Recent Comments

1. 24 days ago on Dick Tracy

   That is pretty much the old pre-1968 NYCTA logo. Blondie looks like some of the characters hubby and I used to see at 14th Street – Union Square back in the late ‘70s when he was a token-booth clerk and I was a conductor, except this guy’s more rational.

2. 4 months ago on Ginger Meggs

   True story. Third-grade class, Brooklyn Diocese Catholic grammar school, early 1960s.

   Sister Mary Joan: Now class, is there anyone higher than God?

   Mikey: My mother.

   Sr. Mary Joan, aghast, hauls Mikey down to the Principal’s Office.

   Sr. Jude Thaddeus (principal): Young man, you say your mother is higher than God Almighty?

   Mikey (still wondering what he said wrong): Yes, Sr. Jude Thaddeus.

   The nuns decide to kick this one upstairs to the Pastor, Father McClellan. The good Father is a former teacher himself, and has heard pretty much everything over the years. The nuns go into the pastor’s office and explain the situation, then Fr. McClellan calls Mikey in.

   Fr. McClellan: Now, Mikey, you say your mother is higher than God?

   Mikey: Yes, Father.

   Fr. McClellan: Refresh my memory, Mikey – tell me what your mother looks like. I know I must know her.

   Mikey: Mommy’s the very tall lady who always wears matching suits and hats to Mass. She makes them herself!

   Fr. McClellan realizes immediately who Mikey’s mother is. Mama is six feet tall in her stocking feet, built like a greyhound, clearly was an athlete in her youth and is still in good shape, with a will of steel and a right hook to go with it. Mikey is her baby; his older brothers are strapping young men in their late teens over six feet tall, and they obey their Mama!

   Fr. McClellan sends Mikey out of the room, but still in earshot of the adults.

   Fr. McClellan: Let it go.

   Sr. Mary Joan: But, Father-

   Fr. McClellan: Let it go.

   Sr. Jude Thaddeus: We can’t have someone saying in Religion class-

   Fr. McClellan: Let. It. Go. I know who Mikey’s mother is – and he may very well be right!

3. almost 6 years ago on Alley Oop

   So it isn’t just me who noticed everyone in the strip looked green around the gills, eh? Thanks for the reality check!

4. over 6 years ago on Garfield Classics

   At least cats don’t get migraines…!

5. over 8 years ago on Dick Tracy

   Time to break out the heavy artillery.

6. almost 9 years ago on Dick Tracy

   Back in the mid-’70s, there were quite a few folks in the Civil Service who had to take the choice of either a lower-paying job or being laid-off altogether. Cops becoming Bus Operators was the least of it. People in jobs that had several steps to full pay/qualifications were stuck at the step they were in – a progression from one step to the next that ordinarily took one year took five years.

   Although I though Ralph and Norton had the seniority to escape that bit, unless they took it voluntarily – which was an option ;-)

   Of course, now 98% of the old farts like me who remember those times are either retired or dead by now.

7. almost 9 years ago on Dick Tracy

   Specs gets migraines? Ooo. That’s not good. Those damn things redefine “evil influence.”

8. about 9 years ago on Dick Tracy

   Happy birthday, Vista Bill!

9. about 9 years ago on Dick Tracy

   No matter what happens, or how grown she gets, Honeymoon will always be her Daddy’s Girl.

10. about 9 years ago on Dick Tracy

    I was off work that day. When I found out what happened, I immediately called The Job and told them to put me to work. I knew the natural instinct would be for people to run from the city; but New York is my town, and my great-grandfather was out on the fireground as a firefighter and officer for 45 years – it’s my instinct to run in when all others are running out.

    After calling around the railroad, I wound up working the second half of a North White Plains job. The regular engineer had gone home after his first half, but couldn’t get back because he lived in Rockland County and all the bridges were closed.

    Running my first train in was – eerie. Weird. Very disturbed, and disturbing, energy in the air. As you got further south in the Bronx, even the very air reeked. The dust and haze in the air wasn’t the normal late-summer afternoon air.

    Then the smoke plumes came into view.

    Grand Central Terminal was a very odd, different place that afternoon. The sense of shock when you went outside the train gates was palpable. Inside, we did our job, and we did what we could to get a city full of stunned, shocked people home.

    Every commuter rail station with a parking lot has a sea of cars in it once the morning-rush folks got on their trains to work. The cars that didn’t move out of the lot for weeks afterwards told their own silent story.

    I remember. I seek not for vengeance, for that isn’t my way. Instead, I work and pray for justice, and healing.