Road Apples by Tim Sanders
Jan. 14, 2013

How to read a newspaper

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Casting 1. READ THE NEWSPAPER YOURSELF. DON'T ACCEPT SECOND HAND VERSIONS.


Last Wednesday afternoon the phone rang and I answered it. The conversation went something like this:

ME: Hello.


CALLER: Hey, how ya' doin'?


ME (FISHING FOR A CLUE TO THE CALLER'S IDENTITY): Oh, I'm doing fine. How about you?


CALLER: Can't complain 'cept for Momma. She always complains. She was up all night with the cramps which she calls divertickelotis. And do you think she'd use that brand new porcelain chamber pot we got her? Nooo! Every hour she'd holler and bounce out of bed and go flyin' through the house to the bathroom, which is right next to the childring's room and so they can't sleep neither. Since Momma moved in we gone through two toilet plungers and three cans of Lysol. You know Momma.


ME (REALIZING I MIGHT AS WELL ASK AND GET IT OVER WITH): Uh ... who is this?


CALLER: You don't know me, but this is Jimmy Mobbs Hacklespeck, and I just called to ask about them penguins which is all over Weiss Lake.


ME: Penguins? What penguins?


CALLER: Thousands of 'em. Don't you read your own paper? It's on the front page this week!


ME: And you read the whole article?


CALLER: I don't read too good after I had that metal plate put in my head because of that accident with the four-wheeler and the cow out on Sand Mountain which you probably remember. It was in your paper. Parts of it was, anyhow. If you was to hit a cow at 40 mph you would know just what a nasty mess that can make, which was mostly what they left out. Anyhow, all my words seems to run together now. But my oldest, Junior, he read it and tole me all about it. He was very excited and said there was a whole covey of them and they had started their yearly mutation from the North Pole in the fall and headed toward the South Pole where things is all warm and toasty but they got lost and had to settle for Weiss Lake. Junior said they had landed near the Cedar Bluff Marina where there was plenty of food on the shelves if they couldn't get no fish. Junior said–


ME: And Junior read all of this in The Post?


CALLER: He said so. And he can read very good. He has been reading for two years now, and won a gold star. He does real good when he sounds them words out. He calls it Phoenix. Every morning when he gets ready for school we can hear him practicing his Phoenix in front of the mirror while he shaves. He goes into Middle School next year, God willing.


ME: How old is Junior?


CALLER: He's 21. We helt him back for football, and if he hadn't of got that disease which I forget the name of right now which makes him fall asleep anytime whether or not he's walking or talking or eating which when it's soup or barbecue can make a real mess–


ME: Those weren't penguins in the paper, Those were pelicans.


CALLER: You trying to tell me Junior can't read? I seen a picture of 'em. They flew in from the North Pole!


ME: Penguins can't fly.


CALLER: The one I seen in the picture was flying. Besides which if they can't fly how did they mutate all the way from the North Pole? If they was to walk it would take 'em ten years. Did you see the feet on that one in the paper which was about to land in the lake. He only had two feet showing, but Junior he swore that the story told how they all weighed near 130 pounds–before they was field dressed–and some of 'em had up to eight or nine feet. I ain't never heard of such, but if a bird has that much landing gear dangling around underneath it, then he'd sure better be able to fly because if he walked everywhere with that many feet he'd only go 'round in circles. I seen a sheep once at a county fair which had seven legs, only the extras was shorter, somehow. I touched one of 'em and the sheep he jerked his head up and tried to kick me with one of his good ones and–


ME: I read that pelican article, and Roy Mitchell did an excellent job. What he said was that those pelicans could weigh up to 30 pounds and have a “wing span” of up to eight or nine feet. They migrate south from the northern states and Canada every year to spend their winters in the warmer southern states along the coast. Sometimes they stop in northeastern Alabama to rest and refuel.


CALLER: So does pelicans taste like chicken?


ME: Penguins and pelicans both taste like chicken, but there's nothing to compare with a nice plate of pelican and dumplings.


CALLER: Before I let you go, just which brand of bird is it that brings newborn babies wrapped in a diaper and knows all four verses of “Stranger on the Shore?”


ME: I believe that would be your Great American Singing Stork. He always leaves the babies under a cabbage plant. Unless you raise collards.


CALLER: Oh. Thanks. I got to go. Momma is into the Frigidaire again.


2. DON'T TAKE EDITORIAL CARTOONS TOO SERIOUSLY


Last week Eric Feinsmith of Centre wrote a letter to the editor complaining about left-wing cartoonist Rob Rogers. I was a cartoonist for the Oakland Observer, Oakland University's school newspaper, back in the mid-'60s. I was not a very good cartoonist, but then again the Observer was not a very good paper, so it all worked out just fine. But, as a former really lousy cartoonist, I am fully qualified to recognize another really lousy cartoonist, and thus I recognize Rob Rogers, whose art work is childish, and whose ideas are less than enlightened. Subtlety is not his cup of tea.

But Eric, this is the very guy you should support wholeheartedly. He is the Joe Biden of editorial cartoonists. Every time Biden opens his mouth to change feet, it is a gift to conservatives. And they should be delighted every single time Rogers dips his pen in the inkwell. Guys like Biden and Rogers give their critics all the ammunition they need, and we love 'em for it.