Category Archives: Meta’s Mumblings

Meta Mumbles on about a family pet named Chico.

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While I was in grade school my grandparents had a rhesus monkey – there were times that they entertained the monkey, Chico, by sitting up a card table in the center of their living room and putting out on it a Sears and Roebuck catalog.  They would leave it there with the pages open.  That was a time when all sorts of things were for sale in their Big Book.

We would all sit around the room talking and watching the monkey browse through the pages.  He would turn each page and then carefully spread it out flat.  Then he would sit with his hands folded behind his back while exploring all of the photographs before him.  He would slowly look first at the left page from top to bottom and then the right, while chattering the whole time.

When Chico would come to the part where various breeds of dogs were pictured, he would get so excited that he sometimes flipped over backwards while he seemed to laugh – out – loud.  Then he would point to the family dog, Beau, sleeping at the feet of my grandfather.  Beau would quickly respond and go to the edge of the card  table poking his nose up by the monkey.  Chico would start pointing to a photo of one of the dogs, the breed would not matter, then point directly at Beau – back and forth his finger would go – apparently he recognized that they were all dogs – while laughing the entire time.  Beau would get excited and it seemed obvious to us, at the time, that they were communicating in humor.

And we want to think that we are the only ones that can make our thoughts known to each other.

Mumbling Meta

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I wonder how those that use or speak on the subject of “white culture” define that term – I would like to know what tangible elements they use.

This was the question Iba bounced off of me in one of our conversations several nights ago.  I purposed some possible answers – with Iba adding his possibilities.  Maybe it was people that eat white bread and mayonnaise, could it be pork and sauerkraut on New Years Eve, Irish whiskey and green beer on Saint Patrick’s day, Brats and beer on Ocktoberfest  or possibly Christmas Trees?  How about accordions and fiddles, folk tunes to clog to or square dances?  What about country and western music?  Is it the culture of dominating group?  the Extremely wealthy?  The middle class with surnames indicating some type of pedigree?

Perhaps it is the culture of those whom make war, but all empires have done that through out history, where they all white?

Our founding father’s defined white as Anglo-Saxon and Saxon landowners and protestants.  That was back when only white male landowners could vote.

you could always try and change your name I guess.

I wonder – what do you think they mean by “White” or White Culture, terms they so easily banter about right now?

Comment if you care to.

Meta Mumbles from the Past

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Iba and I were both surprised to learn that it was during the Chicago’s World Fair of 1893 when the competition between Westinghouse and Edison flooded the place with white light – that 3 new foods where introduced:

Hamburgers

Ice Cream Sandwiches

and

Diet Soda

How American.

Side note:  One day after the fair opened the bank panic of 1893 started.

Source:  Spanish American War Documentary, PBS.  YouTube

Have a better than average day

Meta’s Sleep Workings

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While writing out my 60s jokes for this blog, because it had been so many years since telling them last, I just couldn’t remember the second stanza of the elephant trilogy.  I asked others and then scanned their lists of elephant jokes on the internet to no avail.

Finally I thought of my memory aids.  The first ones that I had learned in a memory course that I took during the 70s.  As I cozied into my bed for the night I thought about what I wanted to remember then let myself forget it and relax into sleep.

Sure enough, still in bed the following morning it came to me without bidding.  If you are puzzling over a project or choice think over the problem – forget it- sleep – the answer will occur to you shortly after waking.

If you have things on your mind that you want to accomplish the next day that are keeping you awake try writing them down.  Afterwards forget about them as you cuddle back onto your pillow.  Rest soon follows.

Another technique to bring rest – picture yourself lying in the sand on a warm beach with sea breezes keeping you totally comfortable – feel your body grow heavy – sinking into the nice warm sand.  You will soon fall asleep.

My grand mother taught me that if I concentrated on the time I wanted to wake – then glanced at the clock – I could wake at the time I wanted with out the use of the alarm.

These sleep workings have rarely failed me – nor Iba after I taught him.

Absurd Jokes from the 60s by Meta

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What’s big and purple and rides the waves?    Moby Grape

Why do elephants have pink eyes?   So they can hide in cherry trees

Have you ever seen an elephant hiding in as cherry tree?

works – doesn’t it

Why do the natives go into their huts between four and five in the afternoon?

That’s when the elephants jump out of the cherry trees

What’s red and green and goes round and round?

a frog caught in a blender

The Dirty Joke by Meta

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As a child it was not uncommon for an older youth to ask if I wanted to hear a dirty joke – After my affirmative answer the response would come – “A pig fell into a mud puddle” followed by a hard laugh on their part while I thought it was stupid and that it wasn’t really even a joke.

I was just 14 years old and in my bed when my grandfather came to visit with my parents over hard drinks.  With my bedroom door open and at the top of the stairs I could clearly hear my light hearted grandfather tell the first real dirty joke I had ever heard.

It went something like this…

A young couple were out parking in their car and began fooling around.  As they became heated up a police man pulled up beside them and they were arrested.

They were put into adjoining jail cells for safe keeping and left alone while their parents were sent for.  Soon the couple were billing and cooing through the thin wall between them and they heated up again.Then the boy took out his pocket knife and carved a hole in the wall with instructions to her that he was going to stick “IT” through so she could hop on and they could have their fun.

That worked.

He told her that any time she wanted more she was to rap on the wall three times.

Meanwhile her father had arrived, picked up his daughter and the maid was sent in to clean the cell.  As she brought in her cleaning supplies – her mop fell and struck the wall three times.  As he stuck “IT” through the hole in the wall.  The maid yelled, “Eek!,  A bald headed mouse.”

That became my vision of a man’s thingy(?) until I had experiences of my own.

Meta Q.

Meta Mumbles on and on

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Here are three jokes That I was told by my birth father many years ago….

Q:  If a church has no doors or windows –  How do the people get in and out?

A:  The church was holey

 

Q:  What did the Preacher say when he saw the Church burning?

A:  “Holey Smoke”

 

Q:  Little fly on the wall

Ain’t you got no clothes at all?

Ain’t you got no shimmy shirt?

Ain’t you got no pretty skirt?

Ain’t you cold?”