Did you draw a cartoon lover’s name this year? Are you chafing because your plan to give everyone on your list an Arlo & Janis t-shirt fell through? Well, I have a suggestion for you. Check out “Team Cul de Sac.” Cul de Sac is the engaging comic strip drawn by Richard Thompson, the talented artist and illustrator whose blossoming career as a comic strip creator was cut off by the progression of Parkinson’s disease in 2012. The TCDS web site has for sale two books, and a portion of the money goes to The Michael J. Fox Foundation and to TCDS, both of which are dedicated to publicizing and funding the fight against Parkinson’s disease. One of the volumes is a collection of the work of various cartoonists—giants in the trade—assembled especially to benefit Thompson and the TCDS effort. Another is a beautiful collection of the work of Richard Thompson himself. Either would make a great gift for anyone who loves cartoons. It would make me feel better if you took some of that money you had set aside for A&J t-shirts and spent it one of these great books.
Santa’s Little Helper
By Jimmy Johnson
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55 responses to “Santa’s Little Helper”
I posted this on FB as a hint to any of my friends who were trying to decide what to get me:
https://www.facebook.com/artofrichardthompson/photos/a.266157386867536.1073741829.180478135435462/415604655256141/?type=1&fref=nf&pnref=story
Now I think I’m getting multiple cats for Christmas. No thanks, I already have a cat.
I like Gene’s attitude
Richard is the best. Thank you for mentioning us!
I love Gene at this age…bring on more
I used to “opt out” of secret Santa in school by pretending to drop my name into the hat, but actually palming it, and then the reverse when it was time to pick names out. Turns out if you have your own name and don’t say anything, people tend not to notice that you aren’t opening a secret Santa present when the day comes.
Of course unlike Gene, I just wouldn’t mention school secret Santa to Mom at all.
Ray, at the time the above ran in the paper you needed: mom’s credit card to buy the secret santa gift and her to chauffeur you to the mall. Today just order from Amazon, have it shipped to school, worry free living all courtesy of the internet.
No, no, Jimmy! This is not how Shameless Commerce is supposed to work. You are supposed to tell us to hold on to our money in anticipation of your product being available for us to purchase at any moment, not direct to us to some other location to spend those funds.
Oh well, if you insist, I’ll check out the TCDS site. And buy something there. Seeing as how it’s for a good cause and all. Perhaps there will be money left for a t-shirt later. 🙂
My Grandfather had Parkinson and so does my brother-in-law. I am always concerned that I may someday come down with it too. Of course my Grandpa had a very high receding hairline and I have a full head of hair!
My Dad and my other Grandpa had to have hips replaced and hearing aids. Of course I’ve had my hip replaced (2 yrs this last Sunday) and with my singing voice, really hope that my hearing does not worsen…
At my age I sometimes forget why I come in here. Can some tell me what channel the Arlo & Janis Christmas Special will be on? I always like Arlo in his Santa outfit. Know also that Spirit Man 16 finds Janis’ elf costume eye appealing. Then there is Gene, all a delight with his new Game Boy. Those old Christmas shows are still the best
And I did foeget Luddie. Getting his Christmas voice and nearly spoiling the ending.
Mike’s mom had a Parkinson’s type tremor, which he got when he developed cancer. One of my favorite boat designers has been diagnosed, along with several of my boating friends. If you draw it is usually impossible, of course, to continue but computers have helped with boat design.
I loved my boating friend who was training his standard Puddle duck hunting dog to become an assistance dog. So far, the dog had mastered retrieval of his back pack with adult beverages and helping him steady to get up from a chair. He was trying to get dog “ready” before he became more disabled.
We should all help if we can. Love, Jackie
Poodle, Standard Poodle! Spell check turned it into a puddle duck dog.
I get some hilarious spell check corrections and if I don’t watch they go through.
Caught up on comments and was laughing about Ghost’s prolific cursing. I don’t type or write it but I often speak it. That is one thing boarding/finishing schools often do, perfect your language in more than one way. Smoking, drinking, cursing and confused sexual identities all go together for a really good debutante I found. Oh and anorexia and eating disorders. Drugs weren’t too much abused in those days but are now I am sure.
Anyway, I could out curse a sailor and most Marines by the time I hit college and often did. There is that “offen” again! Mike does not use profanity, so it has been a great burden on him that I do, although I try to watch it more now. Do not ask me how he has put up with me all these years.
Love you all, Jackie
Big geyser N. of OF blowing now.
http://www.nps.gov/features/yell/webcam/oldFaithfulStreaming.html
Steve: “My Grandfather had Parkinson’s and so does my brother-in-law. I am always concerned that I may someday come down with it, too. Of course my Grandpa had a very high receding hairline and I have a full head of hair!”
Genetics of hairlines and most illnesses are often complex or not fully understood, or both. Examples we start with in freshman bio. are usually one locus, all-or-nothing sorts: Landsteiner blood groups [A,B,AB,O], Rh + or -, red-green color blindness [discovered that in a ‘senior’ hospital visitor once; he didn’t know he was RGCB], common form of hemophilia, etc.
My type of baldness [a little fuzz on top, ‘tonsure’ around the back] probably involves several loci, and comes from Mom’s side of the family. Dad had a full head of salt and pepper hair when he died at age 80, as did my half-bro at 90. Dad and I both had/have a mildly abnormal right thumbnail, but half-bro did not, etc. Longevity surely also involves multiple loci, but also many environmental factors, esp. diet, exercise, booze, tobacco, but nothing is guaranteed, except that nobody lives as long as the biblical patriarchs did, and neither did they.
Peace, emb
Well, since I have been a good girl this year, I bought myself both books, along with another red metal barn squirrel proof bird feeder, a sustainable eucalyptus garden bench and 50 more bags of concrete for the driveway ditch and a new electric heater for my mom’s room since I can’t stay here long enough for the heating and air people to come work on her thermostat.
I really was especially good, like Gene.
Love, Jackie
Lest you think I left Mike out, yesterday he got a new fluffy fake fur lap rug for the recliner/sleigh, the complete collection of Emma Peel episodes from “The Avengers” and “Killing Patton.”
He likes all the maps in “Killing Patton.” I say either Bill O’Reilly never sleeps or that is a dang good ghost writer.
Jackie, looks like a dang good ghost writer: http://www.amazon.com/Martin-Dugard/e/B000APRHWE/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_2
To my complete shock, my stone mason is getting married tomorrow. I told him “You can’t do that! You’re already married!”
He replied he had gotten his divorce on December 1 and was remarrying tomorrow. He was mourning the first wife when I met him, that is how I acquired him on payroll, so he is one of those men who are happiest married apparently.
So, I overpaid him so he could go on a brief honeymoon. I am turning into a mushy old woman or else I was always mushy but added getting old.
Love, Jackie
Mark, thank you for that link. Yes, I would agree a dang good ghost writer. I never really thought O’Reilly really wrote any of these but I didn’t know about all the other books. I am surprised I didn’t know about the sailing and nautical books?
I will see if Mike owns all those and perhaps he might like them as well. I asked him last night if he wanted the Lincoln book and he told me to just pick up the Patton one at WM, which I did. Amazon is cheaper by far, actually, than I paid.
Since I signed up for free and fast shipping apparently, I get stuff fast.
Love, Jackie
If you don’t have Parkinsons then you know someone that does whether either of you knows it or not. One reason for that is that you have it for 10 years before you wonder about that little twitch and get a diagnosis.
Therefore the word “onset’ depends on your definition. In my case I am as funny as ever. Why did you make that face? The speed at which PD affects you can vary greatly just as in old timers disease. My cousin was diagnosed at the same time as me and is in much worse shape. I have trouble with buttons, turning pages, typing (see above) and I don’t wear a tie anymore. I told my wife that I planned on wearing a tie just one more time. It has a severe effect on short term memory and you may have heard of the Parkinson mask. When I look in a mirror I wonder why that guy looks so mad. After I was diagnosed I began asking around in my family and found that several people had had PD so I think that it is true that it runs in families. JJ, Thanks for the mention.
Back in the 60’s and 70’s my boss and good friend developed what appeared to be Parkinson’s at a young age, female. Up until then I thought it was a disease of the elderly. You know how young people are, they think they are bullet proof.
Mom had PD and it eventually got so bad that she couldn’t even hold herself upright with a walker. My sister has it too, but nowhere near as bad. One of the few obvious effects has been that she’s needed to switch her computer away from a Desktop Environment (Unity) that expects you to put the mouse into a tiny space on the edge of the screen to do certain things. So far, all seems well with me, except for one thing: sometimes when I’m moving the cursor around in text I end up putting it one or two letters away and using the arrow keys to adjust it. Don’t know if it’s an early symptom of PD and as long as it doesn’t get worse, I’m going the Alfred E. Newman route.
I asked about mixing peanuts and Coke because folks here in Utah seem to think peanuts in a Coke to be a true oddity. Nuts are the reason I prefer the drink in a bottle.
Darn it, I typed a letter just now on *yesterday’s* site … can someone tell me how to move it back to today? It can be done, for I’ve seen it happen.
Need to go fix supper now.
Before reading these posts, I had never heard of peanuts in Coca-Cola. Isn’t there some danger of choking on a nut while drinking? And what happens to them when the drink is finished, do you eat them, or leave them in the bottle, or what? Do tell!
All these soft drink stories make me shake my head. Thank goodness, I’ve never gotten the soft drink habit. Drank those five cent glass bottles as a little girl, when I had the money — two or three times a week, in hot weather. Never bothered buying it when I grew up. You guys seem to enjoy it so much, and have such strong opinions on the many different kinds … makes for interesting reading, I’ll tell you! You know, it’s thought that drinking that stuff can bring on diabetes later in life; other health problems as well. Have you tried drinking milk instead?
😉