photocollage by Reina Lopez; collection from Louise Ekerson

Ekerson Indian Artifacts

This collection of artifacts belongs to Louise Ekerson. The arrowheads were given to her by her father many years ago. She doesn’t know where they came from or why he collected them. But her father lived in Salem, Oregon, so they may be either Chemeketa or Kalapuya.  

The pieces below the arrowheads are Navajo. In the top two items, the lines you see are actually human hair. Louise believes the bottle is made from a turtle shell.

compiled by Bob Buddemeier

The true Word Nerd yearns for the Golden Age in which insults and critical commentary were art forms rather than tiresome strings of inappropriate adjectives and threadbare expletives.

The following examples were culled from two books by John Winokur, “The Portable Curmudgeon” and “The Portable Curmudgeon Redux.”  Some of them originated fairly far in the past – but consider the audience.

Any similarity to contemporary situations or people is entirely coincidental.

People, generic and specific

She was good at playing abstract confusion in the same way a midget is good at being short.  Clive James on Marilyn Monroe

I did not attend his funeral, but I wrote a nice note saying I approved it.   Mark Twain

Mr. Atlee is a very modest man.  But then he has much to be modest about.  Winston Churchill

He mistakes verbal felicity for mental inspiration.  Aneurin Bevan on Winston Churchill

In Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Canada has at last produced a political leader worthy of assassination.  Irving Layton

Taft meant well, but he meant well feebly.   Theodore Roosevelt on William Howard Taft

Places and their populations

London – Crowds without company and dissipation without pleasure.  Edward Gibbon

Strip away the phony tinsel of Hollywood and you’ll find the real tinsel underneath.  Oscar Levant

The English instinctively admire any man who has no talent and is modest about it.  James Agate

California:  It is the land of perpetual pubescence, where cultural lag is mistaken for renaissance. Ashley  Montagu

What a glorious garden of wonders the lights of Broadway would be to anyone lucky enough to be unable to read.  G. K. Chesterton

The arts and entertainment

Television – a medium.  So called because it is neither rare nor well done.  Ernie Kovacs

He writes his plays for the ages – the ages between five and twelve. George Jean Nathan on George Bernard Shaw

Most rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read.   Frank Zappa

I didn’t like the play, but then I saw it under adverse conditions – the curtain was up.   George S Kaufman

This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.   Dorothy Parker

The scenery in the play was wonderful, but the actors got in front of it.  Alexander Woollcott

This is not at all bad, except as prose.  Gore Vidal on “Winds of War,” by Herman Wouk

Aging

It is after you have lost your teeth that you can afford to buy steaks.  Pierre August Renoir.

As you get older the pickings get slimmer but the people don’t.  Carrie Fisher

Child-Proof Bottle Tops:  Allen Ginsburg said that he saw the best minds of his generation destroyed by madness.  I have seen the best minds of my generation go at a bottle of Anacin with a ball-pein hammer.  P. J. O’Rourke

(Nit Wit Newz is an unauthorized, often unreliable, on-line news service designed to keep Manor residents abreast of the inconsequential, unverified, and trifling events that dramatically shape and inform our everyday lives here at Rogue Valley Manor.)

THE GREENING OF THE MANOR

(Mrs.): Cucumbers, dear?

(Mr.): Yes, please. Just a couple of slices here on my Fruit Loops.

(Mrs.): More coffee?

(Mr.): For sure. I think I’ll need it today.

(Mrs.): Really? What’s on your agenda?

(Mr.): Well, I’ve got an appointment with the Dining Services people up at the Manor. As you well know, I’m continually trying to get them to serve even more cucumbers to their residents.

(Mrs.): Why the concern? Those Dining Service people must love you. You said that the
Manor’s the largest buyer of cucumbers in Jackson county. They’ll welcome your suggestions to purchase more if you give them reason to.

(Mr,): Yeah, well maybe…

(Mrs.): Sweetie, they loved your idea of packing three cucumber slices in every take-out salad container. You convinced them to include cukes in the Mountain View salad bar almost every night. The new menu in the Manor dining room includes cucumbers and so does the Chop Salad in the Bistro. And that “starter” item you suggested for Arden where they hollowed out two inch slices of cucumbers and filled them with an exotic avocado mixture—that was culinary genius and sales genius.

(Mr.): I know, I know, but that may be my problem.

(Mrs.) What do you mean?

(Mr.): Well, I’m getting hints that maybe we’ve done too good of a job. They think that CCF maybe creeping in among some of the residents.

Mrs.): CCF?

(Mr.): Yeah, Chronic Cucumber Fatigue—too much of a good thing, I guess. Apparently they’re getting a few complaints. Some people may be maxing out on cucumbers. Others, it seems, can’t handle cukes—you know, burps, heartburn, indigestion, that sort of thing.

(Mrs.): Just don’t you worry, darling. That’s nonsense, most people love cucumbers. And you are Jackson County’s Cucumber Advisory Board’s very best salesman. Why, just last year, at their annual board meeting, they voted you “Mr. Cucumber of 2022.” It made me so proud.

(Mr.): Yeah, that was a real honor.

(Mrs.): And it meant that you’ve been able to drive around in that cute little, cucumber shaped green car all year long. I love the bumper sticker slogan you came up with. How does it go? Oh yeah, “Cucumbers—the taste that lingers!”

(Mr.): You’re right, but here’s my problem: we’re coming to the end of the year and there’s an upstart sales guy that looks like he’s closing in on me. No one’s ever won the title of “Mr. Cucumber” two years in a row, and I want to be that guy.

(Mrs.): And you will be, I’m sure of that. But that reminds me, did you ever present my recipe for the sliced cucumbers floating in lime Jello to the Dining Service committee? It’s so colorful. My bridge group loved…

(Mr.): Sorry, I guess I forgot to tell you, they tested it out and it didn’t go over very well. Lets put that aside for the moment, I’ve got to come up with a new, big idea now for my meeting today. You know, I was searching for ideas on “Cucumbers” in Wikipedia the other day, and it said among other things, that cucumbers were a ”repellent against wood lice and fish moths,” That’s pretty interesting, but I’ve been unable to figure out a way to work that sales point into my pitch to the Manor to get them to use more cukes.

(Mrs.): I have every confidence you’ll come up with something. Ideas are your stock in trade. Didn’t you come up with…

(Mr.): Hey, wait a minute, this is November, it’s Thanksgiving time. The Manor puts on this huge feast for their residents. I’m thinking turkey. I’m thinking turkey dressing. I’m thinking turkey cucumber dressing. They’ll need to order a heck of a lot more cases of cucumbers for that.

(Mrs.): You see? Oh, darling, I knew you’d come through. Now let me think, I believe I’ve got a recipe for cucumber dressing they can use. It should be right here…

(Mr.): Oh boy, here they come—the ideas are beginning to flow. We could print up a table-tent card to put on the serving table next to the bowl of cucumber dressing: “Try this delicious new Cucumber Turkey Dressing and protect yourself against wood lice and fish moths.” What do you think?

(Mrs.): Ahh, I’m not too sure…

(Mr.): Well, maybe I’ll leave it up to the Dining Services people to decide on that. But how about this for Christmas—they also have a big time spread up at the Manor and when I think of Christmas food, fruitcake pops into my mind. Those fruitcake guys have had the Christmas gift food niche all to themselves for what—a couple hundred years or so?. Time for them to move aside for— cukecakes! Can you guess what the main ingredient will be? Did I hear you say cucumbers?

(Mrs.): Yes, cucumbers, indeed.

(Mr.): You got it! Hey, this is a win-win-win-win-win concept. The RVM residents will love the Cuke Cakes at their Christmas dinner, that’s win # 1; Win #2, the Dining Services people will look like innovative food geniuses; The RVM Foundation group wins—that’s #3—since they can make some bucks by gift wrapping the cakes and selling them to residents as gifts for friends and relatives instead of those tired old fruitcakes; the fourth winner is the Cucumber Advisory Board—cukecakes will give them a whole new revenue stream, and win #5—I’ll be “Mr. Cucumber” for an unprecedented, two years in a row!

(Mrs.): That would be just wonderful, dear.

(Mr.): Yep, this is getting really exciting. Boy oh boy, I can’t wait, I’m going to jump in my car and head for the Manor right now. Wish me luck.

(Mrs.): Oh, you won’t need any luck, they’ll love your cukecakes idea.

(Mr.): Boy, I hope so. Well, see you tonight! What’s for dinn…oh, never mind, I think I know. .

—A. Looney

by Eleanor Lippman

My grandfather, “Pop” we grandchildren called him, liked sending greeting cards for important occasions. This was a very American tradition, something that didn’t exist during the late eighteen nineties in Ukraine as he was growing up as a child in a very poor family, utter poverty, a family that often went hungry in lean times.

It is important to realize that Pop said he could not read or write in English. He did have a rudimentary education and could read and write basic things, probably either Hebrew or Russian. I remember as a child how he kept the accounts of his customers: written with the stub of a pencil on the back of a brown paper bag. His records looked like chicken scratch to me, but that is the way he kept his business accounts.

Also as a young child, I knew that after my grandfather left the room, my parents would laugh uproariously at the cards he gave them. It wasn’t until I was old enough to read that I understood why.

When a birthday or anniversary was imminent, Pop would walk from D and Cambria Streets in the Frankford area of Philadelphia, to the nearby Woolworth’s 5 and Dime store on Frankford Avenue to choose a card. It was a ritual purchase for each child, each son or daughter in-law, each grandchild.

One of the earliest birthday cards I remember receiving from Pop had an explosion of flowers, an enormous bouquet that filled the front of the card. Above the flowers in neat silver cursive lettering across the top it read, “Happy anniversary”. Inside was an elaborate and long poem dedicated to everlasting love and devotion. At the bottom, in large black letters was his signature: a huge flourished capital letter “A” followed by his last name. He had learned to write his name soon after arriving in Canada. He needed to do so in order to sign checks and other important legal papers.

As an aside, I need to say that during a trip to New Orleans, Louisiana, I spent some time in the genealogy section of their public library looking for any information about my grandparents and my mother’s time living in Algiers (which was almost part of New Orleans) between 1913 and 1918. I was aware that my grandfather had applied to become a citizen, so his naturalization paper records would have been on microfilm in New Orleans. Searching records stored on film was no easy task in those early days. The equipment was large and bulky and the reels of film contain hundreds if not thousands of records. No Boolean search was possible; it was a matter of loading each reel and cranking through record after record in a darkened room. After hours of doing this, it was easy to give up. Recording these records was often sloppy and I could imagine workers tediously capturing image after image and becoming weary and careless. So record after record came and went on the screen as I searched for his name. Soon, I was becoming hypnotized and started to nod off, but still prevailed. Still rolling the images forward. This was my only opportunity, this one precious afternoon because the next day I was scheduled to return to southern California. Page after page flowed past my weary eyes. Then, suddenly, the huge flourished “A” appeared! It was Abe’s signature, unchanged from when I saw it on my birthday card thirty years later.

As I think of this now, I wonder. My grandfather was no dummy. It is hard to believe that after so many years, he could not figure out from the labels on the cans and packages in his grocery store how to read in English. I suspect that, in fact, he was actually able to read English but never admitted it to anyone. If that is true, the greeting cards he purchased were always one huge joke on everyone. The picture on the front of the card always seemed to be appropriate, but the message inside was always so wrong. Besides anniversaries, there were condolence cards, congratulations on your confirmation, get well, and others. I bet he got a big laugh out of every inappropriate card he ever sent.

Here’s to you Pops! You got the last laugh.