The 15 Minute Blog — Remembering The Terrible Twins of Norman Football
So, we need to be somewhere and have just 15 minutes to write and post a blog.
That is the challenge.
We are not sure what the topic should be.
Possibly jihadist terrorism. Or ducks. Or Bruce Springsteen. Or the Terrible Twosome.
Yes, we will write about the Terrible Twosome, my childhood best friend Steve Madden, and our football buddy Dallas Pryor.
Steve and Dallas were stud-hoss lineman on our sixth grade Cleveland Cougars’ champeenship team.
As I recall, Dallas, appropriately, wore a crummy, old Dallas Cowboy’s helmet. The rest of us wore new white helmets, with black stripes down the middle, custom-made with electrical tape.
Mr. Uhles’ Store
(WARNING: reading this blog could give you hypoglycemia)
I honestly don’t know why Mr. Uhles put up with us.
He ran the neighborhood store that was exactly 79 steps from my best friend Steve Madden’s front door on Nebraska Street.
We went there so often we wore a trail along Berry Road to Mr. Uhles’ store.
We loved his store, but we hated his old, asphalt parking lot.
It would heat up to about a billion degrees in Oklahoma summer.
Since we were always barefoot, we’d have to hot-foot it across the “lava”, trying not to get a stubbed toe or cut on glass or concussed by our buddy (because boys are always smashing each other just for fun).
Mrs. Uhles had let it be know that we had to smarten up before coming into her store.
That meant wiping the small stones and tar and glass and goatheads from our feet.
Once accomplished, we’d then storm into the store like the U.S. Marines.
At least 900 times every single summer day.
The Missus and Her Ducks
The Missus was going to name her boy ducks Donald and Daffy, until I explained that high-priced Disney lawyers would cover her with so many writs she’d never be able to feed her ducks again.
Hence she named them Dicky and Dashing Duck.
Dicky’s wife’s is Dancy.
This is because the Blog’s Missus likes alliteration, and this lady duck likes to wiggle her bootie a LOT. (“Like they do in Grease”, the Missus says).
Dashing Duck does not have a Missus, but, without wanting to start rumors, he appears to be crushing on Dancy. In fact, he played an active role in the, uhm, “loud and quacky courtship” of Dicky and Dancy, if you get our drift, which prompted Dashing’s Duck’s then girlfriend to fly the coop.
‘FIGHTBALL: DYING OF SUCK’ — All the Funny in the Universe Smashed into One HILARIOUS Book
(Editor’s Note: Book giveaway completed! Thanks to everyone!)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Writers are supposed to write 1,000 words a day.
Rain or shine.
Summer and winter.
In sickness and in health.
Or something like that.
But this blog has been on something of a hiatas hiatias hieties break of late, especially from funny. We have none.
We did manage to blog about Great Grandma Ashley, who was a pistol, and Millennial Douches, but we have no funny.
We blame it on Kris Wehrmeister, my butthead writer friend in Oregon.
Her insanely funny new book, Fightball: Dying of Suck, which YOU CAN BUY RIGHT NOW ON AMAZON!, has pretty much sucked all the available humor molecules right out of the whole entire universe.
So the only practical thing for this blog to do is strumpet for Kris.
What follows is just one tiny sisterly exchange between Maj, 10, and Kallan, 8, who live with their parents at PrettyAllTrue.com when not staring in Fightball: Dying of Suck.
FYI, Maj is super smart, somewhat tightly wound, and usually SPEAKS IN BOLDFACE CAPITAL LETTERS. Kallan will one day be President of these United States and almost certainly under indictment. These sisters? They are hysterical. And relentless.
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Maj:
“SOMEONE HAS TO PARENT THAT GIRL! SHE HAS JUMPED INTO THE CHAOS CHASM! THERE ARE RULES! THERE ARE RULES BY WHICH PEOPLE ABIDE. SHE NEEDS TO ABIDE OR DIE… KALLAN CRASHED INTO ME AND THEN HURLED ME INTO THE BUSHES AND THE PRICKERS. YES MOTHER, SHE HURLED ME. I AM PROBABLY COVERED IN POISON OAK AND YOU DON’T EVEN CARE. I. COULD. HAVE. BEEN. KILLED. PUNISH HER!”
Kallan:
“It’s a small path, Mom… It’s skinny… There’s not much room for passing… And then she was calling me a baby on a baby bike… And so I passed her and she fell… Maybe I called her shortie. Maybe I called her a midget on a clown bike… OK. I pushed her over. It was a tiny push, and she was all slowed down to name-call at that moment, so she only crashed and stomped around dragging her bicycle in the weeds and screaming about poison…”
Mark takes my hand. “Our children are insane.”
“Seriously,” says Kris.
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While HogsAteMySister is NOT paid to write *Amazon review, if we were, we might write something like:
“Five stars, Kris! The brilliance of your writing, to me, has always been that you have perfect pitch when it comes to dialogue. That is the rarest of gifts. The flow and word play and insanity of your brilliant children, and you being you, and Mark being him, are so very unique and wonderful. Making it look so easy is the hardest thing in the world to do. And you really piss me off being so good at it, you big ol’ butthead.”
Okay, we might leave out the last sentence because of etiquette and libel laws.
Truly, this book is good for whatever ails you, regardless of your age, and there is something magical about that.
HINT: You can order the Kindle version or a REAL BOOK from today. Amazingly, miraculously, this is the only Christmas shopping you will need to do because Kris’ book is perfect for everyone on your list including:
- difficult children
- mothers of difficult children
- mothers of really difficult children
- mothers of insanely difficult children
- mothers who drink craft beer because of their insanely difficult children
- those of us who enjoy laughing at the pain of others
- anyone who loves the idea of a series of books (yes, more FIGHTBALL will follow!) that are just perfect for reading on a plane, at the park, or while waiting to see your therapist.
Honestly. Go read Fightball: Dying of Suck right now. Your laughter will be thanks enough for me.
You could also give me a million dollars if you wanted. But it’s not necessary.
I will just stay here, living under a bridge, with the wolves, starving to death because of humor writer’s block. Ironically, I will be laughing like a crazy person as I read and reread Fightball: Dying of Suck, especially the bits I have highlighted for emergency use.
P.S. If you know Oprah, get her to read this book! And do what you can to strumpet for Kris, my butthead friend who really is an amazing writer.
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* I actually did write a hyperbolically blovated review on Amazon (scroll down on the book page). You’d think I get paid by the word…
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ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT
Leave a comment below and, really, no fooling, you could be one of three winners of your own copy! Judge’s decision (moi) is final. You have to live in the U.S. to be eligible for this giveaway because Kris is really bossy.)
Whipped With a Hankie
Grandma Ashley’s Mom and Dad.
My Great Grandma Ashley wasn’t big as a minute.
So when she threatened to whip me, I wasn’t scared, even at age three or four.
Besides, when she threatened to swat me, she was smiling that sweet old lady smile.
And brandishing her embroidered hankie — that’s what she was going to whip me with.
My Miracles 2 — ‘It Wasn’t Long Before the Church Began to Resemble a Battlefield, with Bodies Literally Strewn Everywhere’
(Not your normal bill of fare, this)
Back in August, I wrote about the many miracles that surrounded my Mother’s death in 1996. But, I never mentioned the related miracles that occurred in New Zealand … until now.
In 1994 or 1995, Mom was on oxygen 24/7 and had wasted away to 75 pounds. An undiagnosed spore had destroyed her lungs and was killing her. We were all praying for a miracle.
So when I was asked to organize a “healing Mass” in Auckland, New Zealand, by a miracle-worker named Father Peter Mary Rookey, I said ‘yes’! But only after I’d done a fair bit of homework to ensure his bonafides, as old reporters are wont to do.
My research included reading Man of Miracles, the book respected British journalist Heather Parsons wrote about “the famous healing priest from Chicago”, who himself had miraculously regained his sight as a young child.
Heather had “embedded” herself in Fr Rookey’s healing ministry, following him across Ireland, and chronicling what she called “miracles of biblical proportion”.
“From the altar, the church is a sea of humanity. The sick – in wheelchairs, on stretchers, carried or supported by others – push forward in their thousands to reach the silver-haired priest. Arms held out, Father Peter Mary Rookey OSM (Order of Servants of Mary) stops and blesses each one, laying his hands on their heads, calling on the power of Jesus to heal all their ills. And as he prays, miracles happen. The blind see, the deaf hear, the dumb say the name of Jesus and those in wheelchairs stand and walk.”
Obviously, a secular journalist writing about miracles impressed me. But what impressed me most was the old Servite priest’s humility, a quality always tied to holiness, and something that I hadn’t seen much of in my newspaper career.
As a journalist in Texas, Singapore and Washington, D.C. (1980-1988), I’d interviewed my share of big shots – senators, rock stars, sports legends, and even a billionaire. To a man, they had Frank Sinatra-sized egos and let you know they had done it “their way”.
Are All Millennials Douches?
I ask that headline question, knowing the answer, but wanting to make a point.
No, obviously, all Millennials are not douches. My son and his cousins and mates are all pretty great people. Maybe it’s a Catholic thing.
And many of your kids and grandkid Millennials are good people.
But it’s pretty obvious that there are a LOT of Millennials out there who, probably due to lousy parenting, and the corrupting influence of the Internet of Everything, are up to douchery that is beyond any douchery that has gone before.
A trio of cases in point follow:
Read More…