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.”

From My Journal - - More Observations On The News

     If you wanted a Wallaby where would you go to find one? I can hear you answering "Australia." And that answer would be correct. But you would not have to go that far, if you live in the U.S.

    You could just go to Washington State, up around Seattle to be exact. There a Wallaby got loose while being transported to an exotic animal petting zoo.

    Most wallabies are used to a hot, dry climate, so I’m guessing this wallaby is wondering what she’s got herself into. Instead of hot and dry, she now finds herself in cold and wet, but there is plenty to eat, in fact, there is food on every hand. We’ll see if the food, or the comforts of the petting zoo win out.

    But she will be found soon. An animal psychic has come forward saying she can feel the heartbeat of this runaway.

    So if having a Wallaby is on your bucket list, and you can’t afford to go to Australia, you’d better get yourself up to Seattle soon.

Another One

     In Norway, a young man agreed to kill another young man for the sum of 40,000 crowns. Police caught up with him and charged him with only fraud, because they didn’t think he had any intention of actually doing the killing.

    They fined the would-be killer 10,000 crowns, and then sent him on his way. So right away we can see that this guy made a 30,000 crown profit on this deal for doing nothing at all. Not a bad day’s work.

    Police nabbed the fellow who hired him and he’s been sentenced to two years in jail, most of which was suspended because he confessed. And the reason for hiring the killer?

The would-be victim had not returned his romantic interests.

    Lesson; a person in Norway could make a pretty good living by accepting contracts to kill people, with no intention of ever actually doing the nasty deed.

Pockets!
     That's right, pockets---wonderful things. A person can't have too many pockets. I don't know how women get along with them.

     Of course, to have pockets and use them means that you are not that concerned with your physical profile. It means that you are secure enough not to be bothered by looking a little lumpy. I guess that’s why women’s clothes don’t usually have pockets as it would certainly break up the natural curvy lines that God gave them, or that they’ve acquired from too much good cooking. Thus they have to carry handbags that look as though they could be smuggling the crown jewels, with maybe the jeweler attached.

     According to my information, man’s early development depended on the invention of pockets. This information was hard to come by and took considerable time to dig up. A guy named Ug, who sewed a pocket in his Saber-tooth cat coat, developed the first known pocket. His only problem was that he got the sequence out of order and hadn’t removed the coat from the cat, so we’ve heard no more about Ug and that first pocket. His wife clearly remembers telling Ug to put the cat out, but of course, “He never listened to me about anything.”

     It was only a few more years before pockets became a necessity in men's clothing. And that’s not as easy as it may seem. Just try putting a pocket in a loan cloth. It can get tricky.

     Enough with the early history.

     When I leave the house for a casual errand I have available at least six to ten pockets, all of which I need as I’m not lugging a small suitcase around and calling it a purse.

     What brought this to mind was a guy I saw recently. I was standing in line at the Post Office. There was a man at one of the work counters, preparing something for mailing. He was wearing cargo pants, which gave him at least six pockets. He had a jacket that had four zippered pockets on the outside, and it appeared there were two pockets on each side of the inside. He also had two pockets in his shirt. So he had a total of sixteen pockets to work with.

     To work with numerous pockets demands that a man keep his wits about him. He’s got to know where each item should go and then remember where he actually put those items. If a man is slapdash about putting stuff away, then it is the equivalent of a woman rooting around in her purse while muttering, “I know I put those keys in here someplace.”

     Back to my guy in the Post Office with his sixteen pockets. On the counter in front of him he had several dollar bills, some change, some stamps, a pen, and some envelopes.

     When I first noticed him, he had just finished putting stamps on the envelopes and needed to put the left over stamps away. Where should they go? He tried five pockets before he found an old envelope, which seemed to be the storage place for unused stamps. Four of these pockets were zippered closed so he had to unzip each pocket, rummage around, and zip it back up.

     Once the stamps were safe, he had to take care of the money which only took three pockets before finding his little change purse. Once the coins were safe he put the purse away. I noticed that the change purse went back in a different pocket than where it had originated. I knew immediately that I was watching an amateur or someone extremely organizationally challenged. This guy was doomed to be forever patting pockets while trying to locate something.

     All this time he was talking to himself. As time went on he seemed to be getting more and more frantic. His speech became more audible and he was getting a panicky look around his eyes. His reaching, unzipping, zipping, patting, and sticking his hands in pockets, was getting jerky and uncoordinated. 

     Then it was time for the dollar bills. He found his wallet on the second pocket. He got a positive mark for that.

     Now the money and the stamps were safely sequestered and it seemed that he needed something else.

     He started looking for what turned out to be a stub of a pencil. This turned into a ten-pocket search, but was finally located. Next, he needed what turned out to be a piece of paper from which he copied something on one of the envelopes. This turned into a nine-pocket search.

     It wasn’t like this guy was doing all this at a leisurely pace. His hands were flying around his person like he was fighting off a swarm of killer bees.

     Finally, everything was back in some pocket, not necessarily where it originated, and he was ready to mail his envelopes. He looked around, saw me watching him, gave me a weak smile, wiped the foam from the corners of his lips, and headed toward the mail slots.

     Like I said, pockets are wonderful things.