Tell It to a Termite

The
savants seem determined to cram a hearty breakfast down all our gullets
and this is a small, choking voice of protest. They keep saying that if
people will eat hearty in the a.m. their tensions, aggressions and
animosities will disappear, they will think more clearly and will be
more efficient at whatever they do.

Most recent piece of
claptrap to bolster this theory was promulgated in a high school in
Pearl River, N.Y., where teachers complained students were fidgety and
inattentive.

As the climax of a two-week nutrition experiment
several hundred students attended a mass breakfast and gorged
themselves on fruit juice, cereal, toast, jelly, an egg and milk.
Afterward, several said it tasted good.

In rebuttal, I would like to state that hardly anything tastes good at breakfast.

AS LIFE is
arranged today breakfast is a brief, delicate interlude between getting
up and going to work. Coffee is important enough to most of us to jolt
us into full awakening and usually toast or coffeecake to go with it.
Anything more is likely to bring o the fidgets.

Now on Saturday
and Sunday, when the pace is slowed down and there is time to enjoy
them, bring on the bacon and eggs, the pancakes, the waffles, even a
kipper. And by the way, did anyone ever try pieala mode for breakfast? Apple pie, chocolate ice cream. Wonderful.

A MAN wondering
why he hadn’t yet received his income tax refund said, "Well, if I made
a mistake in filling it out, it was an honest mistake."

His wife said, "What do you mean, an honest mistake?"

"Oh," he said, "that’s when they catch you cheating."

IMMORTAL

–JOSEPH P. KRENGEL

A HOT ITEM in
the novelty shops these days is a magic money machine. Insert a $1
bill, turn the crank and out comes an identically sized piece of blank
paper. Big laugh.

Perhaps unintentionally the gadget is fraught with enchanting irony. It’s a switch on the old money-making machine used by bunko
men to swindle gullible but larceny-minded suckers. In the original
version the con man would put blank paper in the machine and out would
come genuine money. After demonstrating it he would reluctantly sell it
to the victim so he could make his own money at home.

Economic
significance lurks somewhere in the joke version, but it eludes me.
Only message I get is that the people who put it out are likely to get
rich.

TWO YEARS AGO while
on a visit to Honolulu Al Bloomingdale, president of the Diners Club,
came upon an eye-catching painting that he "had to have" at an art
exhibit.

It was a night scene of several store fronts and old-fashioned houses in Los Angeles’ skid row.

It now hangs in his office on N. La Cienega Boulevard and everyone who sees it is fascinated by its vivid luminous quality.

A few months ago, Bloomingdale was in Honolulu again and tried to locate the artist, Henry Inouye Jr.  He was unable to do so but learned Inouye had given up painting for the time being and was driving a cab.

AT RANDOM — The item here about the little boy who wanted to be a highway sign when he grew up prompted Mrs. J. Yarmish
to confide her 5-year-old daughter Marcie’s ambition. She wants to be a
dummy in the May Co. window. Practices in front of the mirror every day
… A posy to the continuing Irish whiskey ads plaintively presenting
the distiller’s dilemma. They’re happy that people learned about their
products by drinking Irish coffee but wish they’d try it for its flavor
alone. Very tongue in cheek.