What Remains? A Frozen Hell?

Whew! I was having my late-morning coffee in the kitchen when the little woman a few minutes ago came running into the house screaming, "Pigs! They're pigs! For God's sake, come see now!"

I went to the back porch where I could clearly see a herd(?) of pigs with wings flying overhead and toward the south!

"Call the police! Call 911!" shouted Jonka, as she was becoming more and more hysterical.

However, being older and wiser than she, I simply said, "Calm down, little woman. Yes, we saw what we saw---but think: a Republican in Massachusetts has won a U.S. Senate seat, and the Saints are in the Super Bowl."

Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen

It seems to me that the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints, in order to save so much time, expense, and physical abuse, could go straight into arbitration (federal, I assume) to resolve their dispute.

Who's That Old Guy on a Bike?

The Dover newspaper office is reconsidering my application to be a newspaper home-delivery boy, and is asking me for personal references. Because I've been pretty much personally abandoned, I referred the office to the hundreds of friends and "friends" on my Facebook site. That should do it.

The Quiet Man

I was sitting in my easy chair quietly reading a newspaper when Jonka asked me, "Garg, what are your plans for today?"

"You know," I replied, "there's an old saying that all the problems of the world arise from man's inability to sit still in a quiet room for a long time."

"So you're just gonna sit there all day?" she snapped.

"Well, SOMEBODY has to solve the world's problems," I answered.

Drangs and Delozzes

From the Knowledgeable Fans Department:
"I'm a really big Elvis fan, and I think the real reason my dance group did the whole Elvis thing is because, you know, he's from Vegas." (pop singer Britney Spears)

From the Oh, Yes, Hello? Department:
"I will conduct a respectful debate. Now, it will be dispirited---it will spirited---because there are stark differences. I am a proud conservative, liberal Republi---conservative Republican---hello? Easy there." (Sen. John McCain while campaigning for the presidency in 2008)

From the Unusual Claimants Department:
"The accident happened because I had one eye on the truck in front of me, one eye on the pedestrian, and the other eye on the car behind." (a client's writing on his insurance-claim form)

Trying To Tell Me Something?

"You know," the little woman said to me, "all that stuff in your pockets gives you a bulky look."

So I removed a wallet, two sets of keys, ten coins, a nailclipper, four Tootsie Rolls, two handkerchiefs, a pocketknife, a roll of mints, four store receipts, a bottle of hand cleanser, a compass, and a small notepad from my pockets. "There," I said, "how's that?"

"Nope," she replied, "you still look bulky."

Sacre' Bleu!

If you're looking for an agency to which to give a donation for aid to the victims of Haiti, consider Catholic Relief Services, annually rated among the top three most-efficient charitable organizations in the U.S.

-Old Gargoyle

A Bush and a Peck

Sarah Palin is now a part-time news commentator-interviewer on the Fox TV network. Boy, I would pay---pay good money, I say---to watch her interview George W. Bush for an hour. It could be a match for the lightweight intellectual championship of the world---well, at least the U.S. But I guess I would hardly hear a word she'd say, because she's still so darned cute as a button.

-Old Gargoyle

The G-Man

Come on, world, stop abusing Gary Bucey. What's Gary Bucey ever done to you? It's time to reappreciate the maniac.

-Old Gargoyle

Norbs and Nittlestops

From the I Hear It's Great for the Hands Too Department:
"Chicken Poop Lip Balm $3.99" (sign in a Walgreen's window in Indianapolis)

From the Stationary-Brain Department:
Tech-support person: "How fast does your modem go, m'am?"
Customer on phone: "It's not moving. It's just sitting there."
(actual call to a computer helpline)

From the Words Mean What They Say Department:
"These measures are permanent . . . for now" (head of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority about airport-security rules)

-Old Gargoyle

Silver Bullet, Golden Silence

The kid across the street received a trainer-wheels bike for Christmas, one with bells and whistles which screech to high heaven when the bike's wheels turn. At a distance of 100 yards while on one knee in my side-yard beets bush, I took out both of her wheels with my high-power deer-hunting rifle. Eventually she'll thank me for that.

-Old Gargoyle

Yes, Whipped Cream Too, Please

My new year's resolution is to avoid hearing and seeing all those blasted January-February commercials and ads for diets, exercise, and weight loss. I recently read some European writer who said that Americans are the only people in the world who fear food.

-Old Gargoyle

Frozen Memories

Ah, an icy, cloudy, windy, January winter day. I'm feeling as moody as the young Jesse Winchester says he feels in one of his first musical albums written and sung when he was an anti-Vietnam War expatriot living in Montreal. And I'm listening to what I think is one of the most beautifully, romantically sad songs I've ever heard: Bob Dylan's "Girl from the North Country," but being sung in this c.d. by Johnny Cash's daughter, Roseanne Cash. If you're ever able to hear the song, note the batch of strong verbs which Dylan uses (in one line, unfortunately, Roseanne substitutes "has a coat" for Dylan's stronger "wearing a coat").

January also reminds me of my newspaper route in winter in my youth. At the tail end of the route on the outskirts of town was a new bakery, and it became my new customer. The bakery was opened by a family team of four from North Carolina, people who in those days struck us locals as redneck hillbillies. Nonetheless, they kindly would have me end my grinding, cold route by giving me two free cups of freshly brewed coffee and three or four free doughnuts. But, ugh, those "foreigners" didn't know how to make good coffee; they dripped it in a large old pot, and the result was a greenish brew with grounds floating atop the served cup. More welcomed than the "coffee" were the two-dozen or so tasty doughnuts which they insisted I take home, because such doughnuts were misshaped and thus unattractive to their customers.

God bless people from Minnesota and North Carolina!

-Old Gargoyle

Full of Baloney

I like baloney---the meat, not the cultural kind. In fact, as I was eating a baloney sandwich for supper, I created a slogan: "Baloney: like a banana, the perfect food."

When I announced this to the little woman when she entered the kitchen, she said, "What? No, no, it's
processed with other ingredients which are not so healthy, it's full of fat, it's just not that good for you."

Jonka sometimes knows what she's talking about. I took her advice, and stopped eating bananas.

-Old Gargoyle

Snappy New Ear

Welcome to 2010 (which I shall pronounce as "twenty-ten" and not as "two-thousand ten," following my decade-long pronunciation of "twenty-o-one" to "twenty-o-nine," an articulation copied by only one national media person---as far as I can tell---in the past ten years, namely, Charles Osgood, the host of CBS' "Sunday Morning" show).

As was the custom from the good old days back in my home region, at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve I fired my pistol into the air, emptying its clip. Unfortunately, a couple of bullets hit my neighbor's satellite dish, and a third one hit Old Emory's living-room skylight. I don't think he even noticed. The police did.

-Old Gargoyle