A pithy comic strip about life, love, lust and puthy cats.

Est. 1985

Extra, Extra!

RIP, Rufus Thomas

By Jimmy Johnson


Buy the new book, "Beaucoup Arlo & Janis!"Today's "Arlo & Janis!"
Here’s an old Gene-centric cartoon from 1998. I’m traveling today on cartoon business (Yes, there is such a thing!), but I’ll be back here as soon as I can. If you’re in Tishomingo County and you see a beat-up bright blue Ford pickup truck, wave!

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130 responses to “RIP, Rufus Thomas”

  1. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    My freezer is my friend. Large pots of homemade chili, marinara sauce, jambalaya, gumbo, stews, hardy soups, stoups, leftovers, etc. get reduced to serving-sized portions; frozen in small freezer containers; and removed to reclosable freezer bags. Then my microwave oven becomes my friend when I don’t have time to prepare from scratch.

    Ginormous restaurant food portions are a problem. One of my lady friends and I regularly share an entrée at her favorite Italian eatery with separate salads, but not all places are agreeable to that. (In that case, eat half and get a carry-out container for the remainder.) And I can no longer eat anywhere where they have all-you-can-eat buffets, for seeing what so many already overweight patrons do to themselves there.

  2. curmudgeonly ex-professor Avatar
    curmudgeonly ex-professor

    Good luck for all trying to lose weight; I ought to, too.

    Y’all who liked that mention of Learned Hand made me feel useful. Thank you for that…a lot.

    One way to minimize leftovers is to prepare less food. That implies more time spent in the kitchen, cooking new stuff more often, so I’d go with those who eat once or twice on a meal and then freeze the rest for future use.
    In my first teaching post, we had a 20-ish married female neighbor who had never heard of leftovers!! She actually thought that even a classic roast was for one meal only, and simply discarded anything remaining after one meal!! I cannot fathom the waste. Apparently, she had been raised in a rich household and never saw the same meal twice; I do hope that that household had some hired help and that said putative help ate the remains.

  3. TruckerRon Avatar

    On the road I spent about half of what the typical trucker did on food. I had an electric cooler and a lunchbox-type electric heater; whenever I bought a meal I’d immediately box half of it up for later.

    Now, here’s a lovely little video from New Zealand to get you into the Halloween mood:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtlUNhbODCQ

  4. Ruth Anne in Winter Park Avatar
    Ruth Anne in Winter Park

    Another trick that works well at some restaurants is to get a side-sized salad and then an appetizer as entrée, such as the fried green tomatoes topped with crawfish at our local Cajun spot. (Yes, they’re fried too but we don’t do it that often.) It’s an easy way to get a reasonable amount of food.

  5. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    Yes, that works well, also, Ruth Anne. Or just the salad. I have an out-of-state friend who loves to go to a family-style restaurant for their buttermilk pancakes when I visit her (and needs the calories, due to her medical conditions). So I order their club salad with non-fat dressing and push a couple of the toppings to the side. And I also eat at a New Orleans-style place where their version of fried green tomatoes is to die for.

  6. Old Bear Avatar
    Old Bear

    Ursen
    One tip I heard was get the box FIRST, put half the meal in the box (Or more in the case of the
    steak) that way there is no temptation.

    We do not waste food – some is frozen but we cook small portions and it may be boring but
    if it is not used we eat it the next and the next till it is gone little at a time and sometimes transformed.

  7. Old Bear Avatar
    Old Bear

    Half a lifetime ago (and change) when first married my bride cooked a roast.
    Well rather cool in the middle – so we ate the outside , several days in a row.
    Then it became stew and then soup.
    She got to be a better cook faster than I did.

  8. emb Avatar
    emb

    GR6: “I’ve never seen staff there quite as comely as the female on the right.”

    Maybe you have but don’t know because they dress differently. In an earlier TIP[?] painting, the middle teen maiden [?] on the left was just right. I can remember lusting after such servant girls in National Geographic paintings of ancient civilizations back in late ’30-’40s issues. Youthful testosterone is potent. Racial note: it was ok to show nude bre asts and such in college bio texts in the ’50s-70s as long as they were not Caucasian. Or, in a genetic situation called testicular feminization, if the XY “girl” had her face blacked out. You could tell she suntanned in a one piece suit.

    I’ve never been seriously overweight [Dad’s family’s genes, I guess], but put on a bit in my 60s, so cut back, boxed, eschewed fats [thus avoiding statins], and such. One result is that steadily eating small portions has made me uncomfortable stuffing myself. Major downfall is church meals w/ many kinds of bars.

    Unconventional approaches to leftovers and to appropriate food for time of day have added variety, sometimes delicious, generally palatable. This evening, half a Qdoba burrito + leftover veggie mélange from the freezer for supper, other half of burrito for Sun. supper unless I pig out too much [unlikely] at wherever the crowd goes after BUMC service. Hey, Arlo put the accent over the é for me.

    Peace, emb

  9.  Avatar
    Anonymous

    This town has lots of restaurants but only a couple with hours past 9 even on weekends and about four with a healthier menu or small plates. I shut down the best one tonight at the bar with the owner and staff. Although I have been a teetotlar since my late 20s.

    They have a late night, small plate menu and I found that even enormous although they switched the half crab on half English muffin to have a generous side salad, the artichoke pate should have been shared. Since I had missed lunch I was starving, not good.

    The iced tea was great and the owner had been drinking long before I got there! So, funny late dinner. Food is excellent there and I thought of Ghost. The bartender said he quit counting years poring at 40. He was good and poured totally free hand and fast, don’t know who besides me loved Cocktail for the gymnastics with bottles?

    Loved the door knocker video! Loved all the leftover ideas.
    Reading Ghost in particular and emb have helped me in cooking for one. Not especially easy to do if you like good food. Recipes are never for one and seldom for two.

    I bet you do, Ghost. Love.

  10. fan in japan Avatar
    fan in japan

    Hello Villagers,

    Happy International Speak Like a Pirate Day to one and all. For those who are unfamiliar with how a rascally pirate should speak, there is an amusing blurb at wikihow.com/Talk-Like-a-Pirate.

  11. Mindy from Indy Avatar

    Ahoy! Have a great TLAP day!

  12. Debbe Avatar
    Debbe

    Good morning Villagers…

    How in the world did Talk Like a Pirate day come to be? Guess I’ll wiki it. Thank you fan in japan and Indy Mindy 🙂

    Thank you Miss Charlotte for explaining ‘twig’. I entered ‘define twig’ in the search tab, but none of it made any sense. And you are correct on the harvesting. Combines everywhere, bringing in corn, soybeans and milo. The mills buy, dry and crush and make it into feed to resale for cattle, horses and such.

    We have leftovers when it comes to soups, stews and such. After a couple of days, if there’s a lot left, it goes into the freezer. I also follow the rule “when in doubt, throw it out”. Not much goes to waste here. Husband has become a thrifty shopper and chef. He cooks less amounts since Ian has left.

    Buzzer on dryer just went off…got work clothes to fold….

    ya’ll have a blessed day

    …and a cool front is arriving today…..Amen It was 92 degrees inside the hen house when we left at 3ish yesterday.

  13. Debbe Avatar
    Debbe

    uh oh….cheezeburger.com wants me to disable my ad block so they can continue to send me free funnies….I don’t think so

    https://i.chzbgr.com/full/8565512192/hBF2E9501/

  14. Debbe Avatar
    Debbe

    GR 😉 and just where is my mood music??? Thought I’d forget, huh 🙂

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L8-6m5q318

    I always loved this song, so upbeat when one is in love.

  15. Jerry in Fl Avatar
    Jerry in Fl

    Charlotte, thanks for the explanations. I actually thought that Robert Heinlein made up the word twig so you taught me two things. I’ll have to do the Wikipedia search. NHC is now calling it disturbance 1, but I will do a Howard Cosell and say “Just as I predicted.” Since I have been catching up on the blog (busy yesterday) we received a call. My wife’s best friend of 40 years has died of stomach cancer. Fortunately my wife was able to visit her Thursday, knowing that it would be any day. I remember my parents saying that their social life was mostly going to funerals.

  16. Jerry in Fl Avatar
    Jerry in Fl

    TWC is showing beautiful pictures of trees that have already changed colors up north. This time of year I envy you folks. But, I think that the last time I wore a pair of long pants was my uncle’s funeral. It occurs to me that I have used two English words recently. Apparently everyone knew what a bumbershoot was. Lord, I was born a rambling man.

  17. Jerry in Fl Avatar
    Jerry in Fl

    Holy cow! I just saw a picture of Neil Young at the rock and roll hall of fame in 2011. A few years ago I saw a guy in a restaurant and was sure that it was Neil. I asked him and he claimed that he didn’t know who Neil Young was. It was the same guy in the picture and he was wearing the same clothes.

  18. Mark in TTown Avatar
    Mark in TTown

    Debbe, if you ever got Ian to install the free version of Spotify, you can listen to David Gilmour’s new album. It released yesterday and the entire thing is available to listen to. I have listened to it once already and think it is excellent. Nice assortment of styles, too, including one jazz piece.

    Have a good and safe day, everyone.

    Jerry, good to hear your wife got to visit her friend before she died.

  19.  Avatar
    Anonymous

    To really date myself I not knowing who I was talking to let Tennessee Erie Ford tell me what a jerky Bing Crosby was and not to ask for an autograph. Turns out he was telling the truth, of course. And I learned at a young age that celebrities enjoy humor and never got an autograph my entire life.

    Learned pretty girls get to talk to amazing people and so do old ladies. Have no idea why? Love.

  20. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    I have an idea why. 😉

    Debbe 😉 Honest, hon, I tried. My (attempted) posts last night simply disappeared into the aether, never to be seen again. As I mentioned, I’ve had problems with my home InterWebNet service, which are better but still extant, for about a week. But I’m not sure that’s the problem, as when I would re-post a comment that did not appear, WordPress would message me I had “already said that”. So they must have been received and not moderated but simply disregarded.

    The ISP service guy who showed up Monday was helpful, but I got the impression he never really found the root of the problem. (He did change out my wireless modem, so I got better one for free.) In The Department of Small Words, it turned out he was an ex-Air Force avionics tech; a shootist and firearms instructor; and a part-time training instructor for one of the area LE agencies. So I enjoyed meeting him, anyway. What I have now is a series of internet interruptions that occur at random intervals and last from a few minutes to a half hour or longer. Later this morning, I will probably prepare emergency supplies and join the phone queue for technical support for the duration, to see what their magical “testing” procedures show now.

  21. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    “Small Worlds”, that is. Can’t blame my ISP problems for that.

  22. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    So I’ll try again, in response to Bear’s comment about the first roast his new bride prepared…

    From the Joan Rivers Cook Book:

    How to Cook a Roast

    1. Put a large roast and a small roast into the oven
    2. When the small roast is burned, the large roast is ready

  23. emb Avatar
    emb

    It was a good blow but the light wind was from the N [it had been W], the humidity was probably high, and what the people on the boardwalk got was a huge cloud. Would’ve been nice from the walk on the N side.

    That’s where the ‘would of’ that I caught somewhere, maybe at BUMC, came from.

    Peace, emb

  24. emb Avatar
    emb

    GR6: How did you find “The supplicant”?

    Peace, emb