Prairie Ramblings

If Larry King Wrote This Column…

By Tracy Sayler
Prairie Grains Editor
tsayler@prairieagcomm.com

USDA Secretary Mike Johanns; whether that’s pronounced ‘Jo-hanns’ or ‘Yohanns’ I’m not sure I’ll ever get it straight… Could be worse: imagine being Gov. Arny’s press secretary, spelling out ‘Schwarzenegger’ two or three dozen times per day…Hey, do what you want in your own bath tub, but personally, I’ve never felt right about peeing in the shower…Why are brown eggs prized over white eggs? Aren’t they the same yolk inside? I think there’s a lesson there for all of us…Genetically, calico-colored cats are almost always female. Also, a large majority of white cats with blue eyes are deaf.  That might explain why Snowball the Barn Cat didn’t hear me coming with the loader tractor the other day, may she rest in kitty peace…It’s amazing that not only is Paul Harvey still alive, but still on the air, and still hawking the Bose radio and malt liquor. Come to think of it, maybe he doesn’t promote malt liquor. But for sure the radio.  Anyways, I should have done the same thing, I’d be a very rich man now, not that I’m scraping for pennies now, mind you…If you ask me, U.S. Farm Report just isn’t the same without Max and Orion, although I have to admit, that Dyanna Decola sure is easy on the eyes. Yowza!…Call me crazy, but I just can’t get excited about synthetic motor oil…Speaking of engines, Briggs & Stratton has been around since 1908, when an informal partnership between Stephen F. Briggs and Harold M. Stratton began. Briggs was the inventor and Stratton was the investor.  Their partnership led to many a product over the years, from refrigerators to starter switches.  Of course, most of us know and love them from the small four-cycle pull cord jobbies that we cuss when they won’t start worth a damn…While we’re on the subject of cussing, I think my favorite episode of SpongeBob Squarepants is the one where he and Patrick learn new swear words, bleeped out by porpoise sounds. I might do that on my show too some day, let loose like a sailor and bleep out the cuss words with porpoise sounds, just for fun… I’ve heard there might be a gourd for sale on eBay that has the same shape and likeness as my noggin. If you find it, put me down for a twenty dollar bid…speaking of twenty dollar bid, I’ll never get tired of the “Auctioneer Song,” y’know, the down-home ditty that begins with the line “There was a boy in Arkansas who wouldn’t listen to his ma…” Arkansas, by the way, is officially known as “The Natural State.”  Maybe that explains why Clinton couldn’t help but “get natural” with Monica in the Oval Office broom closet…Don’t get smug, Bushies.  Seems like there’s more ethics violations floating around the White House these days than I have alimony payments… I’ve been hitched six times. That’s right, a half dozen trips down the aisle.  I like this quote by Ambrose Bierce: “love is temporary insanity, curable by marriage…” Wouldn’t it be something that after all those years trying to eradicate the darned stuff, they found out that the cure for cancer is pigeongrass…The city of Nogales, Arizona, has an ordinance that prohibits the wearing of suspenders.  Why, I don’t know.  Of course, you’ll never see my RV parked anywhere near there… By the way, I just saved a pile of money on car insurance by switching to Giecko. Ha! Always wanted to do that… The guy who does the singing in those Bud Light “Real American Heroes” radio spots is David Bickler, former lead singer of the rock band Survivor (“Eye of the Tiger”), who is a North Dakota native. I’m not making this stuff up, folks…Immature sunflowers in the bud stage do indeed turn toward the sun. The stem stiffens at the end of the bud stage, and when the blooming stage is reached the stem stays in an eastward direction…Canola is a word derived from the words “oil” and “Canada,” where the oilseed crop was developed…Throw all the rice you want at the bride and groom, it’s a myth that uncooked, milled rice will make birds’ stomachs explode.  C’mon, think about it, if birds couldn’t eat raw grain, there’d be gizzards blowing up all over the place…Speaking of birds, that red thing that hangs down on a turkey’s neck is called a wattle… N-P-K, I always get confused whether the P is phosphorus or potash…Professional eating contests, I don’t get it. Who is it that finds watching slobs attempting to stuff a half dozen burritos down their gullets in less than sixty seconds entertainment? If you do a Google search, you’ll find a mug shot of a young Larry King arrested for grand larceny. I swear that’s not me, it was my cousin Lenny… Ever try to eat pomegranates?  Might as well chew on grape seeds, cheaper too… Maybe it’s just me, but the older I get, the more I appreciate prunes…No one asked, but I think Deere’s 4020 was the best tractor ever made… Interesting that Mercedes-Benz built tractors into the 1930s…The number of tractors on farms exceeded the number of horses and mules for the first time in 1954…You might think I know all the answers, and I usually do, but there remain a few questions that perplex yours truly: What was the best thing before sliced bread? Why do banks charge you a ‘non-sufficient fund’ fee on money they already know you don’t have? Why do black olives come in cans and green olives come in jars? Do the English royals (Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, etc) have a last name? What happened to all my right-handed gloves? And why can’t I ever find a 9/16” wrench?  Ticks me off that Johnny Damon left the Red Sox for the Yankees. Trinkn zoln im piavkes!  That’s a Yiddish curse, meaning “leeches should drink him dry.” Over the years, I’ve cast that spell on a number of distasteful guests to Larry King Live, and it works, more than you’ll ever know…