Old News is No News

I found an old newspaper in a box of music Saturday. It was from June 1988, I think. So I looked at the front page and I couldn’t find anything familiar. No national disaster, no election, no natural disaster, no recognizable pet picture. No famous person died. So I looked all through the paper. No familiar wedding pictures. I looked at the obituaries for familiar names. None. I couldn’t find a reason why we would have kept the paper. My wife reviewed it and she couldn’t find anything either. So, what do you do in these situations? Do you throw the paper out thinking it was kept in error? Or do you keep it in hopes that ten years from now when you re-open the box, you’ll remember why you saved the paper?  

Well, we know here at Uncle Tommy that you readers rely on us to come up with alternative solutions, and, sure enough, there is indeed a third option, and I like it. It’s not real exciting but it needs to be said nonetheless. So yeah, why not use that paper to wrap breakables in your attic? That way, you have it if you someday remember what happened in June of ’88. If you never remember anything about that date, at least the paper is serving a purpose for you.   

Swamp Thing

I loved the “drain the swamp” idea associated with the recent election. I think it was pretty effective. By draining a swamp you not only get rid of the crud, but you end up with some top notch soil when the draining is complete. Now we already have a guy who’s running for US Senate here in 2018 who is apparently campaigning on that same theme - going to Washington and “draining the swamp”. He is a Republican. So, yeah, his party will be in power the next two years in both houses of congress as well as the presidency. Aren’t these already elected folks going to drain the swamp? By this guy saying that he will go in and “drain the swamp” in 2018, is he assuming that his party will not accomplish that in the next two years? I’m confused.

If I was a Democrat running in 2018, my theme choice would be easy: “Save the Wetlands!”

Baby, It's You!

I got a chance to meet a friend’s family members for the first time the other day. They had their baby with them. I pride myself in being able to determine a baby’s age and have become pretty good at it over the years. I have three kids of my own so I guess I have some experience. So yeah, I guessed that he was 5 or 6 months old, and sure enough, the baby was 5 1/2 months old. Pretty good, eh? Well, it backfired on me, ‘cause the baby was not a he – she was a girl. I got that part wrong. That part’s tough. In my defense, the child was wearing a dark blue outfit.

I have a friend whose dad was one of those guys at the amusement parks who guessed your weight or your age. The guy was good. I would never want to be the guy guessing your weight (awkward!) but I could do that age thing pretty well I think. But with the way the world’s going, maybe it would be fun to have a “Guess Your Orientation” guy at the carnival. People would line up for that.  

  

This Bun's for You

I got to go to one of those antique/throwback candy stores a while back. This is where they have the candy that either was unpopular or had some kind of flaw so it was discontinued. Mallo Cups. Wax teeth, Beamon’s Gum. That kind of stuff. You never know at these stores if someone somehow started making that candy again, or if it’s just really old candy. When my kids would get discontinued candy at Halloween I’d always say “Why don’t you give bite of that Clark Bar to the dog to see how she handles it before you bite off a piece?"

One of my favorites of these old candies was the Bun. They were these huge chocolate peanut clusters. I’m pretty sure I know why they were discontinued. Kids probably got sent to the store by their moms to buy buns for hot dogs or hamburgers but they spent the money on the candy bun instead. “But Mom, you told me to get buns!”  That’s probably why they got rid of candy cigarettes as well.   

Toll House Cookie

One time my friend was following me through the toll booth getting off the turnpike. As a nice gesture, I told the tollgate dude that I was paying for the car behind me. He took my money for both cars and we kept driving. Well, my friend never said anything to me about not having to pay so I finally asked him about it and he didn’t know anything about it. He had paid his toll like he always did. The toll dude just kept the extra money I guess. Well, that didn’t work so well, so now I take it out on the other toll dudes. For instance, at the rare toll both where you’re getting on the toll road and the toll dude hands you a ticket, I always ask him how much I owe. That’s always fun. Also, sometimes I pull up to the booth the toll dude is facing my car’s back window. This accomplishes two things, it freaks out the toll dude (he deserves it), and it forces the guy in the back seat to wake up and pay. This is only fair ‘cause, after all, I drove.

I’ve never just tossed a handful of change into the booth but I’d love to hear from a reader who has done that.

Tree Removal

Now that everybody has their Christmas trees taken down, let’s talk about getting rid of that other tree, the one we’re not as found of – the call tree. The call tree is that thing at work where, if there’s an emergency, you call certain colleagues, and then they call other certain colleagues, until everybody has been called. Has anyone ever seen the call tree process work, where maybe it saves a life or something? I have not. Like that old game “Telephone” you played when you were a kid, you do practice runs or rehearsals of the call tree and more times than not the message gets pretty mangled toward the end of the process. I think there’s usually like one guy somewhere in the process who changes the message intentionally and messes it up. These rehearsals are tough to endure. Who has the desire to call their co-workers on the weekend? We see enough of each other during the week. Can’t this type of message be done with a mass text of some sort?