Thanksgiving’s timing couldn’t be better. In the midst of many tensions, it’s a good time to count many blessings, not the least of which is a moment to get together for a holiday laugh at ourselves.
Readers and the Star-Telegram have created a bit of mirth for one another.
A gentleman called with a cryptic request for information. “My wife has allergic allergies,” he said. “I understand that the Star-Telegram has a newsprint that’s essentially oil from bees. Can you give me enlightenment on that one?”
Well, it’s the same reason that there’s fluoride in your facial tissue. You never know how people are going to use things.
But seriously, Star-Telegram newsprint is 40 percent recycled content and 60 percent pine, according to Gerald Zenick, vice president of operations. So it’s likely that bees do figure into the newsprint equation, having pollinated the pine seedlings.
Then there was the lady in Parker County who called the day after we ran a story about Wiccans on Sunday’s Page One. I’d figured we’d have heck to pay for running a story like that on the Lord’s Day.
“Our preacher really got after y’all – from the pulpit – for puttin’ that witch on Page One,” the lady said. “I’m not sayin’ who I am; I’m not sayin’ who he is. So quit askin’. I’ll tell you one thing, though: We’re Methodists, not witches.”
One afternoon, my phone rang at 4:09. I answered but heard only heavy breathing. Heavy, rhythmic breathing. Deep, heavy, rhythmic breathing. Very deep, heavy, rhythmic breathing. I was mesmerized for a minute but snapped out of it and hung up.
At 4:12 p.m., the phone rang again. “This is Jack,” the caller said, chuckling. “Reckon I dozed off.”
Another reader with a melodic, baritone voice and an exotic accent called while in a swoon of sorts, saying he was entranced by the music on an airline commercial. “Have you heard these?” he asked. “It is the most beautiful music in the world, and there are beautiful women in the background. It is music such as you’ve never heard. I must know what it is.”
With great passion, he sang a few bars, leading me to suspect that this guy probably has the world’s best time in a shower. Turns out that the music was pretty catchy stuff from The Flower Duet in Leo Delibes’ opera Lakme.
There was a lady in Mansfield who had been reading columnist Art Chapman’s recipe for crab meat bisque and suddenly felt like throwing up, so she called.
“Look at that last ingredient – 12 teaspoon nutmeg,” she said. “You don’t put 12 teaspoons of nutmeg in anything unless it’s a jar.”
The recipe should have said 1/2 teaspoon. But sometimes errors accidentally promote fractions to whole-number status.
It’s like technology author Mitch Ratcliffe said: “A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history, with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila.”
Yep. We have to watch these computers. Their spellcheck programs, for example, prefer Tailbone for Taliban and Osaka for Osama.
But nothing technological can equal the whiffs of a human writer. That’s why on behalf of all those who write either full time or whenever they can (as in my case), I give thanks for copy editors who protect writers and readers from things like this:
A columnist was waxing so poetic about a trip that he got hopelessly lost in his thoughts: “Passing over the Sabine River from Texas into Louisiana, my tongue floated away in my mouth.”
These lapses were also straightened out:
“Running toward the embassy’s main entrance to man his post, the bomb exploded.”
“The couple met at a fundraiser to protect whales and have a 2-year-old son.”
That’s the spirit. Live large.
Happy Thanksgiving, y’all.
