GOOD MORNING, FRIENDS

A REMEMBERAMBLE, NOVEMBER 5, 2025

This is, according to my astronomical observations, using a Gregorian Calendar crossbred with a Julian Calendar, some Google dust, a 1914 almanac, and an old Timex with day and date..."oooh-weeee, fanceee"...and a glance at the top of last week's Swainsboro Forest-Blade Newspaper, using Roman Numeral sleight of hand calculations and an old deck of Bicycle playing cards kept in a jar of P. Lorillard's best Peach Snuff, I do believe it is the day after Tuesday.

I hope you did not twist your brain stem deciphering that one! By the way, I have always liked our newspaper's name, it was created in 1903 when great-grand-uncle Solomon Tyson merged the older papers, the Swainsboro Pine Forest, and the Emanuel Wiregrass Blade, into one, thenceforth to be known as The Forest-Blade. No other weekly newspaper in Georgia had better-named antecedents nor cognomen today.

For some reason, I thought of the television show from my childhood that my older sisters liked to watch in the early sixties, "Hootenanny." My lil ole child-brain remembered that there was a show after "Hootenanny" was gone, that superseded it, named "Shindig." As you can imagine, even then, the networks and producers of syndicated television programs, all glommed onto the trend and came out with their versions of "teenybopper" and "teenyboy,"...(I just coined that term, since there was no accepted male version of teenybopper back then, and after I coined it.

I saw that it was funny, so here it is)...shows, including, "Hullabaloo," "Shivaree," and "Hollywood a Go-Go." It was along that time that serious people began to fear that television would be the "rurination," of our society. Ha, well we know that never happened, we survived it intact. Oops, no, no, no we didn't. The sixties caused the death and destruction of almost every long-held tenet of our culture. Of course, rural electrification, the advent of almost universal ownership of automobiles, provocative fashions, women's lib.

The breakup of the nuclear family, women wearing britches and driving, instant rice and potatoes, canned biscuits, running water and personal hygiene products, margarine, and toothpaste played a part in it too...not necessarily in that order. Listen children, and you shall hear not of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, but of a time when every telephone book...oh, wow, you never heard of a telephone book, well child, it was a book with everyone's telephone number in it.

They had a warning from the Federal Gubment in its opening pages, that it was a violation of federal law to use obscene language on a telephone while speaking to a lady. Today, that would be unconstitutional, it would have to cover everyone, not just women, and by then women were using obscene language on the telephone to other women and men, and chirrin. Equal rights were quite the entertainment in those days. One more telephone related topic, one we recall so very well.

That mi amigo, was the joy we received from calling random folks and asking if their refrigerator was running, and if so, advising them, "ya better go catch it before it gets away." Or call a grocery store and ask if they had pig feet, and if so, "where do you buy your shoes?" And, the granddaddy of all prank calls, the classic call to a store to ask, "do you have Prince Albert in a can, you do, well you better let him out before he smothers to death." We were so original and hilarious, and we knew we were the very first to ever make these magnificent prank calls.*

Caller ID killed the budding childhood, prank call industry, and we miss it. But, I just thought about this, it was doomed anyway, as it has been quite a while since businesses actually answered their phones. I reckon if Walmart had any sense of humor at all, their telephone prompts would say, "press one for Ingles," then, "press 0-4 for the appliance department for the "is your refrigerator running gag," "press 0-6 for the grocery department for the classic, much loved "do you have pig feet gag," or, "you may call the shoe department also, as they are up on this jewel being somewhat shoe-related also."

They would have the sad duty to relate to the prank calling kiddies, that want to use the "Prince Albert in a can gag," that Walmart no longer sells tobacco products, but maybe they could give a recording for instructing kids to call Dollar General to use that one. Kids today miss out on so much of the fun we had. Like running "barefooted," just foot-loose and fancy free, and stepping in shicken chit, dog doodie, getting ringworm and lockjaw. We were tough, us boys could go two weeks without a bath and not get a case of the dreaded, "swamp-butt."

Thank you for loving my pups as you do. Thank you for all of the kindnesses.

..... NUMBERS 6: 24-26, KJV

..... we boyz three, babee conway, lil merle, & me