Now That's Funny. I Don't Care Who You Are

"Humor is a bad experience plus time"  I believe Will Rogers once said this or at least Buddy Greig gave him credit when he related the quote to me.  I have found this to be true in most all embarrassing situations I have experienced during my life.  Being somewhat left brain I tend to use a lot of graphs and formulas to help me understand things.  Accepting Roger's hypothesis as the truth, then:

H = E + T

                                                                                                                                                           where H = Humor, E = Bad Experience and T = The time it takes to get over the embarrassing event.

Sometimes the "T" is only minutes and sometimes days or years.  But, eventually you can look back on something and laugh about it.

In my personal experiences, I can vouch for this being true.  My first application of Roger's Theory occurred in Ms. Vitterbo's second grade class at South Park Elementary School on Highland Ave.

I was an innocent kid who did not know that flatulence was not socially acceptable in public. After letting one "rip", Ms. V hollered, "JAMES HUGH".  I learned two things right there, 1) Farting should be left to the playground and 2) I preferred being called Jimmy.  The other variable in the formula also came into play, while my T  was for a duration of many years,  The T for the rest of the students in the class was only a few seconds.

Once while fiddling with a foam ear plug, I somehow unconsciously put it in my nose.  Realizing what I had done, my actions resulted in pushing it further in.  As panic struck I was confronted with the possibility of going to Medical to have it removed.  This would not have been a good idea as my good friend, Dr. Webb would not have maintained "the patient/client privilege" when it came to an event such as this.  Gaining control of the situation, I decided to check it out in the rest room mirror.  On the way, I got the brilliant idea of closing one nostril and blowing.  It worked.  It shot out like a cannonball.  Being confronted in the hall by Arlene, the secretary, I admitted what I had done.  My T was about one year, hers was only seconds.

I once dropped a touchdown pass in the end zone in high school.  I am expecting my T to be up at the 50th year reunion.

At my retirement party, My Mother even told stories on me.  My Mother for God's sake!!. 

Conversely thinking, my T was only seconds when my lifetime friend, George, tripped in the middle of the road chasing a foul ball.  It still wasn't funny to him the next day when he arrived at the park to find that we had found a piece of chalk and made a body outline on the road where he had "bit the dirt".

All of this said brings me to the inspiration for this blog.  While eating lunch in a local deli a couple of days ago a potential humor event happened to a young woman.  I was sitting at a table in the back, near the restrooms when this young lady dressed in a professional looking pant suit briskly walked by.  As she passed I noticed that she had a piece of toilet paper hanging from the top of her pants to the floor.  I mean it had to be five feet long.  She was walking so quickly that no one could get over their "gasp" quick enough to say anything.  When she got to the front and had to stop for the door someone evidently told her and she frantically removed the paper and quickly exited.  The entire restaurant started chuckling at the same time. 

I have been wondering what is the duration of that young lady's T. 

Shift Work in Tennessee

Unless you have worked in a 24 hr shift operations that requires overtime to keep the work flowing, you may not understand this.  But, before I can tell the story, I must explain a few things.

Most operations keep up with the actual overtime hours a person works and the first one on the list is the one with the fewest hours. Then the next lowest, etc.  Each time they work those hours are added and they go back in order.

This was not the  case in the textile fiber operation I worked in the late 60s.  Although similar in principle, our system just charged opportunities not hours.  If you needed a person to fill a crew, you got the overtime list and went to the man with the lowest opportunities and contacted him.  If he worked he was marked with a "W", refused a "R" or was unavailable for any reason he was given an "O".  Each carried the same weight.  So the list for each particular group would have eligible employees listed with a series of Ws, Rs or Os by their name.

Fibers operations required a lot of manpower and the particular area in this ante dote had about 70 people on each shift.  Each shift had three first line supervisors and a second line supervisor.  In this event, Shorty Sizemore was the first line and Tom Bernard the second line.

It was about 4 in the morning when Shorty came up to the office with the Overtime Board. When Tom questioned him, Shorty said someone had gone home sick and he need to get someone from the day shift to come in early and finish up the "hoot owl" shift.

The first person on the list was Hiram.  Shorty dialed the number and when he asked to speak to Hiram, he began stuttering and apologizing and hung up the phone.  Hiram, a process operator in his 40s, had worked days the previous day.  After going home he had a heart attack and died instantly.
When Tom asked Shorty what was the matter, Shorty explained Hiram's recent passing.  Tom, pushed his glasses up his nose, asked Shorty,  "Well, are you going to give him and "O" or a "R".

One Man's Junk is Another Man's Treasure

I look forward to junk mail.  Yep, you heard it right.  Before, most of it went straight to the trash.   I got to analyzing what I was getting in the mail.  Most of it was credit card applications. I have been a member of American Express since 1984 and don't need another creditor.  While discussing this problem with my friend, Jay O'Neal, he suggested how to handle this issue.  If the junk contains a prepaid, self addressed envelope, he simply mails the empty envelope back.

I thought about that and since I am a retiree with a part time job, I certainly have time to open all of this junk mail.  Now, I have added to my morning coffee, paper and Suduko the task of handling the junk mail from the day before.  I usually write them a nice little note, thanking them for their interest and put it in the mail. 

In so doing  I am providing the US Postal service revenue and more job security for the postal workers as well as the clerks that have to process the envelopes at their final destination.  Since most are mailed to destinations in the US (Today's batch was returned to DE, NY and UT), I am boosting the US economy.
Unless, of course, they are just loaded on a boat and shipped to Mumbai.  But,  I am a "glass half-full" guy!

By the way, have you ever noticed the interest rates on some of those credit cards? 



I'm talking baseball....Mickey and the Duke...

Back to the Day Care Centerat "The Backstop.

In addition to playing sandlot baseball every day of the summer, The Boys of Highland Avenue also collected baseball cards.  Yep, these are the same cards that our Mothers threw away when they cleaned the attic/closet, etc when we went off to school.   The same ones we attached to our bicycles to make noise.  The same ones that would be worth a lot of money today if we would have kept them.

In the 50's baseball cards could be bought for a penny and each one included a piece of bubble gum.

With a nickle you could get five cards and five pieces of pink bubble gum.  Today cards cost a lot more and there is no gum.  The bubble gum was not of good bubble blowing quality and after getting the taste from it you would normally throw it away.  In the hot, humid Texas summers it could make a big mess on your shoes if it didn't hit the trash can.  Not everyone threw their gum away.  My little brother had begun a collection with his purchases. Somehow, he had managed to chew 25 or 50 pieces of gum into one large ball.  He kept it in the refrigerator at home and on game day he would retrieve it and put it in his mouth.  It gave the appearance he had a wad of tobacco much like Nellie Fox.

On one of those hot days my brother, Chub, and his bubble gum "wad" were at the back stop for our daily game.  Since he was about three years younger than the rest of us and could catch the ball, he got to play first base.  The game progressed with Chub on my team and George Fortune on the other.  George batted left handed.  When he came to bat, the outfielders (2) moved to center and right as left field was now out of play for him.   Chub was day dreaming when George hit a screaming line drive down the base line.  The ball caught Chub above the left eye.  He hit the ground like a sack of potatoes.  With blood gushing from the wound over his eye, he looked up and said,  "Where's My Gum".    Bobby Kinnear retrieved the "wad" and when Chub got home from the doctor with about ten stitches in his head, the "wad" was waiting for him in the refrigerator. 

If we had a museum at "The Backstop", the gum would be on display



We Held a 2-1 lead, then...

It was 1964 and we were sophomores in college.  The only Modified Sports Competition (MSC) on TV was a black and white program called Home Run Derby.  Computers were primarily vacuum tube systems that occupied large rooms.   Information was input via ticker tapes or punch cards.  You had to know Fortran, Algol or some other weird language to communicate with them.  Therefore, Fantasy Football was nearly impossible with the use of a slide rule and steno pad.  It was about ten years before the TV show "Superstars" would be aired.   But, we had already invented our own version.

Bobby Katz and I had befriend Frank Stahl of Ohio and Mike Johnson from Nederland, Texas.  All of us had been high school athletes and still had the competitive juices flowing.  We developed our own version of superstars and picked teams to compete.  The competition would consist of 10 events, some modified (field goal kicking) and some regular sports (golf) and some track and field events among others.

Mike and I formed one team and Bobby and Frank, The Yank, the other.   After the first three events of golf, bowling and 2 on 2 basketball, Mike and I held a 2-1 lead.  The fourth event was the one that would make history and be talked about in the annals of MSC for years to come.

#4. HITCHHIKING:

The plan for the hitchhiking contest was designed such that each team would be dropped off in Winnie, Texas at a designated spot at 1:00pm on consecutive Sundays.   They had to get to Alice Keith Park in Beaumont.  A distance of 25 miles.  The team with the quickest time would win event #4.

The stage was set.  Bobby and Frank would go the first Sunday.  Mike and I would drop them off and drive back to South Park and await their arrival with stop watch in hand.  At exactly 1:00pm we left them on Hwy 146.  IH 10 was not complete and the shortest way back was a two lane highway, known then, as the Beach Road.  We were about five miles down 146 when a honking car passed with Bobby and Frank hanging out the windows waving at us.   They were waiting for us when we got back to the park.  Mike and I conceded the victory and didn't even take our turn.

The Superstar competition ended in a 2-2 tie.  The other events were never held.  I don't recall why.  I think Mike got a girl friend and the rest of us went bowling.

Bobby and Frank The Yank set a record that still stands.  It rivals the fetes of Cal Ripken, Nolan Ryan, Ernie Nevers, Richard Petty and Linda Lovelace.  The days of hitching a ride to the picture show are gone forever.

Modified Sports Competition

What are Modified Sports, you ask?  They are competitive events where, by necessity, the Process, Systems and/or Structures of an established game are changed to allow competition, or, you just invent a new game.  For example, our sandlot baseball game was a modified sport because we never had 18 players.  Therefore, right field was a foul ball, no catcher so no stealing, etc.

Other than the the sandlot games at the George W. "Buddy" Fortune Backstop, we played Tennis Ball, Full Contact Basketball, Touch Football, Pass Patterns and numerous invented games we will discuss later.

Tennis Ball was developed by  Craig Christopher and played in the power line right of way behind his house.  Because of the amount and shape of land only two bases and home plate were used.  A tennis ball was used instead of a baseball and the basic rules of baseball were applied.

Full Contacted Basketball was invented by Gene Coleman and played on a six foot goal with an undersized basketball in his backyard. No dribbling and NO fouls. A lot of busted lips, black eyes and bloody noses resulted.

Touch football was played every Sunday at Alice Keith Park.  Everyone knew there was a game and just showed up. It was an All passing game.  You had four downs to complete three passes for a first down. Everyone on offense was an eligible receiver.  There was a short period of time (circa 1963-1964) that we moved the game into the high school stadium. During this time we had some black athletes from nearby join the game.  Several of the players went on to play in the NFL (Bubba and Lawrence Smith, Johnny Fuller).  This game only lasted a couple of months as the school officials locked up the stadium so we couldn't get in.  At that time the area was still segregated and I always felt the field was locked because some local adults objected to us white kids of Highland Ave. playing with blacks, but never heard anyone admit it.  I played in this weekly game until I graduated from Lamar and moved to Tennessee.  I understand it continued many years after that. 

Other times, games were invented for the circumstances.  In order to satisfy our competitive juices whiletraveling on a road trip each person would select a particular animal specie and we would count road kill.   Whoever had possums usually won. However, rabbits, armadillos and raccoons could be competitive.

Over/Under bets are always popular. Number of home runs hit in a college game, how many minutes late someone will be, number of trips someone will make to the bathroom,  etc.

While attending a NASCAR race a female C&W artist was scheduled to sing the National Anthem.  My friends got up a bet on whether or not she would display cleavage.  Then they argued over the results.

Once I even challenged my son's friend, Steven Roby, to a fete of strength or maybe it was an endurance event.  In any case, Steven, who was an under aged teenager at the time kept bugging me to give him a beer.  We were riding back from a weekend at Crystal Beach and I told him if he could hold his hand in the ice and water of the cooler for two minutes, I would let him have a beer. Steven proved his "manhood" and made it to the whistle. 

There were many other modified sporting events of competition invented on the spot and still are today.  Usually the competition is among really good friends and the winner has bragging rights until the next event.  In fact, Fantasy Football, is a modified sports competition. 

All of the above were real and conducted in SE Texas.  However, they all pale in comparison to the Greatest Modified Sporting Event Ever.  I will share this in my next blog

I can do it, I can do it, I can.....

After years of making New Year's Resolutions to improve my health, wellness and mind, I finally gave up in 2007.  I had one goal for that year and it was to personally watch 100 baseball games.  I hate to report that I was only able to watch 88.  The following year I slipped to 83.  I have been accused of riding around at night looking for lights. 

As 2011 kicks off I do not plan to set any quantitive goals.  But, I do plan on watching as much baseball as possible.  The first game on my schedule is 2/22/11.  Lamar plays Rice in Houston at 4:00pm.  I plan on being there.  This is one resolution I can keep.

By the way, I am overweight, out of shape and lazy, but I do work the suduko puzzle every morning