I have long identified with Popeye. Let me review that notion by re-posting a bit of an old post in which I explain while talking like Popeye;
I am Popeye, I sez, because I just am… Yeah, that’s right, I yam what I yam.
First of all, I looks like Popeye. I has that cleft in me chin, very little hair left on me ol’ head, and I gots the same squinky eye (what squinky eye?). I has had that same squinky eye since I wuz a teenager and got kicked in the eye doin’ sandlot football (bettern’ sandlot high divin’, fer sure!). I also has them same bulgy arms, the ones that bulge in the forearm and is incredibobble thin on the upper arms.
Second of all, I has Popeye Spinach-strength. I look weak and scrawny, but I is a lot tuffer than I looks. I go into classrooms full of wild, crazed middle schoolers, and grabs their attention, tells ’em what’s what, and makes ’em woik. (Woik is a voib, and that means I is woikin’ when I makes ’em do it.) I kin stands ridicule and kids what will remarks on the hair in me ears and me squinky eye. I tells ’em that the scar on me face was did by a bloke with a knife (which it were, cause I had skin cancer and the doctor used a knife to get it off). I has taken all kinds of nasty punches from life (diabetes, blood-pressure problems, prostatitis, arthritis) and I still keeps comin’ back fer more. In fact, I can winds up me arm and give that ol’ Devil a good Twisker Sock right in the kisser.
Third of all, I has a typical Popeye Sweet Patootie. My Island Girl Wife is like Olive Oyl in very many ways. She is always tellin’ me what to do. She compares me to ol’ Bluto. She panics and flails her arms when there’s a crisis. And she expects me to always save the day and never says “thank you” after.
So, I mean it when I sez “I am Popeye”. I yam what I yam and that’s all what I yam!
See? I kin talk like Popeye because in many ways I AM him… He of the mangled-mouth vocabubobulary created by Elzie Crisler Segar on January 17th, 1929 for his comic strip Thimble Theater for King Features Syndicate. He doesn’t talk right because his brain is so full of goodness and spinach that he has no room left for spelling and pronunskiation. Ak-ak-ak-ak-ak-ak…. Popeye is just a simple sailor, and has been for 94 years. He expresses himself horribly, but only in the very best of ways. So when I mangle a word on purpose… or by happy accident… it is just me honoring that old one-eyed sailor. It is not me just being a stupid addle-pated blarney goon who don’t knows how to talk right.
Comic strip from comicskingdom.com
Trudging Towards Tomorrow
My three kids used to be cute, even with goblin grins.
I spent a lot of time yesterday looking at old photos. The journey seems a lot longer looking back than looking at the trail ahead. But there are good things beside every signpost on the road behind us. I am proud of where we’ve been.
The Three Faces of the Princess at the Kingdom Hall;
We are basically right with God. Oh, I know I haven’t been a very good Jehovah’s Witness the last three or four years. Being an atheist might have something to do with it. But I actually believe in God. It is just that my God is a bit bigger than theirs. My God is not some old man with a white beard on a golden chair in some invisible dimension. He is everything there is. And he doesn’t have to promise me eternal life and goodies for a lifetime of doing what I believe is good and right and benefits the lives of others. I don’t do it for theological dog treats. I do it because I know in my heart it is right. And I live for the here and now. Because that is the only part of existence that is relevant to me here and now. “I am a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars, I have a right to be here.” (from Desiderata by Max Ehrmann)
We used to do a lot of camping and traveling. We have seen some amazing things in amazing places.
The Grand Canyon is improved by having my middle son posed in front of it.
At the Grand Canyon Railway Station;
In a land where dinosaurs once roamed;
You can find dinosaurs for tourists without spending big bucks to visit Jurassic World.
Don’t worry. The Princess is the scariest dino running with this pack. That goofasaurus rex is going to regret that nose-bump to the back of the head.
In the end, she ate every last one.
But my kiddos hatched a replacement, so they are not personally responsible for the re-extinction of the dinosaurs.
Appreciating nature;
Posing with dead nature.
Posing with living nature, including wild and feral cousins, is also fun.
Filipino nature and wild and feral Filipino cousins.
And we have allowed ourselves to have fun along the way.
But children grow up and begin to have their own lives. They get jobs. They learn to drive. And we have to fearfully accept the consequences of the monsters we have probably created.
As I continue trudging down the road of life, I am somewhat weary because I am old. My bones have a lot of walking-around mileage on them. My heart has a limited number of beats remaining. But my biggest regret is… you can only go back and walk the path again through memory and old pictures. Time and I march onward.
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Filed under autobiography, commentary, compassion, daughters, family, feeling sorry for myself, goofiness, humor, kids, photos
Tagged as adventure, boring old family photos, Doofy takes on old photos, humor, kids, nature