Advertisement

firehouse pizza banner

Don Locke: Lookin Thru Bifocals

  Doggone my ponderous hid; I've been coming at you with some pretty heavy stuff here of late.  I didn't mean to get that carried away.  That's sort of like a country boy who gets a job at a car wash, gets a half-nelson on a clipboard and thinks he's an accountant.  Half-nelson?....an old wrestling hold.
   But you take clipboards, sometimes they can be good things.  If you ever get any kind of staff job in the military, or in any government branch, you get yourself a clipboard and carry it around.  If anybody asks what you do, you say, "I'm a coordinator".   If they ask, "About how much do you coordinate?"  You say, "A right smart."  Most times they don't know what they're doing either, so they'll say ,"fine".  If they happen to outrank you, they'll probably add:  "carry on".
---Talking about country boys, an old boy from over on Big Creek applied for a job as a semi-truck driver.  When he went in for an interview they let the company psychologist have a go at him first:  "Now Henry", he said, "if you were going down a long, steep hill and all the brakes failed and you were coming to a dead end with a big concrete wall on the other side, what would do"?
   Without any hesitation Henry answered "I'd wake up my brother Floyd."  Curious about his answer, the psychologist pressed on.  "Why is that"," he asked. "'cause my brother Floyd, he aint' never seen no big truck wreck."
   I imagine the psychologists do some good if they aren't too liberal.  By that I mean...you take Dr. Phil on TV:  he'll have some ole guy on his show who beats the soup out of his wife and kids, cusses out the preacher and kicks the dog: more times than not Dr. Phil will say, "But you're not a bad person."  Say what?
   First wife Bett's sister went to a psychologist for stress and apprehension and he recommended she learn to smoke.  She did.  Up to three packs a day when she died.
   Prof. Gene Farley taught at Western for a lot of years.  Gene thought conservative psychologists were OK.  He said that one time these parents took their young son into a toy store.   The boy ran to a hobby horse and got and when the parents were ready to leave they told him to get off the horse.  He refused.  They promised and begged nd offered bribes.  He would not budge.  They called the store manager:  he had no success.  They called in his older siblings:  they too promised ice cream and candy.  No dice.  They even brought in the grandparents.  They petted, and said "please".  Nothing.  Then someone suggested they call in a child psychologist.  The parents agreed, nothing else had worked.
   When the child psychologist came in, he went directly to the lad and whispered something in his ear.  The kid immediately jumped off.  "What in the world did you tell him?" the parents asked, "why it's a miracle."  Without any hesitation, the guy said, "I told him if he didn't get off that horse I'd knock his block off."
   My mother Gladys didn't stand on psychology too much.  She thrashed me one time for skating on the pond out back of our barn.  She had warned me not to.  She'd probably heard me mention it.  I couldn't slip anything by her.  In retrospect I know she must have worked part time for the FBI and the CIA.  She had given me "due process" as to what would happen if I did.  I did any way: she did too.  I skated on the pond, she skated on my posterior.
   But I'm still here.  I didn't fall through the ice and drown.  Why?  I never skated again.  My brain wanted to, but my backside wouldn't let me.
             From Father Along....
                                                 Kindest regards.

Tags: 


Bookmark and Share

Advertisements