Yesterday, Steve from Royal Oak immediately picked up on the same thoughts I was having as I dug up this old series, specifically how difficult it was, in my youth, to get to know a girl over the phone. Or at least how difficult it seemed! I think I launch far too many old-fogey threads as it is, but I think it’s a worthwhile subject: what is it like for kids today, who are connected, individually and collectively, to one another on a constant basis? You want to talk about a societal ground-shift. Or maybe it’s just as difficult today to cold text that cute young thing in third period algebra.
181 responses to “The Christmas Caller II”
I’m the first. What an honor. Ghost, please tell me that you don’t live in Houma.
I’d say MEANINGFUL contact is still just as difficult. The ability to Snapchat, text, post on Instagram, Facebook, or other social media is routine… try to get one of those highly connected teens (or 20-somethings!) to actually make a voice call. That is much harder.
another one of those rare weekend postings… Thanks JJ for the update
My daughter is a sophmore in high school. Based on what she tells me, it is still awkward. She has two friends who liked each other for over a year before one got up the courage to ask the other out. What may be different is that the girls now understand just how awkward and nerve-wracking it can be to ask a person out . Another friend finally asked the boy she liked out and was turned down in a less than polite fashion.
Ghost Sweetie, thanks! I do love that carol! No, no bad eggnog, just two pies and a rice pudding made with it. 🙂 Don’t know when I’ll ever get to Houma LA (I’ll have to look it up on Google maps) but if I do I’ll try the sushi. Is it, by chance, made with gator tail?
over the phone was always hard until I moved in with her
Ghost: I had not thought of the “Boston Charlie” carol for years – good times! Thanks for the memory…
Personally, I prefer to hear the lilting tones of the girl’s voice. Texting “I love you” “no, I love YOU” for an hour would not be the same.
Our Bard has hit numerous home runs in exploring this theme. One of the best was a phone call to Ruth (now doubtless living on the Rive Gauche) that ended with “Happiness is knowing the girl wants to talk to you.”
Mary Lou was the dark horse in the marital sweepstakes for Gene; Ruth looked like she had the inside track for quite a while. But the water-ballooning Susan treated our protagonist in quite a shabby fashion at the last, and she is now likely appearing in a Mean Girl Reality Show.
Gene has come a long way from going to his first boy/girl party where he was, quote, “expected to talk and junk,” unquote; the Dog of Love commencing his journey across the 8-lane highway of life, as Someone Put It.
Fog and +35F out now, very gentle breeze, high of 37 predicted. The 2-4″ we have on the ground are collapsing, water dripping off the roofs. Not sure it went below 32 last night, 34 predicted tonight, mid-30s tomorrow. If it doesn’t snow for 12 days, or snows just a smidgen, we’ll have another brown Christmas. First I’ve experienced since ’58 when we moved here was sometime in the last decade. I wrote it in a logbook, but have buried that somewhere.
This fits in with the discussions of rapid technology changes: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/picture-galleries/11289860/Obsolete-technologies-that-will-baffle-modern-children-in-pictures.html
It might be a bit easier to talk to a girl with all of the social media. I wouldn’t know as it has been 33 years since I had to stir the courage. But I think that you can learn a lot (sometimes a bit TOO much ) about a person by looking on Facebook.
People that know me, find it pretty hard to believe that it took me all the way through college to actually take a girl out on a date. I am very friendly and a decent conversationalist, but I was so afraid of rejection that I rarely asked a girl out (Still have that fear, but that is a good fear if you’ve been married 32 years!) I also lived in a rural area, so we did not socialize much with friends outside of school. I wish that I had overcome that fear, but ended up with a great wife, so no complaints from me.
Loved today’s strip. I’ve mentioned this fact a few times here and it is kind of fun to point it out to people. Since my birthday is on the shortest daylight day of the year, I have paid a little more attention to it than others.
Went back to check the after bedtime posts. Debbe posted this:
http://cheezburger.com/8400175616
To the fried egg on cat’s left was a short, repeating video of a Lesser Panda licking an apple slice. To me, this is the world’s cutest adult mammal, except Janis and her ilk, of course. You can likely find better portraits of LPs using a search engine. The world’s ugliest is probably Africa’s Naked Mole Rat.
So, I went to youtube and found dozens of “Deck Us All In Boston Charlie’s” and started trying to post one of the links here. Help!
I can find them and I can’t post them! Someday I am going on a trip to Alabama or another state where some of you literate Villagers live and take lessons before I die in how to post and copy to a computer. Which will be obsolete by then!
One thought on obsolescence is that when my husband threw the thousands of tapes and things his mother had copied off television into the dumpster he also destroyed perhaps thousands of hours of youtube pleasure for others.
Of course someone would have had to transfer that lifetime of copied television to youtube and it wouldn’t have been me! I was in favor of putting it in the casket so she could take it with her, therefore baffling future archaeologists should it be found. But it filled a commercial dumpster partway up, so we would not have been able to afford such a luxury.
We had a lovely and reverent funeral with a hand carved wooden casket for her cremains with a velvet liner and a solid brass plaque, all lovingly built by my son in law and daughters, decorated in beautiful hot pink azaleas, an excellent Methodist minister, Cokes in glass bottles and hot beignets. Then we all went for really good Cajun food with friends down at the Blue Dog Café in Lafayette, LA. A restaurant built by my father in law.
Oh yeah, we started on “Boston Charlie”. Can someone link the vocals of the Walt Kelly Memorial Choir?
Love and good morning, Jackie
The “yolk” in the fried egg cat is an orange or a tangerine I think?
Totally appropriate for Debbe too.
The “lessor “panda is far cuter than the greater panda. Is there relation to the raccoon?
1. I don’t live in Houma. (Although I spent a month there one weekend.)
2. There is no place in Houma that actually makes Blackened Cajun Sushi. (As far as I know.)
3. In fact, there is no such thing as Blackened Cajun Sushi. (As far as I know.)
And Jean dear, I have no doubt whatsoever that some sushi itamae is preparing gator tail sushi even as we speak.
However, I will not repeat the story of the stoner who went into a pet store, thought it was a sushi buffet, and ate $1500 worth of tropical fish. (Oh, wait. I just did, didn’t I?)
Jackie, your story of the TV show tapes reminded me of a comedic commercial I once saw (probably on SNL) for “The Time-Life Complete Weather Channel Collection, on 12,000 DVDs.” Think about it.
Jackie, Mark must be asleep at the switch, so here is “Deck Us All with Boston Charlie”. Wishing you a “Harum scarum five alarm bung-a-loo!”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb_W_JP5kgc
I still miss Walt and the Swamp Gang.
Several years ago I “managed”/babysat the bosses salesman son, from Arkansas who thought he was God’s gift to women. Anyway, one day when he was too “sick” to make his appointments he said he was really ill from some bad sushi he had eaten in Ferriday, LA.
Good sushi would have been a miracle, as Ferriday is best known as home of Jerry Lee Lewis, Mickey Gilley and Jimmy Swaggart and has a population of about 3500, none Asian to my knowledge!
The “boy salesman” was actually 28 and a graduate of the University of Arkansas.
Love, Jackie
There will never be another Walt Kelly nor the denizens of the Swamp.
Jackie: ‘The “lessor “panda is far cuter than the greater panda. Is there relation to the raccoon?’
The Giant Panda is a bear, family Ursidae. Settled decades back anatomically and confirmed / DNA analysis, I think. I’ll check / Lesser Panda’s ID.
Jimmy, keep up this slant on things. It’s a hoot. As a baby boomer, I relate so much to your
strips, I have always been a fan since I first saw your strips in my newspaper way back.
Is there a song called “That Old Familiar feeling”? Know what I mean Vern?
OF about to blow, in the snow.