Yep…It Really Happened…

Lisa Brandel graced my blog with a very funny guest post a few days ago and she is always welcome here. If you didn’t read it…SHAME on you…go now and come back to this later. If you did read it, well…it was funny. A misguided use of tanning cream to stop post-tanning itch. WELL...I discovered by accident that one of the people that came to read the post arrived after a Google search about “Night Time Itch”. The referring site for that link was a medical advice site, Right Health. I am NOT kidding! If you follow the link and scroll down to the "Blogs and Advice” section…there it is, a link to Lisa’s story. Please forward all of your medical questions directly to Lisa and I am sure she will answer them all.

That phenomenon reminded me of another “misguided” publishing blunder. I grew up in a VERY small town in rural Ontario. Everyone knew everyone on a first name basis and no one used last names within the context on conversation. My Grandfather was known as “W.G.” or “Will”; my Grandmother was “Deb” or “Debrah”…my Father’s name was Richard, but no one called him by that name (hold that thought). After we settled in the big city we traveled back to Lucknow [the town I grew up in] every weekend…EVERY weekend.

The town had a local paper that was published every other Thursday…the Sentinel. It was rarely more than 8 pages deep and always had a current event column. Any reference to family took on a patriarchal nature, e.g. if my grandparents had a family reunion the headline would read “The W.G.s host a family reunion” or “The Georges on RR3 expand their dairy to 24 milkers", etc. One of the features was to announce known visitors [in advance when possible] and yes…our visits made it in that column...every time. Before you shoot the messenger for off-color posting, put yourself in my shoes. The headline did not happen just once…but EVERY other Thursday for YEARS!

The headline...
“The Dicks are Up in Lucknow this Week”

And yes...my friends would point the caption out to me Every Time I went up...for years. I will
leave those conversations to your imagination. I will say though that one of my favorite comments from a friend who pointed the caption out to me was..."Is your Dad in town...or are you just happy to see me?"

I’m just saying.