12/20/13

Monica's parents promised her that if she brought home straight A's that semester, they would treat her to a getaway with a warm pool surrounded by palm trees, but in the final analysis, she had to admit she felt shafted...

Of Millicent's many dolls, none was more favorite than the life-size Grannie Grunt who, with only eight D batteries, could complain about the temperature of the room, ask Millicent if she'd been going to church and even leave a remarkably lifelike stain on the armchair when she got up!

Velvadeen liked to wait for her tires to be rotated by sitting on the porch of the Sugar Bowl Cafe, leafing through the latest issue of Better Curds and Gravies.

Everyone in Willow Springs enjoyed a good party, but Maxine took the term BYOB to an entirely different level and made every occasion a smash!

For months, Sandy had been begging Earl for a new Amana Radarange, but her pleas always fell on deaf ears.  Now here they were about to celebrate Tony Jim's parole and had no way to cook the devilled ham casserole or even the tater tots to go with...

Mama Berley knew that in order to keep her son's strong, she had to keep the food a'comin'!  Bruno and Chet, however, knew that some of her more cardboard-like dishes went down a lot better with a dollop of Karo Syrup on top.

12/18/13

By far, Tad and Skipper's favorite part of touring the ruins of Pompeii was the moment when they started digging (against the express orders of the guide) and came up with the remains of little Antonius.

Jeff never minded posing for a picture with Suzanne except in this one instance, when the bottom of her little get-up was filled with doo-doo instead of air!

It was after Tommy's unfortunate run-in with Friendly the Snowman that all future snowpeople in Sandusky were ordered to be built with no arms, the trend eventually spreading throughout neighboring counties and states.

Everything always went swell at the Honey Bee Post Office unless some joker wanted to ship a package that was bigger than 8" x 8" and couldn't be shoved through the window for weighing purposes.  In those cases, Jeanette the postmistress simply had to guess what to charge before loading up the donkey cart and sending the mail off to Cumberland.

Oh, how Jerry hated days like this, when coming home from work meant having to decide who's chicken cacciatore was better; his overbearing mother Cecilia's or his pregnant and over-emotional wife Tessa's...

If Sandra insisted that he go #2 on this contraption, Huey was all for it, but expecting him to hit that little jar from 16" and - in that position - for a urine sample was simply asking too much!

12/16/13

And, thus, Abigail lost her job as night watchman at the Pinkerton household when she failed to live up to her promise of waiting up and catching Santa in the act of dropping off all their presents...

Everything about Christmas went right for Renate except for the one green-wrapped present someone sent that completely went against the color scheme she'd devised (and explicitly emphasized in her red, black, gold and purple holiday cards!)  It was all smiles for this picture, but that gift was donated to charity immediately after.

Having been berated time and again by Mister Schitz for roller-skating in his driveway, Karina decided to help fertilize his garden in her own special way...

Laugh if you must, but Larry the Lariat was one of the old west's most feared villains.  True, he didn't carry a gun, but if you happened to knock over his sarsaparilla, chances were you would be slapped to death!

Pee Wee Charmin, one of the little league's most efficient running backs liked to play things cool and dispense with unnecessary trappings like pants and cleats, which only weighed him down as he fought towards the goal line.

Though dinner was to be served in just thirty minutes, Neva, after having traipsed around Puerto Vallarta all day in her new shoes, instead preferred to lie back and enjoy both Cosmopolitan and a Cosmopolitan!

12/13/13

As the afternoon wore on, Carol Jean and Martha started to wonder just exactly what the secret ingredient was that Melvin slipped into his famous cherry limeade...

Eloise ultimately decided that a red-hot Toni Tenille 'do was not going to land Sam back in accounting all by itself and that she'd have to pull out the big guns if she was going to have her way with him.

Kent was proud to be team captain and pose with the basketball in these group shots, but it also meant that his hands were so occupied that he couldn't get quite the same "charge" out of the situation that some of his teammates did.

What a lovely afternoon the Matterhorns had out at Great Aunt Hilda's... and this time she even let them each have a quick turn at the supper table before wolfing most of it down in a flash!

During her trying, often dull marriage to Senator John Warner, Elizabeth Taylor briefly took up organ lessons until the lure of Tinseltown caused her to concentrate on movies once again.

Veronica was determined not to pale in comparison to the neighborhood's paperBOYS and was renowned for her service.  Not only did she deliver the news on holidays, but she refused to toss the papers on the porch, preferring to bring them right into the houses!

12/11/13

It only took crossing four state lines, but finally a little county in West Virginia consented to marrying Tim and Connie, making them very happy indeed!

Dick and Janice thought he'd been kidding, but they later found out the hard way that when little Clarence indicated that he wanted a chocolate birthday cake, he meant business!

Birdie and Michelle had had their fill of sleepless nights over the owl that lived in the tree out back.  After witnessing this, though, the rooster took off from their farm and was never seen there again!

People could scoff all they wanted to, but Angie put herself rather easily through Spreadingham Secretarial School and made many a lumberjack's lunch hour one to remember down at the timber camp!

Carolyn "Anything for a Picture"Watterson had an album full of great shots like these, though few people were handy with a camera as she was pulled out of various rivers, ravines and abandoned mine shafts.

It wasn't that Sabina wasn't proud of her new grandbaby, but until daughter-in-law Linda figured out how to properly fold and pin the diapers, she wasn't going to be able to hold her while wearing her Sunday dresses anymore...

12/9/13

Nicky, Krista and Jack enjoyed trying on their father's Santa Claus suit... all at the same time!

Becky listened patiently as Slurpy described to her the way Ron wrested the cask from around his neck and drained it clean of brandy just before sitting down to an evening of television.

A flashy, pre-fab sign and Carol Sue's vibrant sundress were not enough to get business booming at Chip's lemonade stand.  It was time to break out the chest and a series of captivating dance moves if he planned to sell out and pay for those roller skates he had his eye on down at Woolworth's.

The calm before the storm as Tabitha posed for a picture with the ducks.  If only she hadn't let them know that there was a bag of Marzetti croutons in her clutch purse, which, once seen, kicked off a staggeringly vivid dust-up over them!

James and Kam had always had a decent enough time as Panda Scouts, but had no clue how much fun it was going to be to earn yet another badge, this time from the attentive and overly-affectionate Karen!

Despite naysayers to the contrary and occasional lingering doubts of his own, in the end Timothy had to gleefully acknowledge that Santa really did deliver the toys of choice to children who'd been good, no matter what the desired item might be!

12/6/13

Once Randall got to his most-hoped-for present of Chinese lounging pajamas, all the rest of the junk like handkerchiefs, cologne, neckties and watchbands could sit under the tree for days as far as he was concerned!

With Arvin missing more than just his two front teeth, Bitsy stood guard under the table, just waiting for any stray bits of sweet potato or ham flank to drop to the floor where she could retrieve them.  

It was going to be extremely difficult for Miss Carolyn to get anything accomplished at the Clinger Preshool for Girls, but this sort of thing always happened when she wore White Shoulders perfume to work.

Annette, since getting a bob, no longer needed the hair bauble that Aunt Phyllis had sent from Grafton, Ohio, but what really amazed her was the way the plastic balls were arranged on Santa's chest!

As the suds of Cindy's second-hand bubble bath began to dwindle, Clayton began to worry that the "surprise" he'd accidentally left in there during his turn would be discovered, a fact that baby Benjamin was already in on.

Folks had warned JoAnn about her new boyfriend Todd Sweeney from the beginning, but she saw his antics as nothing more than a perverse sense of humor... right up to the end!

12/4/13

Verna Mae liked to protect her considerable side curl with some toilet tissue and a couple of bobby pins during the lunch shift, so that she could let it out and dress things up for the dinner rush at The Batter Beater Diner.

Marjorie liked to "help" in the kitchen whenever her mama was making frangipane.  Trouble was, she enjoyed licking the spoon, the bowl and her fingers so much that there was never enough left to make more than one small tart!

All of the Schnitzels enjoyed posing for family portraits except for Dodger, who had less than admirable patience before the camera and eventually took to working out his frustrations on whomever was closest at the time (in this case, Sid.)

As Lillianne took her first bite of the snow that Johann was passing to her, Snarfy had to look away for he knew that the underside of it was yellow and that he was the reason why!

It drove Ed crazy that even though he was the one who had provided Selma with her assortment of luxurious fur coats, she lavished all of her affection on Tinky instead of him...

Sonny had the music in him.  In fact, he had the music in him so much that when it was being played, he danced frenetically enough that it was impossible to catch him clearly on film!  

12/2/13

As she grew up (and out!), Dottie Mae found it much harder to play hide and go seek in the family backyard as once-effective hiding places eventually ceased being so...

And with the afternoon hastily beginning to dwindle, Clem lined up all the finalists for the Miss Inner Thigh Contest, held biweekly at his family's river camp.

As sisters Eudora and Kathy Kankel headed out on the plank for their annual Polar Bear Dive and Pot Luck Bruncheon, they wondered how much longer their constitutions were going to be able to endure this type of shock.

Betsy's mom often wondered why her baby was so content and easily entertained in her wind-up swing.  That's because she couldn't see all the friendly ghosts like Betsy could!

With company due any second now, Hagatha really didn't have time to pose for a photo.  She still had to get the goulash into the serving tureen and make all of the mantle knick-knacks equidistant from one another!

After hastily hopping onto this porch pillar, Arletta suddenly discovered where it was she'd left that half-drunken bottle of 7-Up.