Tag Archives: thinkers

Dagwood Sandwich

Dagwood Sandwich (n): a thick sandwich filled with a variety of meats, cheeses, dressings, and condiments.

His name was Chic Young.

I just wanted to see that in print—because as an author, I am fully aware that most of the things I write will be lost in obscurity or rendered meaningless.

Being a creative person is similar to manufacturing clouds. Brief vapor that they are, they soon will pass away and need to be replaced by new clouds.

Chic Young is the cartoonist who came up with the idea for Dagwood and Blondie. The strip began in 1930, when the assumption of the times was that men are lazy, always looking for a way of getting out of work and never doing what their wives wanted them to—and that women are interfering, nosy and a bit inept.

That particular line of reasoning is still alive in our entertainment today.

Yes—although it’s been ninety years, we persist in believing that men and women are destined to be at odds with one another, except when sexual arousal temporarily interrupts the warfare for a copulation treat.

I shall not comment further on that. You can probably tell by my emphasis that I find such thinking to be self-indulgent and counter-intuitive.

But back to Chic.

Let’s just take a moment and salute a fellow who came up with a character—Dagwood Bumstead—who loved to make huge sandwiches, usually with a sardine sticking out on the side—and because of that, to this day we name such concoctions and compilations Dagwoods.

How many of us can say that something we came up with led to having a sandwich named after it?

By the way, the name Dagwood is legitimate.

It actually comes from England and is translated as “shiny forest.” Although I do not know what a shiny forest would be, I assume it could only be viewed following the ingestion of some hallucinogenic drug.

So on this fine day, we want to thank you, Chic, for giving us Dagwood and Blondie.

And for all you writers, composers, thinkers, reasoners, poets and musers—keep going.

Someday something you concocted might be ordered at a Subway–with extra pickles.

 

Aristocracy

dictionary with letter A

Aristocracy: (n) the highest class in certain societies, especially those holding hereditary titles or offices.

“All men are created equal.” (And that would also include women.)

The recent American interpretation of this Jeffersonian precept has become: “All men and women are kings and queens who have birthed little princes and princesses.”

As we continue to foster the notion that “family is everything,” we have begun to establish millions and millions of little castles all across our land, where people drive across the drawbridge, over the moat, and into their domain where they believe they rule and reign.

The trouble with believing that all people are aristocracy, equally worthy of wealth and fame, is that we don’t have any serfs.

In other words, we don’t have anybody who lives outside the castle who understands the nature of the land, can grow a good crop and has the intelligence to fix the plow when it breaks.

In the pursuit of self-esteem, we have completely obliterated self-awareness.

For example, I have a lovely family, but I have also made it clear to them that there are no kings and queens, and therefore no princes and princesses in our little fiefdom.

So because of this, my children have learned that there’s a time to become a serf to everyone.

  • There are occasions when workers are required, not thinkers.
  • There are moments when digging is better than planning.
  • And there are times when self-worth must be laid aside because the task feels like it’s beneath us.

The aristocracy in our country has caused us to cease to be interested in menial jobs, and at the same time, persecute those who are willing to work them.

This is exactly what happened in the Middle Ages, when those who lived in the castles, who survived on the work of the serfs, mistreated and taxed them so heavily that the whole idea fell apart.

Yes, it truly can be said that the feudal system is … a futile system.

 

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Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix