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”
When I wore a younger man’s clothes (including motorcycle leathers), on many Memorial Days I would climb onto my Gold Wing and ride to the Vicksburg National Park, to see the re-enactors; the ongoing restoration of the USS Cairo; and, most importantly, the Military Cemetery. There is no way to describe the emotions I always felt, looking at the rows and rows of the more than 17,000 graves there, each marked with a small US Flag. Or how I felt the first time I realized that the small stone headstone on three out of every four graves was inscribed with only a number and the words “Unknown US Soldier”.
I still visit there, but not as often. But every time I do, I stand a while and gaze on this grave, which is likely the only tangible remainder of a living, breathing human that died in war almost a century before I was born. Strange that something like that can move one so deeply. But it can.
http://static.photo.net/attachments/bboard/00F/00FLLV-28331884.jpg
Ghost Sweetie, http://www.memes.com/img/553555 🙂
Nonny Mouse, I think it’s just that Southern women of past generations learned flirting from birth. It’s nothing we do intentionally, but it comes as naturally as breathing to us, and most of the time we don’t even realize we’re doing it.
I have that tee shirt! Without the dog.
I have visited that Vicksburg cemetary, along with many others including Punch Bowl, Arlington, big ones. Some I visit are small and remote, far away outposts. They all have that effect on me.
At age 50 I found where my own father was buried in Italy. I have not gone. But I visit the others in honor of someone else’s loved one. And think about them, if only for awhile.
I too am thankful for those who served and returned home alive. But for those who lie in foreign grounds, who never returned, think more than once a year.
Found you a t-shirt, Jean dear.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/ac/88/87/ac88876caf496871e89a20c7da77c781.jpg
Bought the official Buffet tee shirt, “Growing older but not up.” At Margaritaville, Key West. Haven’t worn it, , may be a night shirt now?
I do wear the mermaid with Carpe Diam. Haven’t worn the Port Townsend mermaid yet. Haven’t bought any mermaid tees with coconuts or shells printed on front. Yesterday’s was an anchor with infinite loops of rope but I noticed the loops kept moving off place.
Need the “We are the people our parents warned us about.”
That’s not quite the same as “I’m the guy your mama warned you about”, is it?
I had relatives ( father, uncles) in WWII and Vietnam (cousins) and fortunately lost no one. Today’s strip shows a pleasant day (Day) and I think that JJ is pointing out that we should be glad that we are able to do that today. I will not visit a cemetary, watch a parade or cook out. I may visit some antique stores, but will try to have a good day. I discovered a fantastic Elvis impersonator online last night and may watch a concert by him. At this point I could be anywhere or doing anything that I want and this is it and I won’t feel guilty about it.
Jerry, I think JJ is reminding us of what the real meaning of today is by placing that Memorial Day banner in black in the middle of the regular holiday activities. No guilt trip, just a quiet reminder. After all, his own dad was a survivor of WWII, As JJ put it in Beaucoup Arlo and Janis,…”a very nervous young man”, having been on one of the explosives disarming teams.
I take it, Mark, that JJ’s father was very good at what he did. Not only did he survive, he still has all ten fingers.
Sitting at a truck stop for water and water hole. Interesting, have been thinking of Mindy all weekend. No one’s shifts have shown up, managers are scrambling and covering. This is a Pilot, new and nice. Shift manager isn’t even from this location. How do they just NOT SHOW UP?
No, it isn’t exactly same Ghost. It means I are one too, as Walt Kelly used to say. There is a reason the preachers singled me out to preach about. I just got older and behaved better. I am still that person.
Staying off interstates, doubled back to Luling, TX for four additional seedless watermelons to take home. We all agreed they were possibly best we’d ever eaten, so 25 miles backward seemed a small price. So glad I did as owner of stand found my missing new black flip flop that fell out of my tote bag last week and met me at door with it. He got a hug and kiss, never warn and cost more than all six melons! I guess I am memorable?
The miracle of the watermelons. I will go there on purpose from now on.
Anon, all I found on Ancestry.com for you were pictures from some school/college. Did not notice any family trees I could recognize, but did not do any exhaustive search, either. True, Ancestry.com doesn’t want living people in the trees, but scads of livings are in the various indexed items like yearbooks and immigration lists and obituaries. I have some living people in my tree, but the references are in the style of “Living So-and-so”, omitting first names and (some) family names. No doubt, some folks think I am worthy of the quoted name!
Jackie, I guess you am! (as Pogo might have said) Glad to hear the storms have broken enough for you to head on home. Betting your handymen and critters are missing you.
Once knew a lady who owned a restaurant. Paid kitchen help (bussers, dishwashers, etc.; must have been like the ones Gus employed at The Dock and that babysat Meg) on Mondays. Said she learned in a hurry that if she paid them on Friday, they seldom showed up for work on the weekend.
Not exactly the high-speed, low-drag employees one aspires to have.
Ghost, I met Jackie’s current help. Don’t know what she pays them, but she gets her money’s worth. And so do they, Fringe benefits such as home-cooked meals or free food onsite/paid lunch out. And worker’s preferred refreshment at end of day.
Made another tourist stop, enormous garden pottery and metal sculptures yard outside Austin. Got three great rusted metal birds, normal size, spread wings and detailed feathers. For the rusted collection in yard which is deliberate. Trying to shun pike today.
Listening to Dwight Yokum and Texas Tornadoes, Freddy Fender. Texas honky tonk seems appropriate on this trail. I hate the interstates. How does one see anything?
Lines on Ancestry are McCarty, Parker, Holmes, Hodgson, Cansler that are being widely developed among others. Winn Parish, LA and Edgefield, SC have serious genealogists and the families link to those two bases.
Both have large geological libraries too.
I hope this photo opens for everyone, but especially for Debbe:
https://scontent.fsnc1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13265831_10157132816855128_6633026668770066167_n.jpg?oh=30114cb081f16be7c77d9159135363a4&oe=57DA5DD5
Looked for the like button but I love it.
You may have noticed I often assign nicknames to people I know. But I’m going to steal this one for Debbe, as it’s too good to pass up…Super Sexy Chicken Lady. 🙂
Worth big bucks.
TruckerRon, if you are going to show the shirt, you need to show where it can be bought.
http://www.redbubble.com/shop/chicken+lady+t-shirts
Some of you may have noticed the manicured green hill in the left distance at:
http://www.chesapeakeconservancy.org/peregrine-falcon-webcam
I just did a search. It’s free Federal Hill Park, a hill obviously modified to its present shape, site of MD’s ratification of the US Constitution, hence the park’s name. Place for tourists to sign in online [cannot post 2 URLs at once]. Many 2-3 story residences in the area; they probably don’t come cheap.
If you go to the above URL and nobody is home, don’t despair. The 3 eyasses wander off camera to the left a lot, and may sometimes be fed there. Sometimes the tercel or hawk are at the original nest site. Have seen them together only once. He is about 3/4 her size, but hard to tell when only one is aboard. Peace,
Jackie, here’s yours: http://www.redbubble.com/shop/crazy+cat+lady+classic-tees?ref=shop_product_refinement
There are those – not here in the Village – who say Happy Memorial Day. For them, I offer the following:
After the battle, I stood alone
Amidst the carnage and the spillage.
Around me, the land lay smoldering,
Ashen as far as eye could see.
Here, a Fall upon his back,
Mouth sagging, palms open,
Supplicating to an empty sky.
There, another upon his face
With arms outstretched,
Reaching still for his weapon.
Turn over with toe of boot
To find no face
But a rotting monument
To man at play.
After the battle, I alone
Am escaped to tell thee.
With no one left to send
For the tolling of the bell.
Rick, very powerful and it had to be written by someone who was there.
One of my closest college friends was my newspaper photographer for our college paper. He went to Vietnam as a combat photographer, always on front line and in battle. Armed with a camera. He could not talk about it.