Have I shown you this? It’s an idea I was fooling around with back at the turn of the century. You know, you used to hear that phrase used a lot before the century actually turned but not so much since. I guess all that century turning could get confusing. What was I talking about? Oh, yeah… this was going to be a fanciful strip about these kids who lived in the low country, sort of like son Gene’s family now. I dug this particular one out of some old stuff a few days ago, and it’s been lying around on my desk since. So, I thought I’d show it to you. The boys’ names are Skeeter and Nat. Get it? Skeeter and Nat!! Ha Ha! There are several more of these prototypical strips around somewhere, and if I find them, I’ll show them to you, too.
Saturday in the studio
By Jimmy Johnson
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194 responses to “Saturday in the studio”
One thing I’ve learned, Jackie, is that your blood sugar levels go up when you’re sick. I had a nasty bladder infection last year and my morning readings were well over 200 for several weeks, no matter what I did. Once that cleared up, however, they came right back down on their own.
For those who are still having trouble with the boy’s names, this may help. Back in 1941, Fleischer Studios released a feature cartoon, Hoppity Goes To Town, where all of the characters are insects. The villain of the piece, C. Bagley Beetle, has two henchmen: Swat the Fly and Smack the Mosquito.
Jackie, here’s Snuffy: http://comicskingdom.com/barney-google-and-snuffy-smith
Jackie, I was so concerned about you as I got caught up on comments that I plumb forgot today was Saturday, too, and that your doc might not be in!
Charlotte, I grew up in the South, and I loved Li’l Abner…and would have even if Daisy Mae and some of the other female characters had not been so outstandingly pneumatic and amazingly pulchritudinous. 🙂 Al Capp was one of the great cartoonists.
Here’s a story about the big Tallahassee mall of many years ago (and lumps; but you probably guessed that didn’t you?)–
Back in the day, I once caught a charter flight to Tallahassee for a local business man who was considering the purchase of a boutique-style women’s clothing store in that mall. I rode in with my passenger and sat in the store to wait while he met with the owner. I thought the store had a rather clever layout, with the different departments in separate rooms that looked like small shops situated on a boulevard. It was obviously aimed at a younger but upscale clientele…not a bad idea in a university town.
I quickly realized I had, quite by accident (I swear), taken a seat that gave me a view down the “alley” that led to the changing rooms. The store was busy, and there was a steady stream of attractive co-ed types headed down that way to try on garments. And with so many strategically-placed mirrors along the way, I could see them from all sides as they walked toward the rooms.
You probably would not believe how many of them yanked their t-shirts and sweatshirts over their heads well before they actually reached a changing room. Given the demographic, you probably would believe how many of them were sans brassieres when they did so. “What are you smiling about?” my client asked me about an hour later when he collected me for the ride back to the airport.
“Nothing,” I smiled.
Which of your states made it onto this list?
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2013/03/31/odd-state-tax-laws/1951911/
I think Utah, my home state, has the oddest one.
For some reason, I never thought of Maine as being “one of the country’s smallest states”. But I checked and yep, it’s just #39 among states in area. Somehow, it looks larger on the map, perhaps in comparison to some of the other New England states.
I too loved L’il Abner, Daisy Mae, Stupefying Jones, Jubilation T. Cornpone and all the Southern characters Al Capp created. Remember Evil Eye Fleagle? And who walked around with a black cloud over his head? And Smoo’s who were fantastic.
You don’t get more Southern than the Mississippi Delta and a cotton plantation full of mules, people of color and Al Capp types walking around.
Love, JaCKIE
OF due 5 pm CST, =/- 10 min.
Sorry:
http://www.nps.gov/features/yell/webcam/oldFaithfulStreaming.html
emb
“perhaps in comparison to some of the other New England states.” All.
CT is smaller than MN’s St. Louis Co., and there are two others back East smaller than MN cos.
Peace, emb
Jackie, that was Joe Btfsplk, the jinx, with the rain cloud always over his head. (Which has to be one of the better character names in the comics world.) I always felt sorry for him, because he didn’t mean to be a jinx; he couldn’t help it.
Jackie,
Do you ever see the musical “Li’l Abner?”. Though we weren’t up to Broadway standards, my high school peformed it one year. I was Abner. It was amazing how many students and townspeople said afterwards to me, “I didn’t know you could sing!” (at 6’6″ I was the varsity basketball center– basketball was all they expected.)
Just had a call from the transplant coordinator. They are running the crossmatch tests now. I should know something by 10:00 or 11:00 tonight. I’m still hopeful.
Dearest Ghost, I have to smile and giggle at your story of pulcritudinous Tallahassee girls. Weren’t you fortunate, to be in the right place at the right time! Funny, I wouldn’t have imagined you being an Al Capp fan. You keep on surprising us! Yes, Maine is small in area, and NH and the other New England states are REALLY small, or must seem so to you far away folks.
Jackie, I’m glad you are a fan of Al Capp, too — and you can remember those funny characters so well.
I LOVED L’il Abner! Saw it in a touring version in Houston and also the movie. I should look it up because I am forgetting who sang the Abner role. We must have had an album of the musical because I am remembering lyrics suddenly.
I cannot sing a note and always wanted to be able to dance and sing in musicals. The closest I ever got to “singing” was in Bye Bye Birdie when I got to play the horrible off key Birdie fan who sang “We love you Birdie, oh yes we do” as idiot fans of Birdie, the rock and roll parody.
Did a lot of super nummery (spell?) spear carrying parts with strict instructions to keep my mouth shut and not open it to peep. My specialty seemed to be ditsy dumb girl friend roles.
And crowd scenes.
Ghost never surprises me but often delights.
Love, Jackie
I read every funny paper I could get my hands on when I was a little girl, including Li’l Abner. When I was about 8 or so, I discovered an old trove of newspapers under the cushions of one of my grandmother’s old upholstered chairs. I guess they were being used to help shore up worn out springs. I carefully pulled them out, read the comics, and put them back. Those papers were yellow with age, so probably were from the late 1940’s or early 1950’s. On Sundays I would ask my mother to buy a Raleigh paper so I could read the funnies in color – a special treat!
Comics taught me to read. I can remember my mother buying stacks of comic books for me when I was small child. When I finally got into school I was already reading adult comics like Superman and adventure comics, was a big fan of Al Capp and Walt Kelly in the first grade.
Never lost my love of comics, why else am I here besides the good company?
By the way today’s Arlo and Janis was not only funny, it made me laugh and say, “Well I NEVER did that!” Then it made me realize Jimmy’s mind works unlike any of us probably and I wonder if his life has been as interesting as Arlo’s? Or has Arlo been a way to experience things without actually doing them?
Love you, Jimmy. Jackie Monies
“. . . two others back East smaller than MN co’s.” Becker Co. is larger than Rhode Island and Beltrami Co. is larger than Delaware.
Re Rhode Island, somewhere I have a contour map of Kenya that includes Kilimanjaro in adjacent Tanzania. I decided the bunched up contour lines at the base of Kilimanjaro made a good border for that magnificent volcano’s area. It’s about the same as R.I., including R.I.’s bays. Don’t have the math handy; that baseline is roughly circular; probably did it by roughly pi.r.sq, for the mt. and official area for RI.
Re that notch in the border btw. Kenya and Tanzania, both were British colonies and Queen Victoria had two sons, one somehow heir or gov. general to one and one the other. The notch puts Kibo in Tanzania and leaves Africa’s 2nd highest mt., Mt. Kenya, in Kenya.
On a mammal-watching safari, wife and I slept in the only double bed at Mountain Lodge, in the room Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh occupied when she learned that she had become Queen. [Mentioned ages ago on this blog, before some of you came on board.] That was a good safari, run by a late [tobacco-related, I think] mammalogist for members of the Am. Soc. of Mammalogists and their guests, incl. $250 / person for the Young Mammalogists Fund. His travel agency ran tours ~ that. Previous bird tour of Kenya had been, I believe, for the NJ Chapter of the Audubon Soc., with a ~ donation. Makes for a more focused group. Don’t know if the agency still exists.
Dr. Van Gelder was retired Curator of Mammals at the American Museum of Natural History, was more or less my contemporary but in a different grad school [U.Kan?]. He was independently wealthy: “Old Money.” I expect the Van Gelders were in the Hudson Valley when Peter Stuyvesant took over as Governor of Nieuw Amsterdam, and stayed when the Duke of York displaced Pegleg Pete, whom my HS is named for. There was no particular reason for settled Dutch to leave. I expect they named the Schuykill River in PA, which Philadelphians pronounce “shoe-kill.” Oh, well.
Word from
Weird! Anyway,
Word from the transplant coordinator, crossmatch test was positive. Someone will be getting a new kidney tonight, but it won’t be me. I know that my antibodies are high. It is possible that I may never get a kidney, but I will continue to hope.
David, I am so sorry. I was so hoping. Love, Jackie
I was hoping, too, David. We will continue to hope!
Watching this guy made me tired, but hopeful, for what else I might do in life:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIxrvurNKV8
I was at a kindergarten assembly not too long ago. The classes filed in and sat on the floor in neat rows. My eye was caught by two little girls, sitting next to one another, and they took turns hugging each other. I then recalled being in kindergarten myself Back In The Day and observing such behavior in my own female classmates and concluding that girls were just very strange creatures; the thought that one might sit next to me and try to hug ME was quite disconcerting.
Until I reached a Certain Age. To say that my opinion about being hugged by a girl underwent a drastic change is an understatement of Biblical proportions.
It is my surmise that Skeeter and Nat will reassess the entertainment value of the Potato Chip Eater at that Certain Age as well. Tallahassee will have to wait…
Ron: If you need more inspiration, the guy doing the interviewing used to be the sports director at one of our local TV stations. He and a few others there foresaw some changes coming with new management and went off on their own. One of their productions (which this was probably part of) shows up on our local PBS channel. They also have a website, of course – growingbolder.com