By way of background, I have my dad's
WWII army dog tags, and I often wear them when I ride. The theory
being, of course, that he got home in one piece (which actually makes this a Veterans Day story, not a Memorial Day story), so –
Anyway, a few nights ago, a fellow
probably in his twenties (I didn't know him) pointed at the tags and
mumbled shyly, "Thank you for your service."
I shrugged and said. "They were my
dad's, not mine." He looked a little embarrassed. I suppose I
could have left it there, but as some of my readers may be aware,
"leaving it there" is not always my strongest suit. So I
added, "He was in World War Two."
Now he didn't look embarrassed anymore.
He just looked baffled. I think I might just as well have said "He
was in the French and Indian War." Or "He was in the second
Battle of Bull Run." Would have been all the same to him, I
suspect.
Or I could have said, "He fought
with Anakin Skywalker and Obiwan Kenobi in the Clone Wars." That
might have made a light bulb come on.
You'd think all those years in the
classroom, watching that look of gradually-increasing horror on the
students' faces as they thought, "Oh lord, he's going to
over-explain again!" would have cured me of that habit.
Apparently not.
Too bad. I was going to buy him an
espresso and tell him the story about my dad hunting wild boar off
the back of a jeep with a 50-caliber machine gun in Burma, the
country which renamed itself Mayanmar in 1989 as part of the process
of throwing off its history as a British colony. Or maybe the story
of how I went from 2-S to 1-S to 1-A to 1-H, and how that kept me out
of Vietnam.
Yeah, I bet he would have enjoyed that
one.
By the way, only two "knowing what
you know now" toons made the cut – Jeff Danziger's and
Ruben Bolling's, below – because they found something
to say other than "hindsight is 20-20."
Today's toons were selected from the
week's offerings at McClatchy
DC, Cartoon Movement,
Go Comics, Politico's
Cartoon Gallery, Daryl
Cagle's Political Cartoons, About.com,
and other fine sources of toony goodness.
p3 Picks of the week: Mike
Luckovich, Rebecca
Hendin, Clay
Jones, Chan
Lowe, Tom
Toles, Signe
Wilkinson, Nick
Anderson, Stuart
Carlson, Pat
Bagley, Matt
Wuerker, and Monte
Wolverton.
p3 Best of Show: Matt
Davies.
p3 Legion of Merit: Chris
Britt.
p3 Grandfather Paradox Medal:
Jeff
Danziger.
Ann Telnaes' animation today
makes more sense if you know that training on a stationary bike is
called spinning. That being said, it's also about other
things we should remember this weekend, aside from the obvious.
Mark Fiore considers the
difference between a
dynasty and an inherited predisposition.
Tom Tomorrow has an observation
about soft targets (and a revelation about white high-tops).
Keith Knight returns
to his alma mater for a refresher on media history.
Ruben Bolling takes
us into dangerous
territory: Jeb's brain.
Red Meat's Bug-Eyed Earl
demystifies
a common urban sight.
The Comic Strip Curmudgeon
celebrates the setting of a
new record.
Comic Strip of the Day stresses
the
significance of the clipboard, and confirms in passing my belief
that everyone who ever owned a VW bus has a moment when they say they
miss it. (A real VW bus, by the way, not this
joke, about which the owners of which will never, ever wax
sentimental, I promise you. The "new Beetles" may be just a
different shell on a Golf chassis, but at least they had a passing
resemblance to the original.)
So you wanna be a sailor, huh?
Popeye was a civilian sailor – or in
the Coast Guard – for most of his early career (not counting a
one-off animated "clip" story where he joined the Army to
please Olive in 1936). He joined the Navy in this theatrical short
released November 14, 1941 – slightly over three weeks before
Pearl Harbor. What did Paramount Pictures know, and when did they
know it? The attacking ships' flag simply says "Enemy (Name Your
Own)," which at least spares us the ugly Japanese stereotypes
that are typical of most wartime Popeyes. Uncredited voice work by
Jack Mercer as Popeye and Ted Pierce as the Captain. Pierce also had
a co-credit as story writer, a job he would later fill at Warner Bros
as Tedd Pierce, where he created some classic stories with animator
Chuck Jones (hint: "Wabbit season!" "Duck season!") (Nope, that was Michael Maltese. Wake up, Bill.) The part at the end about the Popeye insignia on the Navy bombers was
true.
The p3 Sunday Comics Read-Along:
Pearls
Before Swine, Doonesbury,
Rhymes with Orange, Zits,
Adam @ Home, Mutts,
Over the
Hedge, Get
Fuzzy, Prince
Valiant, Blondie,
Bizarro, Mother
Goose & Grimm, Rose
is Rose, Luann,
Hagar
the Horrible, Pickles,
Rubes, Grand
Avenue, Freshly
Squeezed, The Brilliant Mind
of Edison Lee, and Jumble.
The Big, And Getting Bigger Since We
Began Cheating And Welcomed Back The Departed, Oregon Toon Block:
Ex-Oregonian Jack Ohman has
a plan to fit all those candidates on stage.
Ex-Oregonian Jen Sorensen takes
us on a tour of the going-rogue
gallery.
Matt Bors has
a message for bikers: Pull
your damned pants up!
Jesse Springer asks a
fair question: Rather than look to inefficient and inequitible
pay-per-mile fees to replace road-maintenance revenue lost from fuel
efficiency, why not just raise the damned gas tax?
Test your toon-captioning superpowers
at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon
contest. (Rules here.)
And you can browse The New Yorker's cartoon gallery here.
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