#450, April 2, 2007
PEMBERVILLE, Ohio: Have you folks ever addressed a banquet room full of tomato growers? For any speaker claiming to be a humorist, if the jokes fall flat he’s at grave risk of being pummeled with rotten produce. Even in the off season.
This was a fine audience tonight, they laughed when they were supposed to, and we got out early to attend to the main event of the night, the Florida – Ohio State basketball game.
That’s when the evening turned sour for these Ohio folks. It’s not fair to say the Buckeyes got pummeled, but the Gators sure have developed a taste for nuts lately. Yes, I admit last week I said if Greg Oden played 35 minutes Ohio State would win; he did but they didn’t. It takes 5 players at their best to win a basketball championship; Ohio State was a couple short and Florida had at least 8. [the score was 84-75]
Well, these farmers all sell their tomatoes to a company called Hirzel Canning. They’re a fine old company, run by the Hirzel family and they invite their growers to a steak dinner every spring. They don’t put Hirzel on the label, they use Dei Fratelli. So if you eat your tomatoes from a can that says Dei Fratelli, you can bet they were raised and chopped, crushed, diced, sauced, or shoved in the can whole, right here in Ohio. Dei Fratelli is only a fake name, kind of a nom de paste, to let your taste buds know they’re in for a special tomato treat, even if it didn’t arrive by way of Rome or Venice.
The latest straw poll results came in Sunday. You remember, this is the poll where every donated dollar is a vote, and every vote is a dollar. It’s the most honest election ever staged in this country because you know exactly what you got for your dollar.
Senator Clinton appeared to win with 36 million votes. Now that includes 10 million excess votes she held back from her Senate race in New York. And some of the remaining 26 million will only count if she moves on to the General election, so nobody really knows how many she got till they send ’em all down to Florida for a recount.
John Edwards ended up with 14 million. Do you know how he got the 14 million? He’s a trial lawyer so he just takes a third of everybody else’s votes.
Mitt Romney surprised some folks with 21 million. But it should not be a surprise. He’s Mormon, there’s millions of Mormons, and Mormons are in the habit of giving 10 percent.
The house passed a spending bill for Iraq. A hundred Billion for the troops and 20 Billion for Pork. Well, they say it was pork, and everybody got something out of the bill except the hog farmers. Spinach growers, peanut farmers… Come to think of it, they skipped over the tomato farmers. The way most voters feel about Congress, they don’t want to encourage the growing of more ammunition.
Congress left on a two-week Easter recess, or as it’s known in the Senate, the Iowa New Hampshire field trip. With all these Senators running for President, they didn’t have anyone left to go with Nancy Pelosi to Syria. Congressman Kucinich, may as well have gone with her; he’s gonna get as many votes from Syria as Iowa.
Millions of dogs and cats are going back to the way they always wanted to be fed, with scraps from the supper table. You give one some leftover homemade biscuits and a couple of bones to gnaw on and he’ll be content all night and beggin’ for more the next morning. Kinda like some Congressmen.
Historic quotes from Will Rogers:
“The next time a politician gets to sprouting off about what this country needs, either hit him with a (rotten) tomato, or lay right back in your seat and go to sleep.” WA #115, Feb. 22, 1925
“We cuss `em and we joke about `em, but they are all good fellows at heart; and if they wasn’t in Congress, why, they would be doing something else against us that might be worse.” Saturday Evening Post, July 24, 1925