange. Inflation was high in Argentina and the government was keeping tight control on transactions in which dollars and pesos were exchanged. The official rate, as I recall, was three pesos for a dollar. But there was a demand for dollars ( a solid currency) Argentines who wanted to travel abroad or buy goods abroad, so there was thriving black market in pesos. People approached us in the streets (our clothing and especially our American shoes gave us away as foreigners—not our skin or hair color. Seventy percent of the Argentine population was directly from Italians or came directly from Italy. The dollar seekers offered to take us to money exchange houses that were paying much more than three pesos for a dollar. We got a good price for initial exchange of dollars, and with pesos in pocket took a cab to the Hotel. We were greeted warmly by the hotel (I’ll ask Chris if she remembers the name of the hotel—years later I went back and stayed there during one of my assignments) for we were among the first guests to check in.
After rounding up our hand luggage, we debarked at the docks of Buenos Aires, wishing a kind farewell to the crew and remaining passengers. We got a taxi into town and checked in the Fulbright Commission, then part of the United States Information Agency (later subsumed into the U.S. State Department) that was a contact entity for U.S. citizens. I was on a private, not government fellowship (with the Inter American Press Association) I was later to receive (over the decades) a three USIA fellowships. The staff at the Fulbright Commission was very helpful. They suggested we check in at a new hotel down near Rivadavia (a major thorough fare that runs across much of Buenos Aires). We had gotten some dollars changed into Pesos at an commercial money exchange. Inflation was high in Argentina and the government was keeping tight control on transactions in which dollars and pesos were exchanged. The official rate, as I recall, was three pesos for a dollar. But there was a demand for dollars ( a solid currency) Argentines who wanted to travel abroad or buy goods abroad, so there was thriving black market in pesos. People approached us in the streets (our clothing and especially our American shoes gave us away as foreigners—not our skin or hair color. Seventy percent of the Argentine population was directly from Italians or came directly from Italy. The dollar seekers offered to take us to money exchange houses that were paying much more than the government set price three pesos for a dollar. Technically it was against the law to exchange dollars anywhere but at the government exchange. But everyone did it. We got a good price for initial exchange of dollars, and with pesos in pocket took a cab to the Hotel. We were greeted warmly by the hotel (I’ll ask Chris if she remembers the name of the hotel—years later I went back and stayed there during one of my assignments years later when the hotel was no longer new) for we were among the first guests to check in to the new hotel.

Pop Culture

 

“Pop”means popular and “culture” means all the stuff you spend your hard-earned allowance on, like movies, books, comics, video games, roller coasters, and other fun stuff.”

James Buckley, Jr. and Robert Stemme, Scholastic Book of Lists, Scholastic Reference, an imprint of Scholastic. Santa Barbara, CA., 2006, page 203.

 

Dr. Larry day is a retired J-School professor turned humor writer. His book, Day Dreaming: Tales From the Fourth Dementia is available for purchase via his website: http://www.daydreaming.co