Ballard Street by Jerry Van Amerongen for March 04, 2010

Get up and gumption. ejcapulet, enjoyed your story last night. :-)

Thanks, Marg.

Don’t bet on it, Tony, I think you’re just stuck.

Good thing he’s got a flat butt

He got the flat butt by striving for more gumption…

A person in search of gumption will look anywhere, try anything. Gumption is a wonderful thing when its natural, but when you have to look for it….the search seems endless!

He should live in the woods. That’ll lead to more forest gumption.

Tony will have lots of gumption, if only he can stand up.

Meanwhile, back in Cleveland, Claude is being insufferable:

http://www.comicssherpa.com/site/feature?uc_comic=cscwy

Semper ubi sub ubi,

Some might say it builds character. I’ll pass on the character building and go for all the comfort I can get.

So much for an intelligent conversation.

OK Claude and Cleo, who’s on first?

http://www.comicssherpa.com/site/feature?uc_comic=cscwy&uc_full_date=20200304

It’s Wednesday, for crying out loud! Not Monday.

Hullo all… I’m here, I’m here….

almost in time to comment on

the March 4th  2020 “CLEO and COMPANY”

on Sherpa.

March fourth!

March FORTH!

Today we must muster our forces… or maybe our “forth”-es?… and shake off the winter blues, a long, cold, night’s cobwebs, and turn our faces towards the sun….

if we can see any…. realizing that at some point, Spring has got to appear

A good day for puns… for frivolity, for jollity…

for undertakers… um… maybe not so much, depending upon the sense of the word.

Today’s fun fact (you’re welcome.):

I always thought the actual derivation of “undertaker” was just as Claude says… someone who puts the departed underground.

But no… according to a vocabulary quiz I took a few years ago, and missed that question… it’s always meant someone who undertakes a task….

and only later, and euphemistically, became attached to someone willing to undertake that particular task, because it was distasteful to most other people.

And…. the US, with its legendary Puritan underpinnings, so to speak, is quite prudish about underwear, compared to other places.

Less so today, when we’ve shed a number of layers that used to be hidden beneath voluminous outerwear.

in the 19th century a glimpse of one’s 2nd petticoat was shocking… never mind anything closer to the skin.

I remember, as a teen, seeing old pictures of Anna Magnani, filmed wearing only an ill-fitting underslip, in an era when ladies wearing underwear in an American movie might be posing coyly in several armored layers of phony Old West corsets and petticoats.

When I lived in Libya in the late 50’s our English neighbors laughed at our modesty…

they changed into swimwear under a towel, at the beach… we had to arrive fully clad in ours, with clothing over it… even small children.

Under where?

Under there??

Never!!

Nighthawks pays homage to a classic!

(Tʜᴇ Sɪᴍᴘsᴏɴs ’ couch gag pasquinade was My Favorite Part™.)

Good morning Balladeers, Plods, and Miss Susan.

Just leave the under where you left it.

I love how Cleo is smiling in the last panel.

Poor Clara. She has to put up with these two 24/7.

YAY! I can see the whole toon!

Clara is ready to bury them both under the couch.

Like socks?