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- Chip Daniels in reply to Jaybird on Open Mic for the week of 9/30/2024The loudest yelps for tolerance come from those who give none.
- Jaybird in reply to Chip Daniels on Open Mic for the week of 9/30/2024Sounds like they've done a good enough job of doing that to the point where they're left with the on…
- Michael Cain in reply to Jaybird on Open Mic for the week of 9/30/2024Overheard granddaughter #1 (fifth grade) telling granddaughter #2 (second grade) the other day: "You…
- Chip Daniels in reply to LeeEsq on Open Mic for the week of 9/30/2024In one of Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes books, he makes the point that newspapers even in the G…
- Jaybird in reply to Philip H on Open Mic for the week of 9/30/2024You tell them to not read Harry Potter or Stephen King and then you walk away.
- Chip Daniels in reply to Jaybird on Open Mic for the week of 9/30/2024Serious question: Is the "basket of deplorables" an example of a "bad culture", one that we should e…
- Jaybird in reply to Chip Daniels on Open Mic for the week of 9/30/2024OH! Reason Magazine! I'm a big fan of them. I'm cool that we're establishing that we can quote them…
- Philip H in reply to Jaybird on Open Mic for the week of 9/30/2024Are there any differences sufficient to require thorough vetting of immigrants and lock down the bor…
- Philip H in reply to LeeEsq on Open Mic for the week of 9/30/2024Very true. You have to MAKE readers, not expect them to grow spontaneously.
- Michael Cain in reply to InMD on Open Mic for the week of 9/23/2024But it’s the Israelis by their own policies insisting on living in the same country with Palestinian…
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Somebody is Always Taking the Joy out of Life
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If Croquet was Played like Golf
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Those outfits!Report
Everyone has some sort of “meet the family” story, right? The one I remember was back in the 1960s in Storm Lake, IA and I was about 14. At that time, Storm Lake’s population was completely dominated by vikings: descendants of Danes and Swedes and Dutch who had largely been recruited by the Great Northern Railway from northern Europe. I had a play rehearsal* on a Wednesday evening. I was supposed to pick up one of the Lund sisters, who was also in the play, to walk to rehearsal, then walk her back home since it would after dark by then. When I got to the Lunds’ house, I was greeted by the sister I was supposed to escort, who told me that Grandma Lund was visiting and I was required to come in and talk with her. I did my best 14-year-old talking with a grandma shtick. I thought it went well. We went to the rehearsal, I walked her home.
Necessary background… The Lunds were Dutch, all with hair so blond it verged on white. I was a minority Anglo-Saxon kid in town with brown hair and light brown eyes. I was almost always the shortest kid in class, even when you included the girls.
The next day at school the Lund sister stopped me. “It was so cool. You know what Grandma said when I got home? ‘He seems like a nice boy, but he’s so dark.’ You and me, we’re going to the movies on Friday. Pick me up at 6:30. I’ve got to know what Grandma is going to say if you ‘take me out’ twice.”
* That ninth-grade play is story worth its own space.Report