Saleboat

by Jimmy Johnson


Buy the new book, "Beaucoup Arlo & Janis!"Today's "Arlo & Janis!"
I might as well take the tiger by the horns. From 1995, here’s an old strip on a familiar theme, Arlo pining for a sailboat. That’s your cue to chorus, “So, what happened to Arlo’s boat that Gus gave him?” The scientific answer would be, Nothing, because I haven’t let anything happen. Yet. The reality is more complicated. Probably, it was a mistake to give Arlo a boat. The perfect analogy is Charlie Brown and the football. The story and the humor were in his desire and frustration. Kick it, and the tension would be gone. Now that Arlo, in theory, has a boat, what happens? Obviously, I could do a lot of boat gags. It would be easy! Forty people who follow the strip would love them. I know; I”m one of them. Everyone else would get bored. However… I’ve tried to explain before, comics don’t exactly move in real time. This isn’t to say the boat won’t reappear. Certainly, we can talk about it.

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73 responses to “Saleboat”

  1. emeritus minnesota biologist Avatar
    emeritus minnesota biologist

    Posted years back: ‘Fertile woman dies in Climax.’ Two small towns in NW MN.

  2. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    My personal favorite, from the local newspaper where I lived a number of years ago, was a classified ad. “WANTED: Small short-haired dog for a pet. Mixed-breed OK. Must be able to fly a small airplane.”

    Yeah, and you probably thought it’s difficult to be a pilot, didn’t you? Although I suspect that unusual prerequisite was the result of a lost-strayed-or-stolen “in” between “fly” and “a”.

  3. Mark in TTown Avatar
    Mark in TTown

    GR6, just ran across this. This was the airplane/airline that served Tuscaloosa when I began to fly commercially in the 1970’s. The songwriter has hit the nail squarely on the head in describing things here.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21EHAATQp-8

  4. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    Someone mentioned Ludwig’s possible demise. Please do not do that Jimmy! Please?

    Lynn Johnston who writes and draws For Better or Worse tries to keep her strip in more or less real time. Farley (who was featured in yesterday’s Mother’s Day strip) was getting very old and she decided to have him die. She did, heroically, and his death was treated with great love and respect.

    However, she confided this in advance to Charles Schulz who she admired and considered a mentor. He told her not to do it but that if she decided to do so, to please let him know in advance and he would have Snoopy hit by a truck but recover to defray some of the reactions she would get.

    She went ahead and had Farley die but I understand she still gets unhappy readers. Since the strip is in a rerun status she will have to go through this all over again unless she changes Farley’s fate.

    I love Ludwig and he can live to be older than Mickey Mouse as far as I am concerned.

    Love, Jackie Monies

  5. TruckerRon Avatar

    In 1972 I flew on TransMagic Air from SLC to Idaho Falls. The plane was the smallest commercial one I’ve ever flown seating just one passenger on each side of the aisle. There was no door between us and the pilots; there also was no flight attendant. It was also the lowest commercial flight I’ve ever endured, with the plane finding its way between the mountains, not soaring over them. Can anyone tell me what class of plane that probably was? I’m sure it made the Martin 404 look huge by comparison!

  6. Boise Ed Avatar
    Boise Ed

    Blinky (12 May 2014 at 12:11 pm), that’s a funny joke, and always worth retelling, but not actually true. See http://www.snopes.com/military/lighthouse.asp It dates back to a 1931 cartoon, if not further back.

  7. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    Mark, I remember seeing Martin 4-0-4’s in Southern Airways livery. And hearing them…they were noisy beasts. You might enjoy his link. If you click on the History tab and the picture of the 4-0-4, you’ll find some interesting info about their fleet.

    http://www.southernairways.org/new_mag2.htm

  8. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    TR, I had a business associate some years ago who had to fly a regional carrier from Atlanta to somewhere in West Virginia. He claimed their “airliner” was so small that when he turned on the reading lamp over his seat, the plane slowed down.

    From your description of the airliner you rode, and the fact that Magic Air (later Air Idaho) operated them on that route in the early 70’s, I believe it would have been a de Havilland D.H. 114 Heron aircraft. Does it look familiar?

    http://www.flugzeuginfo.net/acimages/dh114_pedley.jpg

  9. TruckerRon Avatar

    GR6, that one’s about the right size and is likely the right one. I lost track of the company; I just vividly remember looking straight out and up at the mountains that my prior flight (DFW to SLC) had easily soared over. And hearing the pilots discussing whether a gauge was working or not as they tapped on it.

  10. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    According to my flight tracker program, there is a Cathay Pacific Boeing 777 about to touch down right now at Los Angeles International Airport after an almost 13 hour flight from Hong Kong. I love the Internet.

  11. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    Debbe 😉 Hope nothing broke at work today (Monday). Or not too badly, anyway. What was your surprise gift yesterday?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kNGnIKUdMI

  12. Jerry in Fl Avatar
    Jerry in Fl

    Will be gone about a week for the chest part of the implant. The local rag doesn’t carry A & J anyway so be ready to catch me up when I get back.

  13. Jerry in Fl Avatar
    Jerry in Fl

    Please.

  14.  Avatar
    Anonymous

    Good morning Villagers…

    Let’s see, I’ve been on 1) a homemade houseboat on the river, as a child growing up on weekends at the cabin on the river; 2) a really nice yacht anchored in the Corpus Christi Bay when Texas celebrated it Sesquice Centennial; 3) a pontoon boat….that about all the sea faring adventures I can tell I’ve had.

    GR 😉 …no, and I’ve not heard from my nephew-in-law since….I did send him a text telling him how much I do love surprises, he’s the one who divorced his wife back in January and then went back to her….he has nicknamed her ‘Ursula’….when he sat down on the couch with me to tell me he was going back to ‘Ursula’, with a straight face I asked him….”so, what do we call her, Nicole or ‘Ursuala’? Oh, (and with a hug) Aunt Debbe, you are so cool….cool or not, I want my surprises 🙂

    Spent about $500 of the Boss’s money yesterday afternoon….supplies and new tools…..got work to do I’ll tell him…hey, he’s the one that made me ‘overseer’ of my building…a woman’s got to do what a woman’s got to do to get the job done. Tired of sharing equipment between two building….tight German…and I can say that and get away with that, ’cause I’m half German 😉

    Ya’ll have a blessed day……

  15. Debbe Avatar
    Debbe

    Guess who that was…………………………….

  16. Debbe Avatar
    Debbe

    And yes, GR 😉 , that is another song to be played at my end of life….

  17. Rick in Shermantown, Ohio Avatar
    Rick in Shermantown, Ohio

    Debbe:

    Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now” will be played at my funeral.

  18. Debbe Avatar
    Debbe

    …and I like that too, Rick

  19. Terry Avatar
    Terry

    “Ordnance” explodes. “Ordinance” is a local rule/regulation.

  20. Crab in Grapeland Avatar
    Crab in Grapeland

    I’m beginning to wonder if EVERYBODY doesn’t go through a sailboat phase. My wife & I certainly did (we bought a farm instead; it doesn’t sink as often). We gave up on the idea when we found that there can’t be two captains: my wife fell overboard and it took a couple of scuba divers to get her back into the boat.

  21. Village Loon Avatar
    Village Loon

    Good morning America! Last evening in Russia. Oh dark thirty wake up for a long day of travel.

  22. MacInCo Avatar
    MacInCo

    I seem to recall Janis buying a teeny weeny bikini and by the end of the strip Arlo was asking Gene to kick him …

  23. Trapper Jean Avatar
    Trapper Jean

    Good luck Jerry! See you soon.

    I think I have missed out on something. The only “boating” experience I have ever had was paddling around the small lake on my grandparents’ property in their little row boat.

    When I go it will be to “On A Clear Day You Can See Forever” and this one, from one of my favorite bands: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7fCmSidgZQ Really nice guys, friends and neighbors all!