Road Trip!
Post-Trip Review: Oddities
Alakazam!
Note: This is the thirteenth in a series of posts describing my effort to get letters published in newspapers in every state and territory of the U.S.A. You can read the whole series here.
My favorite feature in newspapers back in the day was “News of the Weird.” I have not seen that feature lately, but on my letter-writing road trip I discovered that if you look at enough newspapers, you can build up your own collection of weird things. I captured only a fraction of the strange and noteworthy things I saw, but I hope there is enough here to give you a laugh or a momentary jolt of wonder.
First, though, a general note. My trip through newspapers across the country convinced me that free speech is alive and well in America. People who focus on the specter of censorship by government or by corporations or by extremely large media companies might not realize that free speech is going on all the time, in every community. You just have to tune into the channels where it is happening.
That said, free speech is a funny thing. You might think it looks like this:
But in reality it usually looks like this:
I’m not saying that real live free speech with the megaphone and the banjo is bad, just that it is likely to be louder and more chaotic than the Norman Rockwellian vision.
When you take a virtual tour of the country, you see coverage of regional issues that never come up in your own town. For instance, in Arkansas they realized that folks needed a reminder:
That full-color photo and reminder appeared on the newspaper’s website. Since it regards game and hunting, you might think that in the printed newspaper it was relegated to the Outdoors section. Think again:
On that day, the clarion call to run out and shoot some squirrels got as much ink as essays on self-pity, Trump, and COVID-19 vaccines. I have not seen similar hunting-related exhortations on any other paper’s editorial page. Variety is quite spicy indeed.
Every now and then you see a letter from a member of the grammar police, lamenting a columnist’s grammar or punctuation. You also see complaints about word choice, especially from older readers who don’t like to see slang or sloppiness creeping into common usage. Here a reader in Samoa makes an excellent case for o’ agada poopoo fa nodala pala walla walla bing bong:
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Every now and then, someone just comes out and says the quiet part out loud. Still in Samoa, we see a government fellow heading for his car after a good day’s work. Clearly he is satisfied after having delivered a weensy little suggestion:
You know, come to think of it, if everyone rationed everything—not just family size—based on budget and ability to support them, the government and the jails and the newspapers would be a lot smaller and we could devote more time to nice things like block parties and relaxing vacations. I actually like the good doctor’s suggestion, but it says something that it is so rarely uttered that when you do see it in print, it hits like a surprise slap in the face.
Speaking of rationing and budgeting, and also parties, notice anything here?
Where’s Daddy? Wasn’t he invited to the mortgage approval party? I’m not saying there has to be a dad, but he is rather conspicuously absent. Of course, someone had to take the picture. I myself am absent from many of my own family photos because I was manning, so to speak, the camera.
The other thing that disturbs me is the outsized level of joy over becoming committed to 30 years of interest payments. Lady and girl, it is nice to have a home, but is it party-hat-worthy to have signed up to pay that much extra for the privilege? It’s not just interest either: have you ever studied loan closing costs? Ouch. I’m truly not zapping anyone who can actually afford their mortgage, but follow the news for a week or so and you will see many stories about ruinous interest rates, loan defaults, and people who can easily afford rent but who run into big financial problems upon purchasing a home. I wish there were someone, like maybe a government minister who is also a doctor, like they have in Samoa, to tell them to budget and ration some stuff.
Here’s something from my local newspaper. Jacksonville State University got a new president:
This photo stands out for two reasons. One, does anyone else see a big red bird, or is it just me? And two, I wonder if the next child will get any of the mom’s looks, or are they all going to be carbon copies of the dad? No problem either way, just curious.
Here we have something that is gut-wrenching but which also raises questions about how to interpret art that you come across in the public sphere. I mean, given this article I now know how to interpret this particular graffiti; but uncontextualized graffiti, not so much. Out of eight billion people on the planet, all but two would probably chuckle at the sight of the pink-haired character on this wall:
Moving from the sad to the celebratory, didja hear that the party is back on in Urbana? I assume everyone is invited, though I will make no assumptions and so I would bring my own lawn chair, beverage, and tartar sauce:
In this jurisdiction, they don’t start trials with opening arguments. Actually, emphatic fingerpointing in lieu of complex jibber-jabber might save a whole lot of courtroom time while making the same…point (har-yuk):
Question: How many small-town folk, armed with what tools, does it take to kill a man and hide all evidence of his existence?
Answer: You about to find out.
You can just hear the editor sniggering as he/she writes some headlines:
Armed and dangerous from birth:
This headline writer is just mailing it in:
This guy seems to have sussed out the potential source of flooding. Any chance of him moving out of the flood plain? Is that even on the list of possibilities? I’m not saying it’s easy, just possible.
Before seeing Dog the Bounty Hunter on television, I used to think of Hawaii as a peaceful, relaxing place. But even knowing what I learned from Beth and Dog and family, the three stories on the lower left of this page are alarming:
People who say all government is bad don’t realize that when the population grows to a certain size, you need some kind of organization to which you delegate the authority to do…um…you know…different things. And lots of them:
You may walk in, but you won’t be walking out. What the hell is that thing and how does it—gulp—contracept? It looks like a portable chopper-offer:
In Lincoln they have a strange definition of “best friend”:
Like, parents, like teachers, like family, and like fellow graduates, I’m like totally stoked to be, like, valedictorian:
I hate when the non-traditional contestant gets so many “I’m not prejudiced” votes that they win out over more qualified contestants. They might as well crown this dude at the start to save time:
This would make me highly anxious. ‘Tis a pity they have no ready source of water with which to combat the flames:
Boing!