"That new Alco store
is huge," Ivan said. "Momma can get lost in the grocery store. I'll look for her all day in Alco."
"Randall Moore bought the coffee for the early risers at Paul's Cafe last Wednesday," Ivan reported. "Randall was 90 years old. When I get to be ninety, I'll buy the coffee. That's a promise."
"Polkas and politcians," said Ivan, "when you've heard one, you have heard them all."
"Jim Anthony stopped me on the street and asked if the basketball season had started yet," Ivan said. "I asked him what made him think so. He said, 'Looks like you got a basketball hid under your shirt.' Classic case of the pot calling the kettle black."
"Linton Lull and I engaged in hard physical labor last Wednesday afternoon," Ivan said. "We were sure the members of the As the Bladder Club would be impressed. But no - all they could talk about was some accident. But they fouled their nest. Whenever they need some hard physical labor done, they don't need to call me or Linton."
"The price of gasoline doesn't seem to have altered Smith Center's driving habits much," Ivan said. "Last Friday morning there were 14 cars and pickups parked around Paul's Cafe. There were 17 customers inside. If you remember your high school algebra, you could figger that a maximum of three vehicles had more than one person in it."
"Minor surgery," Ivan said, "is something that happens to someone else. I'll tell ya, when someone starts whittling on my body with a knife, that's major."
"Linton Lull has had about all of us he can stand," Ivan said. "He is seriously thinking about heading off for Arizona in a few weeks. I think he wants to escape the Kansas wind. Both the one created by Mother Nature, and the one created by the As the Bladder Fills Club."
"Smith Center set a new national high school record for scoring the most points in one quarter of a high school football game," Ivan reported. "They scored 72 points in the first quarter against Plainville. The previous record of 66 points in one quarter was set back in 1926 by a high school team in Arizona. That record has stood for 81 years."
"I watched Smith Center play Plainville last Tuesday," Ivan said. "The quarterback for Plainville played only about two yards deep. I guess you would call that the sawed-off shotgun."
"Me N Momma are going to have to cut back on our going," Ivan said. "It seems to me like everywhere we go anymore we are just in the way. People will say, 'Oh, no you're not.' Well, I can tell when people are thinking, 'What are these old people doing here?'"
"Gary Gardner sat across the table from me at Paul's Cafe last Thursday morning," Ivan said. "I got to thinking every time Gary's name was on a ballot, I voted for him. Then I got to thinkin' farther. Every time Janis Lee's name appeared on a ballot, I voted for her. Then I got to thinking farther. Every time Jim Fetter's name appeared on a ballot, I voted for him. The first time I voted for Jim, he was a Democrat. A Rudy Windscheffel democrat. But as he got old and his vision dimmed, he became a Republican."
"The reason Smith Center scored 72 points in the first quarter of the Plainville football game is because the High School Activities Association wouldn't let them fire their cannon. The team didn't hear the cannon and so they thought they hadn't scored. It took em 72 points to discover their was no cannon. Since the Activities Assocation won't let us shoot our cannon or blow our horn, what we ought to do is just not send the gate receipts in to them. If they won't let us shoot our cannon or blow our horn, we just won't send em our money."
"When I was in high school I had deceptive speed," Ivan said. "I was slower than I looked."
"What I'd like," Ivan said, "is to have a shop where I could do creative wood crafts. But if I was in a wood-working shop, it wouldn't be long until they started calling me Three-finger Burgess."
"Having a non-smoking area in a cafe," Ivan said, "is about like having a non-peeing area in a swimming pool."
"Linn Hall asked his grandson, Noah, what he did in school that day," Ivan said. "Noah, a kindergartner, said, 'Just the same oh same oh.'"
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