SIDNEY, Ohio: I have sworn off predicting the start of wars. I’m 0 for 2 on this one. From here on, I’ll leave it up to Mr. Bush. He’s one man that don’t have to predict, he can just announce.

I’m here tonight at a dinner for roofers, at the Great Stone Castle. This castle don’t go back quite to King Arthur’s Court, but it’s close. It’ll sure never be confused with White Castle. Not only great stone, but great food.

A company named Classic Products manufactures roofs, and they brought in some of their best distributors from all over the country, including the Bahamas, Quebec and Kansas. They invited me here to talk to them, but I’m no expert on roofs. I don’t install ’em, paint ’em, or fix ’em. But I have performed on ’em.

See, “I” played Hammerstein’s Roof Garden Theater in 1905, the greatest Vaudeville theater of all time. I played on the roof one whole summer. We played on the roof at nights and downstairs at Matinee. Then in 1914, Mr. Ziegfeld’s “Midnight Frolic” was on the roof of the Amsterdam theater, also in New York. “Prohibition and my jokes were equally responsible in closing the place up.”

These folks build a shake roof out of steel that looks so authentic it has been known to fool termites, woodpeckers and Amish carpenters. They’ll put on aluminum sheets that appear to be asphalt shingles except they last longer and won’t blow off in a hurricane.

It’s hard to kick on a roof when you don’t have to climb around on it patching leaks. If you can spend your whole life just admiring it from the ground it’s well worth the cost.

Am I the last person in America to see “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”? If I am, then there’s no need to tell you how funny it is. Don’t expect it to get many Oscar votes though. Folks in Hollywood prefer their Weddings with more glitz and glamour. A man and a woman getting married in Hollywood, and with no children, not only is it unheard of, it’s almost a scandal.

Historic quotes from Will Rogers:

“I am a great believer in high_priced people (and things)… In the long run it’s the higher_priced things that are the cheapest.” Letters of a Self-Made Diplomat to his President, May 20, 1926

“You can take any line of business and skill and the ones who do it the best are the ones who get the most money for it.” WA #156, Dec. 6, 1925