HELLO-O-O-O CLEVELAND!

Posted some photos tonight over at my other blog, Reasonably Educated Bumpkins, in case you're feeling frisky.

Meanwhile.

One (among many) of my favorite people roaming the halls of Foolery is Bob Cleveland.  Bob is deep, insightful, caring, spiritual, warm, and witty.  But mostly?  Bob is a heckuva lot of fun.  So when last week Bob and I were e-mailing back and forth about fake news stories or something, it triggered a funny memory for him.  I asked Bob if he cared to share the Cleveland magic with us here at Foolery, and I wasn't the least bit surprised when, not only did he say YES, but also he had it written in a matter of hours.

It's I who am the tardy one, not Bob.

Here is Bob's story, which I know you're going to enjoy.

(Original photo stolen from these guys)

My Uncle Wilbur, husband to my mom’s next older sister, was the foreman of the composing room at the Indianapolis News. He had the ability to produce a sheet of news print that said most anything we wanted.

 

When I was a junior in high school, my brother’s picture was in an ad on the back cover of a national magazine. He was in his lifeguard gear ... he was the pool manager at a local swim club … and he was talking to a local girl.

 

The News picked up the story of the local kid on the cover of the magazine, and ran a little story about it. Complete with picture. The caption said something like “Art Cleveland tells a funny story to (whatever the girl’s name was)." Uncle Wilbur had the wording changed to “Art Cleveland tells a dirty story to….” and printed up the page for us. He knew we didn’t get the paper, so he told Art here’s a copy for you.

 

My brother was thunderstruck. It took him about a week to find a genuine copy. All those days of keeping a straight face, down the drain.

 

When my wife and I were married and had our own home in Carmel, Indiana, we belonged to a pinochle club with seven other couples. Dale, one of the guys, told us one evening that he’d bought a wooded lot a mile away and was going to build a house. He also mentioned there was a black walnut tree on the property that was very valuable and would pay for a chunk of the house. About a month later, he said he was disappointed; it turned out to be an oak tree.

 

I couldn’t resist. I had Uncle Wilbur print up a page of routine articles, headed The Pittsburgh Press (my folks lived there). I wrote an article about the incident, featured all sort of outrageous stuff like a team from Purdue had come down to appraise the tree and had observed that there were normally walnuts, not acorns, around a walnut tree.

 

Then I glued it to a piece of paper (it was only printed on one side) and wrote in a big red marker “Bob ... is this anyone you know?” and stuffed it into the next letter we got from the folks.

 

I uncorked that jewel at the next pinochle party, and it got passed around and howled about all evening.

 

I never did tell Dale what I’d done.

*     *     *     *     *

Laurie's note:  internet news is probably easier to fake, but it just wouldn't have the same zing! to it.  Thanks for a great story, Bob.

Comments

[Mental P Mama]

Great story.

[Suz Broughton]

I like Bob Cleveland! Great story. He do rock, don't he?

[Meg]

You had me at "hello, Cleveland!" Because we watched "This Is Spinal Tap" last weekend. Heh.

[Rick's Cafe]

....small world, getting smaller every day.

Great story!

[Bob Cleveland]

You forgot to mention fat.

And old.