Fuddy-Duddy World

‘Angie’s using up the world’s supply of exclamation marks.’

‘Shuddup Raybees!!!’

It was a typical evening at Rico’s American Restaurant and Pizzeria…

As Rico’s evening waitress was sick, Angie was working a double shift; she loved the extra money. The Down and Outers held court at their table to keep her company. Ray perused his Waukegan News-Sun, Stash read his Popular Science whilst Joey studied his latest Superman comic book. Angie was loudly berating them about something none of them cared about.

‘If complaints were electricity, you’d be a self-propelled powerhouse,’ Ray remarked.

“I complain…therefore I am”’, Stash expounded, ‘Angie Descartes.’

‘Don’t call me “go-cart”!!!’

‘Shhhhh! Be vehwy, vehwy quiet, Angie. We’re hunting wabbits! Ha-ha-ha-ha!’

Joey excelled at Elmer Fudd impersonations; all lived for WGN’s Bugs Bunny and Friends.

‘Yuh need some new jokes! Why don’t yuh do Deputy Dawg? Yuh look likeum!’

‘Dagnabbit!’

Ray and Stash expressed joy at Joey’s expert impersonation.

‘Do you think Deputy Dawg’s based on Aldo Ray?’

‘Yeah, Stash, I can see Deputy Dawg in Men in War and The Naked and the Dead.’

Joey laughed like Deputy Dawg as he imitated firing a tommy gun.

‘He should have got the Montgomery Clift role in From Here to Eternity, Ray!’

‘I’d pay to see Aldo Ray fight Ernest Borgnine! Montgomery Wimp was a joke!’

‘You guys are the same old same old!’

‘See my lawyer!’

Joey proudly puffed himself up at Ray’s comment.

‘Yuh gotta be kiddin’!’

‘He’s our Perry Mason,’ Stash explained.

‘He’s yer Larry Moe-Shemp!’

‘Hostis humani generis!’

‘Did yuh just call me a Hostess Twinkie, Joey?’

‘You’re in witless protection’, Stash cracked.

‘Hey, Twinkie! May we have some more coffee?’, Ray asked.

She refilled their cups with her glass coffee jug as Stash recited Gunga Din.

‘Yuh gonna sit here all night and drink my coffee?’, shouted Rico.

‘If we were in Rome or Paris we’d do it on the sidewalk’, Ray replied.

‘Then you’d call us intellectuals instead of bums!’

‘That’ll be the day, Joey!’

‘I’m sicka yuh! Yer all a buncha Elmer Fuddy-Duddies!’

‘It’s a Fuddy-Duddy World, Angie. ”What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”’, Ecclesiastes 1:9.’

‘There’s nothing new in the News-Sun either, Stash.’

‘That’s just it, Ray! This place is The Twilight Zone! Nothin’ new’s happened here in 20 years!’

Joey looked up from Superman,

‘What do you mean, Angie?’

‘Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, an’ Nat King Cole are still singin’ on Rico’s radio! You bozos still get yer laughs from Bugs Bunny, Bob Hope, Red Skelton an’ the Three Stooges! We’re still watchin’ Cary Grant, Boris Karloff, Alan Ladd, Clark Gable an’ Gary Cooper movies an’ John Wayne an’ Randolph Scott Westerns downtown!’

She thrust her finger to the News-Sun’s funnies page,

‘Buck Rogers! Even your tomorrows are yesterday’s!’

‘And Sunday morning Flash Gordon serials…So?’

‘My parents an’ grandparents liked them!’

‘They’ve got good taste.’

‘Superman’s still with us too!’, Joey pointed out, ‘And he’s stronger than Hercules!’

‘Don’t yuh put down Hercules!’

‘Holy Hannah!’, wailed Rico as he put on his Dad’s white Air Raid Warden helmet, ‘Here we go again!’

The gang once loudly battled for several hours over who was stronger; Superman (Joey), Captain Marvel (Ray), Samson (Stash) and Hercules (Angie, who thought Steve Reeves was ‘the ginchiest’).

‘Who do you like…Fabian?’

‘Yeah, Ray! Dion too! Soupy Sales cracks me up, and I love Rock Hudson, Christopher Lee an’ Steve MahQueen in Wanted Dead or Alive!’

‘We do too,’ Stash acknowledged, ‘but I don’t think Fabian, Dion, Soupy Sales, Rock Hudson, Christopher Lee or Deputy Dawg will still be around 20 years from now when we’re Rico’s age.’

‘Ol' man Rico, dat ol' man Rico...’

Rico glared as the gang and Angie sang deeply,

‘I “know somethin’”! You punks are a buncha deadbeats, and Angie’s right! You’ll still be doin’ the same old stuff year after year!’

‘And you won’t?’, Joey asked.

‘Your song’s wrong, Rico’, Ray quipped. ‘It should be “He must say something, but he don’t know nothing…”’

Rico stormed into his kitchen.

‘You know Angie’, Ray pondered, ‘My niece’s grade school still looks pretty much the same as when I went to it. Some of the same teachers I had are still there. She reads Dick and Jane for school and Nancy Drew at home; things then were made to last, and they have.’

‘Look at all the old buildings that are still lasting!’, Joey echoed.

‘Joey’s right. I’ve seen awful new stuff built in Chicago and Bismarck that’s already falling apart.’

‘D.C. too!’, Stash agreed, ‘They call it planned obsolescence.’

‘What?’

‘Women call it “fashion”’, Ray asserted.

‘Instant junk, Angie’, Stash explicated, ‘They design and manufacture stuff so it breaks quickly and you’ve got to buy or build new stuff all the time.’

‘I like buyin’ new stuff!’

‘Yeah, that’s what marriage is. Men brag how long their stuff lasts; women complain about it.’

‘Cheep-Cheep-CHEAP!!!’

Rico’s customers watched, listened and laughed at the Angie or Rico vs. the Down and Outers cabaret. Joey looked across the room, rose to his feet and walked over to an elderly gentleman watching them,

‘Good evening, Mr. Weber, we need your advice. Which is better, the old things or the new?’

‘Good old things last, Joey; bad old things don’t. But don’t ever ignore the new things! They may be valuable tomorrow. Old things were new once. Just like your jokes; you think you’re having fun, but you’re making memories.’

As everyone contemplated Mr. Weber’s answer, the restaurant filled with a heavenly aroma.

‘Who wants tuh buy a slice ah my fresh pies?’, Rico enthused as he walked out with his latest creations.

All inside shot their hands up!

Ray looked at Rico’s pies, then turned to Angie,

‘If you don’t do your Soupy Sales bit, we won’t do our Three Stooges one.’

FIN

Author Notes: Happy New Year and Happy 4th Anniversary!

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