Pokin Fun | Doc Blakely
There is an old saying, “The hasty word like the spent arrow can never be retrieved.” The younger generation may not even know what is meant by a spent arrow so let me explain that it has nothing to do with spending or archery. There are many axioms, which incidentally are not related to hatchets, machetes or tomahawks. An ax is an ax as in Ax Murderer, Ax chopping of wood or Ax somebody somethin’.
So it was with great interest recently when an elderly friend, of which I have many because I am older than dirt myself, asked as we loitered around the free coffee and donut section at a blood donor meeting, “Can y’all help me? I’m trying to think of a saying that goes, ‘Some days are somethin’ and others are ‘somethin’ else. How does that go?” I volunteered that John Denver wrote the song, Some Days are Diamonds, Some Days are Stone. Another guy said he thought it was Some Days are Diamonds, Some Days You Get Stoned. Yet another said he was probably thinking about Denver, Colorado where they legalized pot. That brought up the saying, “We’re gonna put the big pot in the little one,” meaning have a swell time, in the South. People from Minnesota don’t think that makes sense unless you say it with a Swedish accent. Then it becomes colorful commentary.
I was in Minnesota a while back and got to thinking about all the Scandinavian jokes that are prevalent there, since nearly everybody is descended from Sweden, Finland, Norway or Denmark. I was in the hotel bar, sipping an herbal tea of course, when a fellow plopped down on the stool next to me. We were the only two at the bar but he flashed a big smile, stuck out his hand and said, “By yumpin’ yimminy, you must be a stranger to Minneapolis, let me buy you some anti-freeze before dat stuff dere rusts out your radiator.”
I introduced myself and he said, “My name is Sven Knudsen and I got yust enough time for vun drink. My wife Lena is meeting me here to take me to dat political caucus meeting here in dee hotel.”
I said, “Wait a minute, your name is Sven and your wife is Lena? Are you the source of all those Sven and Lena jokes?”
“Ya, shure, I guess. Lena vill be along pretty soon. You’ll recognize her. Dat voman is so broad dat vhen she takes her girdle off, her feet disappear. Of course I shouldn’t yoke about a voman who at dis very moment is hooked up to a machine dat keeps her alive. It’s called a refrigerator.” We both laughed at his irreverence but when Lena showed up she was gorgeous, blonde and slender. I told her what he had said and she replied, “Some gals are diamonds, some guys are a lump of coal.”
The spent arrow hit the bullseye. www.docblakely.com
