Gabba Gabba Hey

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I lived in Queens until around my twelfth birthday, and I’ve always missed it.  I’ve always been such a square.   Recently I went to the library to hear a speech by Donna Gaines, a Ramones scholar.

 

Throughout the speech, I kept daydreaming about June 8, 1980, when my cousin, his girlfriend, some friends, and I went to a Ramones concert at Great Adventure.

 

 

Donna’s speech was good, but it wasn’t as interesting as being twenty years old, seeing the real Ramones. They were my fellow squares from Queens.

 

 

Please join Froggy, Rochelle, and everyone else, for Friday Fictioneers.

 

Annunci

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

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Monahan and Deasy were taking their daily walk, engaging in their annual reminiscence about St. Patrick’s Days gone by.

“I grew up in a world of step dancing, bagpipe lessons, green clothes, and A.O.H. meetings,” Deasy said.

“So did I,” Monahan replied.  I even tried to learn to speak Gaelic, but it was too hard.”  

 

 

Deasy, as always, couldn’t help boasting, “I met R.F.K. at his last St. Patrick’s Day Parade.”

 

 

“You’ve just admitted, old boy,” Monahan insisted, “that you’re exactly as old and decrepit as that piano.”

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Friday and St. Patrick’s Day, even though it’s neither.   Here’s my latest entry for Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers.  Toora Loora Loora.  

 

MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE

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Every morning, come rain or come shine, the local townspeople went to 9:00 Mass at St. Gabriel’s.  Each neighborhood was populated by many traditional Catholic families. 

 One Ash Wednesday, the local black cat finally got fed up with it all.  “Get a load of that,” he whined.  “No fortune tellers, no horoscopes, not even so much as a ouija board to be found!”  After a moment, he added, “Whatever happened to the days when a self~respecting black cat could count on at least some form of ignorant superstition?”

 

 

Today’s being Ash Wednesday, I couldn’t help a Lenten reference.  Welcome back to Rochelle’s  Friday Fictioneers.  It’s her basement, her rules, her game show, the quiz mistress of 72 Whooping Cough Lane.  The esteemed and distinguished C.E. Ayr has provided this week’s photo so it has a distinctive burr.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Communication Breakdown

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Copy Code      John has always been quite a fan of Henry David Thoreau.   One day, to his unbounded joy, he got a telegram explaining that he had been selected to receive an all~expenses~paid trip to find out about the pride and joy of Thoreau.

 

 

“Wow!” he said to his wife Marcia. “Maybe it’s about either ‘Civil Disobedience’ or ‘Walden’.

 

 

The moment of truth finally arrived.  When they arrived at their destination, they were a bit taken aback.  “I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” Marcia said.

 

 

Welcome back to Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers.   Jean L. Hays has given us this week’s photo prompt.

 

Holy Old Age, Batman!

 

 

 

 

Burt and Tracy Ward visited my neighborhood a while ago. They were here to give a speech about ‘Batman’ and ‘The Green Hornet’.

Burt explained that Bruce Lee died in 1975, followed by Van Williams in 2016, and Adam West last year.  That leaves only him to keep things going.

“It’s tough being the last super hero”, he explained.  “Every day I have to see the Black Beauty and the Batmobile. Of course I’m 73 years old so I have to make sure I reconcile all of this with an eight o’clock p.m. bedtime.  Now I know how Aunt Harriet and Alfred felt.”

Welcome back yet again to Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers where, this week, J. Hardy Carroll provides the photo prompt.

 

Motley Neighborhood

 The calendar in Shad’s and Gronk’s cave read 986, 000 B.C.   Every night they noticed that their neighbors were playing with something odd.

 

“I don’t know, Gronk,” Shad told her husband.  “We got one bunch of nuts on our right, think God created the world in only six days.  These other fruitcakes to the left are suckers for any newfangled scientific discovery they can spoil their kids with.”

 

“Unfortunately,” Gronk said, “my friend Noah keeps insisting it’s supposed to rain. How bad can it be though?  What are the chances of our having yet another Epic Of Gilgamesh around here?”

 

 

Welcome back to Rochelle’s  weekly Friday Fictioneers.   This week, Anshu Bhojnagarwala has graciously supplied the much~needed photo prompt.

 

 

A Nice Relaxing Time

 

 

 

 

As Harold and Ernestine were driving across the country, they decided to stop to rest near an Indian reservation.

 

 

“I’ve heard that Indians have quite an interesting history,” Ernestine reminded her husband.

 

 

“Yes,” he replied,  “unless you count their encounters with General Custer and St. Isaac Jogues, I’ll bet they’re pretty good.”

 

 

“You have to admit, don’t you,” she went on, “This scenery is so nice.  I’m so happy we have our cameras.”

 

 

“One thing I don’t get,”  Harold wondered.  “Why do they have these chairs here? They so spoil the otherwise perfect impression it all makes.”

 

 

It’s time for another of Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers.  Renee Heath has so graciously supplied this week’s photo prompt.

Keep In Touch

 “I went to Burt’s wake Friday night ,”  Toby told Debbie. 

 

 

“Burt?” his friend asked.

 

 

“You remember,” he explained.  “He was my eighth grade history teacher at O.L.P.H.  He was such a good person and likable fellow I could even forgive his having been a liberal and liked ‘Star Trek’.

 

 

“The day of his funeral,” he continued, “was the birthday of my tenth grade theology teacher, Jerry.  Life is always full of those weird coincidences.”

 

 

“It’s nice to keep in touch with friends for that long,” she reminded him. “But you always have to take the good with the bad.”

 

 

It’s time for another Wednesday of Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers.  The preceding story was inspired by the recent death of my eighth grade history teacher.   Ted Strutz  has graciously supplied this week’s photograph.

ENCHANTED! ENRAPTURED! EMBALMED!

“Today’s the sixty seventh anniversary of Curly Howard’s death,” Arthur told Eugene.  We really have to celebrate the right way.”

 

 

“You know,” Eugene said,  “it takes a lot of talent and intelligence to make infantile behavior, violence, and lack of social skills come off as legitimate comedy.  We’d better practice like crazy.”

 

 

All throughout the day and night the friends honed their “Hmmmm’s”, “La da deee la da daaaah’s”, and “Oh, a wise guy, eh?’s”. 

 

 

At the end of the night their wives arrived to drive them home, confronted with proof that the boys had enjoyed their day.

 

 

Welcome back to Friday Fictioneers, where Rochelle gets to guide us through our weekly attempt at matching a story to a photograph.  This week’s photo has been provide by yet another regular, DALE. 

Poor Choice Of Words

“What’s that?” Clem asked Floyd.

 

“Every time Super Genius Myrtle tells me how she’s decided I have to change,” his friend said, “I write it in the form of  a New Year’s resolution and put it into the jar.”

 

 

“Way I see it,” he went on, “that way it makes its point, is inconspicuous, and makes such a pretty appearance, the way I’d like her to be.”

 

 

“Why’d she storm out of the house in such a nasty mood?”  Clem asked.

 

 

“I made a slight error in judgment,” Floyd admitted.  “I told her exactly that, in exactly those very words.”

 

 

Welcome back to Rochelle’s weekly Friday Fictioneers, although it technically starts on Wednesday.

 

 

This week’s photo comes from Priya Bajpal .  The Christmas season isn’t over just yet and the year is still fairly new, so a merry and happy  both is in order.