| || prank, world, invoke, salmon, "wok" in (the) park.
Image from the Internet.
The opening poem contains all the words (or variations of them) from today's Jumble.
Comments are welcomed!
Do not explicitly reveal any of the actual answer words until after closing time, but embedding them surreptitiously in comment sentences is encouraged.
16 comments:
Higher Education
The oldest prank in our frat house world
was to stick a fish in a roomie's bed.
It'd cheer me after a bash,
when I'd usually crash,
after a kegger when I'd hurled
my guts & felt ready to invoke the dead.
My only question was what kind of fish,
whether salmon or trout: which stunk the worst?
Ah, dear old college days!
Lost in a golden haze...
This jock had a lark! Oh, how I wish
I never had to age, or write this verse.
~ OMK
Fun poetic invokation - I commuted. I actually researched to get the date I began my SMAUG saga(2/11).
Ok, I was a little surprised that you and Misty didn't immediately grok "The dragon in the Hobbit"? But I can see that SMAUG is only mentioned in the beginning.
Sandy did you solve the CC Monday? Would you have grok'ed that clue?
I should have given a final exam
lol
WC
Yes, Wilbur, I solve the crossword every day. And yes, I knew Smaug, though I have to confess I knew it anyway, not just from your poems.
Really enjoyed the solution. I have researched puns lately, and this one seems like a fun example of a homophonic pun. I love Google!
"Fun Time"
For me college was no dock in the dark,
but instead a delightful lark.
In pleasure we curled
As our humor unfurled,
No one ever broke
anything but a joke,
only games to slam on
and homework to cram on.
No, no dock in the dark,
Just a walk in the park.
P.S. I wish that had been my college experience. But I ended up getting married after my first year, getting pregnant, ending up in the West Indies where my first husband wanted to do missionary work, getting divorced, finally getting a part time job with my child in a nursery until I made enough money to earn tuition and finish the rest of my education at the University of Florida. Whew--absolutely not a walk in the park.
Yo, Misty, I have a semi-similar story with some significant differences. I left UCLA after three mediocre years to be married, had two daughters, got divorced, and balanced work and children til they were a bit older, then at 37 balanced work, children and courses at CSULB til I graduated. Eventually I got a job there and finished a master's degree on the fee waiver program. (It was very cool, though, to have both my parents and my children at my second graduation!)
It wasn't a walk in the park either, but definitely not as challenging as for you and for some of the friends I made who did have very young children. They really had to stretch themselves and their resources.
“Whew,” indeed, Misty!!
Not a bit like a walk in the park for you.
But your college-and-career arc shows how successful one can be through sheer determination.
Brava!! I am all the more impressed.
You are certainly entitled to change it to a “lark” via your happy, funny poetry.
My own poem today isn’t me either.
Not at all. We artsy types looked down on jocks and the whole frat world. (I’m pretty sure they returned the favor.)
Thank you, Wilbur. Glad you found some fun.
And my apologies again for not remembering Smaug through your verses.
Seems my memory for dragon names stops with Fafner, proving perhaps that music (per Wagner) is a stronger mnemonic than even poetry.
~ OMK
Sandy, thanks for sharing your story which is just as challenging, if at a different time of life. So glad it all worked out for you.
And thank you, Ol'Man Keith for your kind comments, and my apologies to you also, Wilbur, for not remembering SMAUG. But don't forget that I'm a senior now--not a college senior but a citizen senior.
Sandy ~ Your story adds personal proof to the disproportionate obstacles facing women. We all get how education is the path to overcoming hard circumstances, but even so, it is that much harder for women to complete their degrees. I think of how my first wife dropped out of grad school when she was pregnant.
It was not as if we had other options in a classic systemic situation. There need to be better choices to compensate women for the enormous beauty AND burden of childbirth.
~ OMK
You know, Misty and OMK, I have an adult grandson in the Navy who just completed his bachelor's degree online and is looking forward to law school after he completes the LSAT. And I have an adult granddaughter in her early 30's who is working on her bachelor's degree, also online.
Not to put down those of us who completed degrees while raising children, but I see that many people nowadays postpone college for different reasons but have the "stick-to-it-iveness" to keep at it or come back to it. And online is the new way to go, especially today.
My memory isn't the greatest. I asked CC for the NPR interviewer whom I know very well but can't remember her name. Smaug might be named for Gog and Nagog.
Those are inspiring stories, Misty and Sandy. I finished in four years but faced a Mountain called Vietnam. I didn't get clear until five years later. Seven years later I started an IT career.
Hopefully I can get Ivanhoe restarted but Misty and OMK are certainly holding the fort.
WC
Sandy, how wonderful that your grandson and grand-daughter are working on their degrees online. I have only one sixteen year old grandson, and Covid will make him take his high school classes online this Fall too. The times we live in--hard to believe.
We miss your poetic saga, Wilbur and look forward to reading it soon.
And your story too is very inspiring.
So, thank you, Ol'Man Keith, for getting our blog day off to a great start today. Now all we need is Owen, and we could have a party!
I should probably explain that my grandson plans to start law school in person in 2021, and my granddaughter lives and works on Catalina Island, with nothing beyond high school available in person. She plans to graduate next spring from SNHU, and hopes by that time to be able to attend a graduation ceremony in person.
I cross my fingers and hope that by that time, they can both be where they want to be, in person.
Wilbur ~ I was one of the lucky ones. I finished my BA in 4 years, got a scholarship to study in England for a year and another scholarship to return home to grad school at Yale.
That's when Vietnam reared its head. I was serious in applying for CO status. That is a rough course when you're not religious--like me. When I went for my physical, I informed them that I was applying to be a conscientious objector. Everyone else (among those who passed the physical) were dismissed, but I was kept after. After most of an hour, two gentlemen in suits showed up and walked me into a small room where they proceeded to tell me how many failed applications there were--and what percentage of those who failed to attain CO status ended up in prison. It was pretty scary.
I was still trying to weigh options when I received my draft notice. I was in my first year at Yale, so I turned to the campus office for SS affairs (isn't it funny how "Selective Service" is SS? -- such a popular acronym...).
The people there examined my draft notice with care and spotted an error. One digit in my SS number was mis-typed.
- They sent official word to my draft board to inform them they had "obviously drafted the wrong person"!
- By the time the board corrected their mistake, I was married--and married men were exempted. (Believe me, I did not time marriage that way on purpose.)
- Then, when they were taking married men but not fathers, my wife was pregnant. (Do you spot the unfairness in the consequences of parenthood between men and women?)
So, yes, for one who did really not want to go, I was damn lucky.
But did you have to serve for most of five years, Wilbur? Where you in Vietnam or posted elsewhere? What branch were you in?
~ OMK
OMK and Wilbur, you started me thinking. One older brother went to Korea during the fighting and came out ok, but everyone else, father, brother, nephew, grandsons, wasn't the right age for whatever combat was currently in progress. That or lack of a draft recently. My one grandson is in the Navy but has not/probably will not, see any fighting.
Does it that make the family lucky? I guess. I have two great grandsons now and who knows what the state of the world will be in fifteen or twenty years.
I sincerely hope your great grandsons will live in a "more perfect" land, Sandy. And that means no return to the draft.
I think Vietnam taught us a valuable lesson, that forced service is severely detrimental to national morale. Resistance to that war was a form of "good trouble," democratic voting by people's bodies.
I am a patriot. I believe a draft is justified--necessary--when our country is directly threatened. Otherwise it is an affront to our ideal of liberty.
If we believe our intervention on behalf of another people is warranted, let it be voluntary.
Too political? I apologize if I cross the line.
~ OMK
No line crossed. Just stating your opinion.
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