June 24, 1993

July 14, 1993
We’re stilll in 1993, during our “The Summer of 35” retrospective. This year was the last full year before digital archiving, and while the characters looked different, the nature of “Arlo & Janis” had become well established in the eight years since its inception. In fact, I chose these two examples from the summer of ’93, because they’re both harbingers of the strip’s Great Themes. I told you’d I select something that had never appeared in print since its original publication, and that is true of the above. However, I can’t swear that they’ve never appeared here, on the Web site. I just don’t know. However, I’m taking advantage of a loophole. They have not appeared in print since 1993. We’ll get to some of the really old stuff before we’re done.
66 responses to “Little Acorns”
You can read more about the “flying railway” at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuppertal_Schwebebahn
Have been reading diaries from various farmer/planters covering periods from 1830s to 1927 in my home state/parish in the Louisiana Delta opposite Natchez, Mississippi. Absolutely fascinating, there was a major depression in 1890s, followed by boll weevils in early 1900s and then the Great Flood.
I am struck by high levels of intelligence, education and what was at the time very ecumenical and liberal thought and beliefs. It is made more fascinating by fact I actually knew many of these families as a child, knew the surviving plantations.
The richest area in America in 1860 is now the poorest area in America and the least populated in Louisiana. I hung out with my grandfather and his friends, many of whom appear in the 1890-1920 periods. Seeing families go from great wealth and lawyers, doctors to school janitors, juke joint owners, redneck welfare recipients is stunning.
Sorry, not humor but not political. Definitely not the make believe of those who make believe. All in major university collections
So, to balance that, here’s a cat with a reflex problem:
https://www.ksl.com/article/50014354/have-you-seen-this-cats-reflexes-gone-crazy
That’s pretty funny!
I’ve never been one to indulge in midnight snacking, but I was just catching up on the posts here and saw Jackie’s mention of my pies. I checked the fridge, and there was a generous slice of the one we kept remaining. So tonight, I had a midnight snack. (Don’t worry, baby; I only ate half of it.)
My key lime pie is simply a different-juice version of the age-old Southern “lemon icebox pie”. For no particular reason, I’ve apparently been blessed with the ability to make pretty decent ones, even if those pies and rum cakes are about the only baking I do. (Much like my father, I suppose, who baked only pecan pies but who baked great ones.) I used to make the pies for my all-female staff, and they would almost fight over who got the last slice. I normally make a meringue topping for them, and I’ve never had a “meringue failure”, which I’m given to understand is a common baking problem.
Think I will go bake a blackberry cobbler and a blackberry crunch. Comparison research.
Ghost bakes cobblers too. And bread pudding.
I left him that piece of pie. I had a piece for breakfast, lunxh and supper. He makes a lovely meringue.
From a comment sent to Anu Garg’s A Word A Day:
“There is a similar term arising from a team of oxen. Oxen are large and are driven typically by walking along their left side. The ox closer to the driver is called the nigh ox. The other, which the driver rarely sees, is called the off ox. That explains why we wouldn’t know someone from the off ox.”
It does? “… we … “? First time I’ve seen the expression. Any of you familiar w/ it?
Peace,
Yep…I have always heard something like “Adam’s Offox”, but never knew the spelling…or the derivation. Thanks!
I wouldn’t know him from Adam’s off ox.
What about Addam’s bird?
https://www.ksl.com/article/50014582/have-you-seen-this-surprising-being-performs-headbanging-cover-of-the-addams-family-theme
KSL, Great video. Has he done any others? BTW, does anyone know the difference between being dumb and being ignorant? One of them is on purpose.
How about “poor as Job’s turkey”? That was one of my grandmother’s favorites and I haven’t heard it since she passed on.
Adam’s off ox was an expression I grew up with along with poor as Job’s turkey.
I had a great great uncle who drove an oxen team up into modern times and his death at around 100. I think the family still celebrates his birthday?
Of course my family came from the western hills of the Carolina mountains to Louisiana in 1800 with Louisiana Purchase. They brought with them customs and language of late colonial period preserving them until 1900s due to remote area of Louisiana they located
Spent morning reading about Ghost’s Louisiana ancestors. Fascinating since about 60 years ago I seriously dated another descendant of these same ancestors
As we say in the South, “They come from a goid family”.
Jackie, when I started getting a little more serious about my family history I found that my dad’s side came from a family that can trace back to a settler in Virginia in the very early colonial days. They seem to have gone from there, to the Carolinas, and then kept going west. It turns out that Vicksburg, Mississippi is named for one of my ancestors. Very interesting, I had always thought my dad’s family must have been rather quiet types because I hadn’t found anything past his great-grandfather and now I’m learning how much they were into along the way.
Mark I ran across the Vick family this week while reading about my area. They were prominent and there were honestly not that many people living in that period to marry!
That expression in South is “He comes/came from a good family ” which you also say when someone does something shocking.
Three boys I dated committed murder as grown men. One killed husband, the girlfriend, her “roommate ” and himself. I wasn’t surprised actually, just shocked.
Tourists tour his family home daily in Natchez. When telling my laye husband about the murders he said we should check out all my old boyfriends to see how many more there were?
I protested, “They ALL came from good families!”
I believe I had mentioned to Jackie I had a great-great-grandfather who served in the Civil War…according to his tombstone, which I have seen, in the 7th New York Provisional Cavalry Regiment. (Oops. Well, at least he either stayed in or came back to the South after the war.)
She didn’t know I had a direct ancestor (John, same surname as mine) who was a Captain in the North Carolina 2nd Battalion of Militia during the Revolutionary War. Another (also John, same surname as mine) fought with Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812, was wounded in action and was saved by a fellow soldier, but never fully recovered. (He fathered 14 children by four wives, so you can probably guess where his wound *wasn’t*.) The family was kicked off by Richard the Immigrant (1660 – 1712), one of a group of 46 that came to America and landed at the future site of Yorktown in 1688.
I suppose I could have joined some historical societies had I ever taken the time to do so.
One of my distant ancestors served in a South Carolina militia company during the War of 1812. By the time the Federal government decided to offer those volunteers land and a pension for the service, he had passed on. His widow got the eldest son, who was named after his father, to pretend to be him in order to collect what would have been due his father. They got by with it on the initial application, but an investigator further up the chain caught on some time later. The record didn’t say what the government did about it, just a comment by the reviewer that a closer check would have caught it in the beginning.
What Ghost didn’t say was his relative had ended up on a plantation in Monroe, Louisiana and had become a VERY prominent landowner.
The odd coincidence was my old boyfriend of many years as a teen and young person was a descendant through his mother of these same ancestors!!
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” – William Faulkner
Ghost -et-al
.
An ancestor of mine did absolutely nothing of note.
.
Though the land my house is on (a small part) was given to a veteran of the War of 1812.
by Pres. Buchanan.
I had plenty of those, too, OB. 🙂
I also didn’t mention that my wounded ancestor John was shot in the left thigh during the Battle of New Orleans. The Redcoat who shot him was reportedly so close the burning power from his musket set fire to John’s clothing. The US soldier who carried him back to safety was unknown to John until 1842, when the man stopped by John’s house in Monroe and introduced himself. The two remained friends for the rest of their lives.
Reportedly, he drew a pension for being wounded…$8 per month, which was not an insignificant sum then. Perhaps it helped him become a landowner.
https://www.carolana.com/NC/Revolution/nc_patriot_military_captains.html
Ghost, is your antecedent listed in the above? There were a lot of Captain John so-and-so shown.
Guess it was “Carolana” then….