Home of the comic strip Arlo & Janis

Baseball, Hot Dogs and American Pie


Someone mentioned this early series recently. I suppose it was inspired by my own first car, an old ’56 Chevrolet Bel Air. I chose a ’57 model for the comic strip, though, because it was the pinnacle of the iconic ’55-’57 line of Chevys. This was perhaps the first series of Arlo & Janis strips on a theme. I will show the others over the next couple of posts.

Buy the new book, "Beaucoup Arlo & Janis!"Today's "Arlo & Janis!"

Jimmy Johnson

67 responses to “Baseball, Hot Dogs and American Pie”

  1. Thanks Jimmy. My maternal grandparents had a ’57 BelAir coupe. I remember family road trips in that car for the early part of my life. My right little finger has a permanent crook from being shut in the door by my grandfather. Lots of good memories,although the broken finger isn’t one of them!

    You’re lucky to have a finger! There was more steel in that door than in the whole car I drive today. — JJ

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  2. @Jackie,

    I Like all the strips, Janis is a plus, but it is Symply the way Arlo looks at life that captivates me….for all the things he and I have in common, I just can’t go with the flow as easily as Arlo….always fighting the Fargone current. As far as U2 and Moodys, I’d do both if $ did not matter and you can handle the volume of U2, I still can.

    Tonight a former roadie from Symply Fargone Productions invited me to
    a performance by Flogging Molly at the Worcester Palladium, I will be rubbing elbows with the millennials tonight, an Irish punk band I believe in the style of Dropkick Murphys for those from the Boston area.

    For a quick idea just found this on Youtube:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98prxewpcow

    @JJ,

    This is really quick the changing of the posts, love the volume dizzy with following the topics….not bad just different.

    A happy Sunday to the village, off to change all the filters in the house so I can watch some games before the music…did you guys see the Celts are in 1st(I know only matters to me!)

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  3. I like baseball, but none of the others. One of the first things that Jimmy posted of money in the old blog was for the Woodward Dream Cruise that ran through my neighborhood. Because of the great inconvenience, I often went out of town. However I did have a great love and respect for the old timers that pur their blood sweat & tears into restoring their” first love” and the pride that they had for it. However I didn’t care for the guys that used their cars for status.

    Thanks for the Facebook posts. It helps notify us that a new thread is on the blog.

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  5. @Symply – A band that recapitulates the Dropkick Murphys sounds like Gen-X nostalgia for the Millennials, is that a thing? The Palladium wasn’t really operating in the Gen-X years, nor was the MBTA Worcester line. We had to take a bus into Boston.

    But then I got a roommate with a ’57 Biscayne.

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  8. Enjoying the dizzying pace of posts from Jimmy. Keep it up, your posts bring out the lurkers and new Villagers.

    We had a 56 Chevrolet as I recall and a 59 Chevrolet too but not 57. In the 50s we were overseas with Gulf oil and came back to United States every two years for a couple months. The company had some kind of deal where employees used cars, then gave to next family to use.

    My family in Louisiana drove Ford’s and Mercury.

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  9. Symply, we will go see both. Moody Blues is on sale, U2 isn’t yet. I will put Ghost into buying Moody Blues today. I hate doing seating chart purchase on computer or ohones.

    The entire floor for U2 is standing. Forget that! I want reserved seats!

    Where is best seating on the huge arenas like BOK in Tulsa? I have no idea.

    I should consult you for who to see Symply. Ghost and I both like Moody Blues and U2.

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  10. Dear General Motors:

    If you reintroduce the 1957 Chevrolet, with modern technology and made from modern materials, you will make a freakin’ fortune. You’re welcome.

    /s/ Ghost

    p.s. Don’t wait until those of us who remember and appreciate the ’57 Chevy get too old to drive. Also, consider the 1972 Chevelle Malibu convertible. (I had one of those.)

    https://www.schmitt.com/vendio/cc2101.jpg

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  15. We got good seats for Moody Blues. Ghost says should be the arena equivalent of 30 yard line.

    U2 is not on sale yet. I checked Lindsey Sterling and can’t figure out seating charts and tickets. Will work on that later.

    That video looked like the white out version of Elvira doing the Sugar Plum Fairy. Ghost will like that.

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  17. In the first panel that shows the car, I knew it was a 57 Chevy.

    I would also have known if it had been a 58 Ford, 59 De Soto or 66 Buick.

    The years between 1956 and 1960 was the perfect storm of kids and cars. My age was 11 thru 15. During this time period, the cars changed with each model year. I know most of my contemporaries here remember that as early teenagers we knew every, fin, molding, grill, taillight and accessory of every car made during the period.

    Beyond 1960 the shape of cars meant less and the shape of girls, more.

    Today, all the cars look alike. Fortunately that is not true of girls.

    TD

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  18. Shopping for Thanksgiving dinner in case I don’t feel as well when it arrives. Rib Crib is smoking our turkey, stuffing and gravy will be modified instant mixes, cranberries canned.

    Ghost is making his mama’s traditional asparagus casserole. I will make and freeze my sweet potato shuffle with pecan brown sugar crust and a pan of my corn pudding, both to be stuck in freezer to cook later.

    Ghost is making his pumpkin bisque and I will make a reduced sugar pecan pie.

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  20. As I am sure I’ve written before, my first car was a ’57 Chevrolet, purchased from my father in fall ’61 as I entered grad school. Sometimes, I went to the Douglas County courthouse when the new plates became available to try for a low-numbered plate. Lowest I ever got was twenty-something. Maybe Nancy or Jim did the same.

    Grew up with Fords in the ’40s, a 1940 and, in ’49, a 1947 (the memory may not be perfect). After that, a blue Studebaker came in the early 1950s. That one was a new car, not used. No doubt, it lasted until the 1957 new Chevrolet became possible. We chose the Chevrolet over the Ford and Plymouth because it had ample headroom for me; the other two didn’t and I was getting to be rather a sprout.

    Not a bad video linked above, but I’ve been spoiled ever since a performer allowed me to hold his Strad! I felt highly honored.

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  22. Large group of sea lions off Port Townsend which is South of Vancouver on Puget Sound. They are out on island in bay but they make so much noise it sounds like they are just below my hotel window offshore.

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  23. My first was a 58 Belaire. Baby blue with a 283. I got a 67 Tempest from my dad and put some 60s on the rear with chrome wheels. I was always being invited to race since the Tempest was basically a 4 door version of the GTO with a 2 barrel engine and powerslide tranny. Got 21mpg though. My mother had a 63 Chevy with a 409. Complained until she died that she never had another car that was near as powerful. Those were the days when you could tell 1 car from another. Now they all look the same with different name badges.

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  24. Mark: Henri’s Notions are pretty good. Local Celtic group Caeli, also good, just three women, incl. widow of one of BSU/Biology’s prize students, too young, of a brain tumor. Brilliant, avid fisherman, agnostic U/U pacifist, originally intended to be an ALC or LCA [now combined as ELCA] pastor. Not worried about Dann’s salvation.

    All cars look alike? One Buick line still has those stylized fake supercharger holes in front of the doors that first showed up in ’42 models, I think [maybe ’46]. Two widow neighbors, both Gloria, have current supercharger-hole Buicks. Headroom: Prius has good headroom. My pastor son doesn’t have to tilt the seat back when he drives my car. Mentioned ages ago that our first car, ’54 [second year in Ann Arbor, MI] was a used ’50 Pontiac Silver Streak. I learned to drive in that, mostly rode subways until then. Real cities have subways, here and overseas.

    Peace,

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  26. Vivaldi on a lute played by Julian Bream. What a tranquil end to a not always tranquil day.

    Hal changed Vivaldi to big on something. What? Illiterate teens determine Spell check ‘s preferences?

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  27. That’s how I got into in-&-off classical announcing gig on BSU FM sta. Some unwilling teens taking Mass Comm. radio course had to host M-Th evening classics show, and were murdering it. Couldn’t tell Ormandy [cond.] from Respighi [comp.] / LP record jacket, thought a “faun” was a young deer, etc.

    Figured I could do better, and did, 1 evening a wk, 3 hr. Developed quite a following, incl. [mentioned here before] var. women of an age that fell for what I’ve since ID’ed as a “radio-announcer bass voice.” They phoned in requests. Love it, and don’t misuse it.

    Peace,

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  28. Funny, that is how I became a classical and opera announcer on our university radio station as well.

    Well, no bass voice but I didn’t have a Cajun accent, as did most of the other students.

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  29. About today’s current A and I and the meat we est.

    Fifty years ago I noticed one of my Hindu friends in compressing down on a hamburger in cafetetia. I asked if he was supposed to eat beef? Wasn’t he afraid he was eating one of his acedtors?

    He replied, “One of yours maybe, not mine.”

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  30. Chomping down on hsmburger.

    This made me go read about Hindu diet and food, fascinating. One of my sailing friends in India is an obesity surgeon and doctor. He has huge practice in a country where moderation in diet is part of religion and obesity is a sin.

    Large amounts of their holy texts deal with diet and how to eat properly.

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  31. Good morning Villagers….

    I remember our neighbors having, I believe it was a Dodge, that had push buttons to put your car in gear…..who else remembers that?

    Jackie, we’re coming to your house for Thanks giving 🙂

    Need to get Dad ready for appt. with nurse practitioner at 9:15.

    God’s blessings on all.

    debbe

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  33. My neighbor bought a 67 Dodge Charger, new, when he got his first job. Thought it was too nice to drive every day so he bought a cheap car to drive to work. That Dodge now has 10,000 miles on it, sits covered in his garage and looks like new. He takes it out once a month for a short drive. Probably worth at least $60,000.

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  34. My first car was a 64 Dodge Dart. It had the push button transmission and a slant six engine. I got stuck in the the snow a few times and had to push the buttons with my left hand to rock it out. I enjoyed having bench seats….however I didn’t date in HS, so I really couldn’t take advantage of it!

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  36. @ all with their links, Symply kewl never realized so many liked the fusion bands,,,still my fave Celtic Rock is Enter the Haggis….example from their younger days here:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CDA6f_zijQ

    No, they do not look this way anymore, they seem like 40 year old fathers. Canadians eh!?!

    The band was LOUD, lots of millennials and a huge mosh pit with security all around it to catch the crowd surfers as they got to the edges of the floor….seemed Fargone ridiculous, but it was fun….saw some others my age there too!

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  37. In today’s A.Word.A.Day, clicked on the Yiddish “kibitz”, two lines down in paragraph 1, and learned [or was reminded] that kibitz is derived from the German word for pewit or lapwing, a large Eurasian plover that I saw flocks of in the UK in ’52-’53, and on later trips to there and the Continent. Was fun introducing Elaine to stuff I’d seen during that long early 13 months of our marriage.

    Wiki has a good site on lapwings. [Pronounce o in plover just like o in lover: pluhver]

    Peace,

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  39. One of my friends just sold their classic wooden sailboat cruiser that was named Plover.

    I of course knew it was a bird and how to pronounce it. Sailors like birds, marine mammals and are familiar with them.

    Honestly we usually own dogs and cats too and travel with them.

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  41. These strips remind me of the show American Pickers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Pickers) where a pair of men go around the country picking over collections of antiques, old cars and other things that most folks would consider junk, looking for things they can sell to collectors for profit. You’d be amazed, probably, to see the kind of things people have packed away, including an old car made completely from wood, including the engine. And yes, it was in running order.

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  42. My grands also had a ’57 BelAir wagon, in turquoise, of course. My grandma drove it until the mid 80’s. Every time I see one I am reminded of them and the pleasant times we had in that car.

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  45. Symply have a ’56 Chevy in the family, used to be Gayle’s father’s and he gave it to his son in law MIchael who keep sit garaged all the time…white and turquoise color Gayle says….Had a friend named Animal 6’3″ 300+ lbs. with a mohawk haircut and a chain saw pewter earring, he had a ’56 yellow and white Bel Air with a Hurst shifter, the clutch was so hard to push in I had to use the seat to push against one time when I had to Fargone move it….Animal(real name Richard Kennedy) played in a punk band, one day they needed to clean up their practice room and said we need to have a vaccum party, hence with Richard as their front man they came up with the name Big “Richard” and the Vaccum Party(hope no one is offended).

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  48. I just found out I have 3 friends all born on the same date (year, month, and day). That’s certainly against the odds.
    No doubt there will be scads of replies thereto….

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  49. I spent the evening babysitting my grandsons while their parents celebrated… My Stephanie was hired to be the Special Ed teacher at the local middle school for the rest of the school year. She had been working as an assistant to the full-time teacher who was hired away by a charter school in her home town.

    Stephanie will probably be able to renew the contract for the next full year since she already has her state teaching certificate and will be taking the relevant classes this summer. She really knows the subject since 3 of her sisters are autistic (2 high functioning) and one has DS.

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  51. In my case, two of the three have the same first name, too, and both were blonde with blue eyes. The newly found third doesn’t match any of those last 3 characteristics. Pshaw.

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  53. My co-officers sitting at officer’s table at the February Houston Floral Association meeting, all four of us standing to be honored for our birthday and finding out we were all born on February 7, 1944 in towns in Mississippi delta?

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