I was a boy back when the milk man still came around in his blue-and-white panel truck delivering bottles of milk with Elsie the Cow on them. I don’t remember clearly because I was only 4 years old back when I first became aware of being a boy in this world instead of being something else living somewhere else.
There were many things I didn’t know or understand back then. But one thing I did know, was that I loved Elsie the Cow. And why would a farm boy love a cartoon cow? There were many not-so-sensible reasons.
For one thing, Elsie the Cow reminded me of June Lockhart, Lassie’s mom and the mom from Lost in Space.
It may be that June Lockhart’s eyes reminded me of Elsie’s eyes, being large, soul-full eyes with large black eye lashes. It may be that she starred in a TV commercial for Borden’s milk in which Elsie winked at me at the end of the commercial.
Or maybe it was because Elsie had calves and was a mom. And June Lockhart was Lassie’s mom and the mom of Will Robinson, so I associated both of them with my mom, and thus with each other.
Elsie gave you milk to drink and was always taking care of you in that way. Milk was good for you, after all. My own mom was a registered nurse. So they were alike in that way too.
And she was constantly defending you against the bulls in your life. She stood up to Elmer to protect her daughter more than once. Of course, her son was usually guilty of whatever he was accused of, but she still loved him and kept Elmer from making his “hamburger” threats a reality.
And you can see in numerous ad illustrations that Elsie’s family were basically nudists. Although she often wore an apron, she was bare otherwise. And though her daughter often wore skirts and her son wore shorts, Elmer was always naked. And that didn’t surprise me, because no cow I knew from the farm wore clothes either. From very early in my life I was always fascinated by nakedness, and I would’ve become a nudist as a youngster if it hadn’t been soundly discouraged by family and society in general.
So there are many reasons why I have always loved Elsie the Cow. And it all boils down to the love of drinking milk and that appealing cartoon character who constantly asked you to drink more.
Angel Thinking
Yes, you are about to read more Mickian nonsense about an agnostical atheist who believes angels are real. Heck, I not only believe in angels, I am one.
The word itself comes from Biblical Greek where angelos was the word for messenger. And because the pre-twelfth century translators of the Bible looked at the “el” part and thought of the Hebrew word that meant “God”, they used angel to mean a messenger from God.
Now, I am not being a sacrilegious atheist when I claim to be an angel. That is mainly because I am not technically an atheist. I do believe that a spiritual creative essence informs the universe, but I am actually an agnostic because that means I actually don’t know anything “A” for “not” and “gnostic” for “a know-er of stuff”. I am a teleological idiot because I actually don’t know anything about anything. But I do have the ability to look at evidence, weigh it, and reach a logical conclusion about what is most probably true, and I firmly believe in that only until more evidence comes along. I believe that particular thinking process is what is known as science (at least until better evidence comes along). So, scientifically considering the issue, I stupidly believe I am an angel. I bring possible knowledge from God.
Grandma Beyer used to have a picture like this in sepia tones on her bedroom wall in Mason City. I studied that guardian angel picture for hours as a child.
Thinking about stuff hard enough gives you insight, at least if you don’t over-heat your brain with hard thinking and catch your hair on fire. A lot of stuff has been happening that I have been thinking hard about. Here are some examples.
So, as an angel, here is what I believe God is saying;
“As human beings, we all need to learn to love one another more. Love is the only answer that cures hate.” – God (No, really, he said this to me!)
Seriously. We need to take the weather anomalies as a sign that the time for climate change denial is long over. We need to work together with all people on the planet to lovingly change those things we do that have caused the crisis. We need to lovingly make peace with North Korea. Fighting them will only lead to the Biblical ending of the story coming to pass. I have an anomalous agnostical faith that there is a lot of truth in the Christian Bible. (The spell checker doesn’t like “agnostical” either.) Loving other people besides ourselves and the people who know and love us is the only possible solution to the problems before us.
Of course, I am saying all this angelic crappola tongue-in-cheek because I am, after all, a humorist, and I agnostically don’t know anything at all. But that doesn’t mean I don’t mean what I say.
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