From Uncle Vellanoff's Journal

Medical Situations On the Road

     As our troupe traveled around, we sometimes had medical situations arise where we needed to consult or otherwise use the services of medical people or medical institutions. Many in the troupe were immigrants like myself, where English was not our native tongue, so occasionally there was some confusion around these medical situations that turned out to be sort of humorous, when not lethal.

          One such incident happened to Olaf and Henrietta Olson. We were staying in a boarding house while playing in South Bend, Indiana. Henrietta was very pregnant and her time of delivery was close.

    One evening Henrietta started having contractions, so Olaf got very excited, ran downstairs to the phone, and called the hospital. He yelled, “MY WIFE. WE THINK SHE’S READY. SHOULD WE COME NOW?”

    By this time, we were all standing outside our rooms waiting to see if we could help in some way.

    The doctor tried to calm Olaf down and asked him how far apart the contractions were.

    Olaf yelled up the stairs, “HENRIETTA, HOW MUCH TIME BETWEEN THE CONTRACTORS?” Luckily, Henrietta knew what the doctor meant.

    “Tell him ten minutes.”

    Olaf yelled into the phone, “TEN MINUTES.”

    The doctor asked, “And this is her first child?”

    Olaf was astounded, and yelled into the phone, “ARE YOU SOME KIND OF IDIOT? I’M HER HUSBAND!”

   

    Another member of our troupe, Lydia Proludsky, came back from a call to the Doctor’s office a little embarrassed. She told the following story.

    “I got to the office and they gave me a little glass jar, which I later found out was for a urine specimen. But how was I to know? Huh? The nurse said, ‘The bathroom is over there on your right; the Doctor will be with you in a few minutes’.

    A few minutes later, I came out of the bathroom with the empty container. The nurse took the container with a puzzled look. I explained to her: ‘Thanks! But there’s a toilet in there, so I didn’t need that after all.’ Now I know better.”

    Judy, our lead piano player, always thought something was wrong with her. I understand the medical term for that is Hypochondriac, or something close to that. Every time we got close to Chicago, Judy stopped by to see her doctor with some real or imagined ailment.

    On one visit she said, “Doctor, you know those voices I’ve been hearing in my head? I haven’t heard them for several weeks now.”

    The Doctor was very happy, “Wow! That’s wonderful. I’m happy for you.”

    “Wonderful?” exclaimed a sad looking Judy. “There’s nothing wonderful about it. I think my hearing has started to go.”

    Then there was an experience I had which points out the difficulty of understanding the nuances of a foreign language.

    After checking me over the Doctor said, “I’m not exactly sure of the cause, but I think it could be due to alcohol.”

    Felling sorry for the guy I replied, “That’s okay Doctor, I’ll come back when you’re sober.”

    Well that didn’t go over so well, but after I told him that I didn’t drink alcohol, he got down to business.

(Editor’s note: I’ve heard this last one from so many sources, I’ve an idea Uncle Vellanoff just hijacked it for his own use in his journal, or maybe he’s the one the story started with.)

Uncle Vellanoff - No Pets Allowed

     In our troupe we had several people who had pets. Larry and Lenny each had a dog. The dogs were somewhat of a problem, as there were places we went that the dogs just couldn't go.

One example: During performances we tried keeping them backstage---tied up, of course. The problem with that was we had one act that included some operatic singing by Hilda. She was pretty good, but the skit was poking fun at opera singers, so she didn’t try to be terribly accurate about staying on pitch and all that. Whenever she sang, the dogs would start up with the most pitiful howling you ever did hear. The audience loved it, but our producer didn’t feel it was dignified.

    Anyway, the incident I’m thinking of happened when Larry and Lenny were out one evening walking their dogs and came to a restaurant. “Let’s go in and get something to eat,” Larry suggested. “We can’t,” responded Lenny, “Don’t you see the sign saying NO PETS ALLOWED?”

    “Don’t worry,” said Larry. He put on a pair of sunglasses, walked up to door and tried to enter the restaurant, but was stopped at the door, “Sorry no pets allowed.”

    “Can’t you see?” said Larry, “I’m blind, and this is my seeing-eye dog.” But it’s a Doberman Pincher, who uses a Doberman Pincher as a seeing-eye dog?” the man asked. “Oh,” Larry responded, “You must have not heard, this is the latest type of seeing-eye dog, they do a very good job.”

          Seeing that it worked, Lenny tried walking in with his Chihuahua. Even before he could open his mouth, the doorman said, “Don’t tell me that a Chihuahua is the latest type of seeing-eye dog?” Thinking quickly Lenny responded in a angry voice, “You mean they gave me a Chihuahua?”

    Tony did a juggling act in the show. One day his brother came to spend some time with him. The brother, Doug, hung around rehearsals, and it became known that he had a phenomenal memory and a great ear for voices. Our producer got a bright idea and tried him out. He would listen to people in the audience call out their names. After about 30 of these, he would go back and randomly have them to say a short sentence. From that, he was able to tell them their names. People were awed and loved the display of his talents, so he became a permanent part of the show. Did I mention that he was blind?

         One night, Doug and Tony went into a bar. Doug, after settling on a bar stool, said, “Hey guys, who wants to hear a blonde joke?” The question was met with dead silence. After a few seconds pause, the bartender walked up to Doug, got in his face, and said in a deep menacing voice, “I’m blond and I don’t appreciate blonde jokes! My wife is right next to me, she’s blond, and she doesn’t appreciate blonde jokes. And best of all, on your right is a blond bodybuilder who I’m pretty sure doesn’t like blond jokes either! Would you still like to say that joke?” “WELL, NO!” Said Doug, “NOT IF I’M GOING TO HAVE TO EXPLAIN IT THAT MANY TIMES!”

From My Journal - - Observations On The News

Wednesday, January 7, 2015
     A report written for Reuters by Letitia Stein, explains how many companies have a bring-your-son/daughter-to-work-day. In the same spirit, Corey, a self-employed Dad, found a way to do the same thing with his young son.

The self-employment was home burglary. This 22-year old Florida guy took his 5-month old to work with him as he acted as a lookout while his partner broke into a house.

    Corey saw the homeowner coming, so alerted his partner, who left in a hurry. The homeowner chased Corey down the alley where this dedicated father put his kid on the ground (the kid was in a car seat), so he could pull a knife on the homeowner.

    The police had a whole menu of charges to choose from, but they decided not to decide, and just threw the whole book at him.

    This might not be the best example of how to take your kid to work.

More

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

    You may have heard of truck surfing. It is the practice of driving you car close behind a truck in order to cut down on wind resistance and therefore get better gas mileage. In years past, when gas prices got overly high, like up to almost $1.00 per gallon, this was a somewhat common practice by people who’d risk their lives to save $.25 on a trip across the state.

    I haven’t heard of this practice being used lately, even with gas prices up around $4.00 per gallon. But we have one guy who tried it recently, although accidently.

This family was driving their mini-van in almost whiteout conditions, when they struck the rear end of the truck in front of them and got their van lodged under the truck. The family in the van called the State Patrol and asked them to stop the truck. Sixteen miles later, the police finally got the truck pulled over at a rest stop. The driver had no idea what was wrong.

    That’s what you’d call extreme surfing. 

    

Other One

 Don’t you love people who can think outside of the box? Like the middle school principal in Alabama. Schools everywhere are learning how to handle school intruders. Classroom teachers learn how to barricade doors, and other useful things. In a recent communiqué, this principal is asking parents to send a can of corn and peas, to school with their kids. The object---if someone breaks into a classroom, the kids can throw these cans at the intruder and discourage them from hanging around. Or again, it just might make him mad enough to escalate his actions to another level.

    I can just hear two would-be school intruders discussing which school to hit. Pat suggests Swampscott Middle School. Mike says, “No way, they’ve got vegetables, we’re not messing with them.”