This old cartoon is from this very date, May 26, in 2009. I’ve loved a good tuna-salad sandwich since I was a kid. Mama made the best “tuna-fish salad,” but, like most of her recipes, her tuna salad was very simple. Mayonnaise, a little pickle relish and canned tuna. I know: it doesn’t get much more generic than that, but she had a real knack for mixing it all together. There’s nothing more dispiriting than anticipating a good tuna-salad sandwich and opening a can to find a watery mess that looks like the bottom of a chum bucket. As Arlo discovers, even buying the more expensive “chunk” variety is no guarantee of satisfaction.
244 responses to “A Mournful Tuna”
Jerry:
Thank you.
Believe it or not, I wrote it about thirty years ago after re-reading Jack London’s “War” as part of my class preparation to teach the short story again.
It literally burst into my consciousness in full form, as if either Calliope, Euterpe, St. Columba, or St. Francis de Sales had put it there.
And, no, I have never been in battle.
Mark, I didn’t have a source and was heading for a nap. Thanks for doing the research should anyone want to purchase those tees.
Rick, that clearly was inspiration!
Here I am secure in my LA Quinta in Corsicana, TX with wet hair. This hasn’t been much fun although I made a couple of nice purchases and helped a lady short of money buy less food than my stone cat cost.
It is clear that not only can you not go home again but you can’t go to Texas when you die or even before.
There I was in one of my favorite parts, full of freeways, when? One went right through one of my favorite historic towns, Salado, putting it out of business. I looked off toll road to see my old customers boarded up. Tried to meander, ended up with GPS circling me like the wagons when I tried to outwit it and I ended the day 40 miles from where I began!
All I wanted was to go on two lane roads from one little town to the next. They are being put out of business by the expressways, if you find them.
Driving around today listening to my favorite Texas outlaws like Waylon, Willie, Dwight, Merle, David Allan Coe.
Lots of cheatin’ and hurtin’ and drinkin’ the betrayal away. But this has been my favorite definitive song regarding cheating in your mind since 1990. The Texas Tornadoes “Who Were You Thinking Of”.
https://youtu.be/LEvTEK1gUnI
And this one is for Ghost and Mark and the other males, my favorite female country singer, Reba McIntyre “Have You Ever Cheated On Me?”
Also as it pertains to our arc this week. “Only in my mind.”
https://youtu.be/Dgy-0ujbOm4
Reba’s looks often remind me of a slightly demented elven queen. But I like her. A lot. Not a bad actress, either.
Debbe 😉 You knew I’d do this, didn’t you…Super Sexy Chicken Lady? 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z-GwdaKrn8
In my younger days, I was a walking encyclopedia of beer drinkin’ songs. From my relief bar tending days, not due to an unhappy love life.
The juke box company supplied us with marked quarters we could use to play music when the customers didn’t, and it got too quiet and slow in the bar. I got good at sizing up the house and knowing which songs to play to stimulate sales. Something else I’ll probably got to hell for. 🙂
GM Debbe
I am back
Way too much food
B’ugs
Will read tomorrow
‘Something else I’ll probably got to hell for.’ Not likely, IMO. Peace,
Actually, I learned many of my drinking songs when I was still a teetotaler, and then a still-wine only drinker. Some from the gang of fellow zoology grad students in Ann Arbor, others from Erich Kunz and Clancy Bros./Tommy Makem records, a few from church camp, and one from Garrison Keillor and Jeanie Redpath. I’ve posted the last before, but I’ll do another search. Peace,
‘Tuna the Food of My Soul’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzyI_Hh8ufI
One of the songs the mice in my walls hear. Drinking songs, broadly defined, and G&S.
Peace,
Good morning Villagers…
GM Old Bear…..
TR…gotta love ya for thinking of me, now I want one of those T shirts 🙂
Mark, thanks for the link….
Hazmat suite still hot and and as I sweat it sticks…wait a minute Super Sexy Chicken Lady doesn’t sweat…when I perspire 🙂
Cool front coming in Thursday, that’s good, my poor Miss Prissies. 88 degrees inside the hen house when I left…..my Golden Boy was feeling his wheaties yesterday morning…got the girls fired up….stopped at 192 cases and the colored egg would have given me at least 204 cases…Boss said go home, it’s a holiday….hey, I’m not dumb, we left at 1ish….he was thinking of the time and a half, still going to cost him though, I clocked out at 1:30, we write our time down on index cards. I told you all it was antiquated 🙂
Rick, you do have a talent there…very poignant indeed.
Jerry 🙂
so have a happy Monday on a Tuesday……
GR 😉 this will blow you away….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfETVe9lqeU
🙂 http://cheezburger.com/8799603200
Good morning emb, you’re up early……stay cool..
emb, I had heard Tuna by Keillor and Redfern, very appropriate to retro. My late husband loved tuna surprise and Keillor. I just loved Keillor, not the casserole. But that was a good one.
Up early, yuck. Need to get clothes on and swallow pills. Yuck.
Going to look at calendar and revise when I make it home. I do have to take my grandson his Christmas gifts which are the remaining components to his VERY creative and elaborate play set which I have been giving him for awhile. His parents designed and built it but then his dad does design working bionic body parts.
Of course the road goes both ways but they dont.