I am not the only one with old family photos. Jamie has them, too, except she’s young enough that most of hers are in color.

When strangers stop us on the street to tell Jamie how beautiful she is, I always say, ”And she’s even more beautiful on the inside.” They frequently nod and say, ”Oh, you can tell that just by looking at her.”

When she was a little girl and her “Mother of the Year” was still sound asleep, the pajama-clad three year old would often leave the house and waddle down the street and around the corner to a neighbor’s house. The neighbor was Mrs Johnson.

“I think she understood what my mom was all about,” Jamie reminisced, “and decided to fill the void.” Mrs Johnson was a huge influence and I have to think her kindness and sweet nature rubbed off on Jamie. She spent hours with the beautiful little girl, teaching her how to make breakfast, wash dishes, bake cakes, and play Old Maid. They would sit together in Mrs Johnson’s living room and watch game shows on TV. Finally, an exhausted Mrs Johnson would say, ”I need to rest my eyes now, Jamie.”

Last night I looked over and saw Jamie was asleep on the couch. I quietly said, ”Are you asleep?”

”No,” she answered, ”I’m just resting my eyes.”

Mrs Johnson’s daughter took the photos above and below. Is that the most beautiful little girl in the world, or what?

Don’t know who took this photo of Jamie and her older brother Cary, but how cute is it? The cowboy boots were obviously an omen of things to come because Bubba and his wife joined the exodus from California and became fellow Texans a few months ago.

Finally, here’s Jamie and her Uncle Terry. She’s still close to Uncle Terry and Aunt Wanda and visits them every time she finds herself in Southern California.

Jamie and I had been going out for a few months when her grandfather called to say, ”We’re going to be up in your area this weekend. Let’s have lunch.” Jamie’s grandparents lived in northern San Diego County. Terry and Wanda lived in northern Orange County. I lived halfway in between. Grandpa suggested that we all meet for lunch in the middle.

It was the first time I met Jamie’s family. We all got along great — all except for Uncle Terry, who sat silently across the table giving me the evil eye throughout the lunch. He thought I was just some dirty old man who was taking advantage of his sweet, innocent young niece. He was not about to give me the benefit of the doubt.

I’m not saying his initial impression was wrong.

But after a couple years I guess he finally decided I might be ok.

Uncle Terry and I are separated in age by only two years, but I call him “Unc” and he calls me ”my nephew, Little Jimmy.”

Cracks me up.

But enough about me. Look at those beautiful cheeks. And Jamie’s aren’t bad either.

You may look at this photo of San Bernardino, California, my hometown, and think to yourself, What a lovely town. It looks so peaceful. So tranquil. Living there must be absolutely delightful.

You would be incorrect. I just stumbled upon an online article that names San Bernardino as the eighth most dangerous city in America. But other sources dispute that number eight ranking. They say it’s far worse than that.

Just before the pandemic, CBS Local Los Angeles rated San Bernardino the most dangerous city in California and the third most dangerous city in the United States.

Another source placed it at #10 and yet another source put it at #2. No matter which is accurate, San Bernardino is not a very safe place and you should be cautious if you are to visit.

Just take a look at some of the crime stats and give thanks that you don’t live where I grew up.

Let’s put those numbers in perspective. In 2020 there were 69 murders in San Bernardino and a homicide rate of 31.06 per hundred thousand people. That compares to an United States average of just 7.8 homicides per 100,000. In other words, local residents are four times more likely to get murdered than the average American. I can’t find 2020 statistics for McKinney, Texas, where we now live, but in 2019 our murder rate was a minuscule 1.0 per 100,000. In 2018, the rate was zero. In 2017, it was 1.1 murder.

But back to San Bernardino. Turns out the fear of living dangerously is nicely dispersed across the metropolitan area.

San Bernardino Neighborhoods to Avoid

The city center is the most dangerous area. This includes:

Feldheym

Stadium West

East Valley

Carousel

International

Little West

Valley View

Colton

Lankershim and Warm Springs

Colton

Perris Hill

Please note that my actual hometown, Colton, a seedy little suburb nestled up alongside San Bernardino’s sweaty underbelly, is apparently so dangerous that it was listed twice. The same article notes that parts of neighboring cities of Rialto, Highland, and Redlands “can be dicey.”

In other words, avoid the entire “Inland Empire” region. You risk your life damn near anywhere in the area.

On the other hand, the valley is surrounded by beautiful mountains and there are actually some days when they’re not hidden behind a heavy brown veil of smog.

Choose wisely.

We have a small guest house. It began its life as a garage, but decades ago some long-forgotten previous owner turned it into a guest house. We’re getting ready to turn it back into a garage.

Sadly, that will mean the end of what must be one of the strangest pieces of art in North Texas — the macabre monkey mural that graces the wall in the guest house bathroom. The simians have long, rope-like arms and white blobs instead of noses. If I had to guess, I’d say they’re half chimpanzee and half orangutan and while you’re at it, throw in another half alien.

Neighbors who’ve lived nearby through multiple owners of our home tell us that the monkeys have been staring down at bathers for decades. They’re like ancient pictographs because no one really knows their age nor their back story nor who their creators may have been.

I suggested that the monkeys might have some sort of historical significance or at least have some value as memorabilia, and that we should have them carefully removed, restored and framed for display in the house.

Jamie, who without my knowledge has apparently elevated herself to Family Art Critic & Decor Goddess, insists that she does not want the hideous creatures in her house. Nor in her guesthouse.

Her loss, I’d say.

But what the hell are these creatures? I spent some time googling ”long-armed simians” in an attempt to pin it down. Are they chimpanzees? Or maybe gibbons? Possibly siamangs (a type of ape I had never heard of until I googled ”long-armed simians)? Possibly orangutans?

What do you think?

UPDATE: June 2, 2023. Sadly, the long-armed simians have gone extinct. We’re remodeling the pool house and the bathroom was torn out. There was no way to save the mysterious monkeys.

I never really liked living in the big city but had to because I was always partial to eating, and small town advertising copywriters have a disturbing tendency to starve to death.

After working for a couple years at a really good small agency in Los Angeles, and then for a few more months at the biggest agency in town, I gradually came to realize that I was just not cut out for life in the big city. I decided to explore possibilities in smaller markets, and my first thought was Phoenix.

So I took a few days off from my job, packed my portfolio and my suitcase, and drove six hours across the desert to the the Valley of the Sun.

The whole trip was, I admit, a bit haphazard. Planning ahead was not my forte in those days. I hadn’t bothered to set up any appointments in advance. I figured I’d just show up and doors would magically open for me. Truth be told, I didn’t have enough experience to know I didn’t know how to interview for a new job.

I brought along a list of the largest ad agencies in Phoenix and started at the top. I found a phone booth, poked in a dime, dialed the number of the Owens Agency, and asked the receptionist if I could speak to the creative director. He answered on the first ring.

Loren: Loren Markus.

Jim: Hi, Loren. I’m a copywriter and I’d like to show you my portfolio.

Loren: You’re a copywriter? Where have you worked?

Jim: In Los Angeles.

Loren: At ad agencies?

Jim: DJMC and Clinton E Frank.

Loren: You mean you’re a real copywriter?

Jim: Huh?

Loren: You’ve worked at real agencies and written real copy for real clients?

Jim: Well, yeah, sure. What do you mean?

Loren: I haven’t seen a real portfolio in a couple years. The last guy who called me and told me he was a copywriter was working at a pizza parlor. Can you come over and see me right now?

This is odd, I thought, but immediately hopped in my car and drove a few blocks to the Owens office. Loren greeted me in the lobby with a big smile on his face. He was short and stocky and his face was accented with a pair of thick horn rim glasses and topped with a mop of curly brown hair. We went to his office and had a delightful time as he reviewed my work. He was a very funny, very warm, very quirky guy.

After Loren finished reviewing my portfolio he looked at me very seriously and said, “I love your work, but don’t have an opening for a copywriter. How would you like to be creative director instead?”

I was dumbfounded by the question. I was still a rookie, a beginner, I had barely gotten started in the business.

Jim: I don’t understand. Aren’t you the creative director?

Loren: Not for long. I hate this town. I gotta get back to Los Angeles.

Jim: But I don’t have enough experience to be a creative director. I don’t even know how to produce a TV commercial.

Loren: Neither does anyone else in this town. I’ll stay on for a month or so and teach you everything you need to know.

This was clearly the craziest idea ever presented to me. I was terrified by the concept of a future filled with faking it every day.

”No way, Loren. It’s impossible. I can’t do it.”

”Go home and think it over for a couple days. You’d get paid a lot of money and I think you could pull it off.”

I went home. I thought it over. I bounced the idea off my girlfriend. I spoke to other trusted friends. They all agreed that this sounded like a plot line for a bad sitcom and that nothing this crazy could possibly work in real life. I called Loren and turned him down. He was very disappointed. We said goodbye. And then we dropped off each other’s radar.

Five years flew by. My career was progressing nicely. I had achieved my goal of getting out of Los Angeles and with a few more years experience had become creative director at a very good little ad agency in Orange County. But one day I saw a Help Wanted ad in the AdWeek classified ads. An agency in Honolulu was looking for a freelance copywriter to work on a huge freelance project. In Honolulu. I made an appointment and met with the owner of the agency at a hotel in Beverly Hills to show him my work. We immediately hit it off. I took a week’s vacation from the Orange County agency. The Honolulu agency flew me to paradise and put me up in a fancy beachfront hotel. “I’m bringing in a bunch of people to work on this project,” the owner told me. “I’m going to team you up with another Los Angeles copywriter who relocated to Honolulu a couple years ago. I think you guys will be a good fit.”

The agency had beautiful offices on Honolulu’s Pier 9 right next to the Aloha Tower. True to his word, the owner of the agency teamed me up with a brilliant, quirky writer. He was short and stocky and his face was accented with a pair of thick horn rim glasses and topped with a mop of curly brown hair. The word simpatico comes to mind. The getting to know each other phase lasted about five minutes and then it was as if we’d known each other forever. The week was filled with a lot of laughs and crazy stories and we churned out a ton of good work. In fact, we worked so hard for the duration of the assignment that I never got closer to the ocean than the agency’s lobby. The agency definitely got more than its money’s worth.

But from the moment we met the other copywriter and I kept giving each other quizzical looks and taking turns saying, “I know you from somewhere.” We had both worked at agencies in Los Angeles and knew a lot of the same people, but the best we could come up with was that we looked familiar to each other.

Finally, about three days into our five day project he mentioned something about having once lived in Arizona. The proverbial light went on over my head. I said, “Were you ever creative director at an agency in Phoenix?”

I didn’t even need to go any further. It all clicked for Loren, too. “Oh, my god,” he laughed. “you were the kid I tried to hire to replace me as creative director.”

I don’t know if I’ve ever laughed any harder. I don’t know if two people have ever laughed any harder together. It was a great moment and cemented a friendship that lasted for years.

Loren was famous among his agency friends for expressing his advertising philosophy in six simple words:

“Run the risk of being noticed.”

To which I guess I would add, “The only thing better than being noticed is being remembered.”

Loren passed away a few years ago, but I can assure you that he was noticed by many and remembered by all whose lives he touched. He was a true character. A mad genius. A free spirit. A lovable oddball. A maverick. An eccentric.

But, seriously, that thing about me replacing him as creative director in Phoenix was the worst idea he ever had. It would have been a complete disaster.

Ad agency people are eternal optimists and often complete suckers. Every time a client comes along with a wacky product concept and a good sales pitch, agencies line up for a chance to get in on the ground floor.

We were far from immune to this stupidity. Back in the late ’70s we had a client called Tri-Flon that had developed a Teflon-based lubricant. The damn stuff really worked and we were convinced that it would steal market share from WD-40 and that we would become immensely wealthy as the company’s fortunes skyrocketed and its advertising budget ballooned.

Tri-Flon was an underfunded start-up so instead of doing a big, national TV campaign we created a bunch of very small space print ads targeted at a number of industries. One of those ads, the one aimed at the agricultural industry, featured a farmer on a tractor. As you might expect of an underfunded start-up, budgets were extremely limited and we had to cut corners wherever we could.

When the art director complained that he didn’t have enough money in the budget to hire a model I said, ”No problem. I know someone who would be perfect for this ad.”

“What do you think he would charge us?” asked the art director.

“I can guarantee that he will work for free,” I answered.

“Can I see his portfolio?”

“Well,” I vamped, ”he doesn’t have a portfolio. But trust me on this. He’ll be perfect.”

I was his boss, so the art director nervously acquiesced. ”If you say so, but don’t blame me if it doesn’t work out.”

I called my dad that night and asked him if he’d like to be in a model in an ad.

“What does that mean?” he queried. ”What would I have to do?”

“Simple,” I replied. ”All you need to do is sit on a tractor.”

“Well, shit,” he exclaimed. “I’ve been doing that my whole life.”

“Just bring along a variety of your regular, everyday work clothes. We’ll look ’em over at the photo studio and decide what you should wear.”

“Sounds crazy to me,” he said in conclusion. ”But you’re the boss.”

My parents had never before visited me at work. They really had no understanding of what I did for a living nor how whatever it was I did could possibly generate enough income to survive. They understood brute physical labor but had no experience with the concept of getting paid to sit around and think.

The day of the photo shoot arrived and my mom and dad drove an hour from their home in solidly blue collar Colton, California to our offices in toney Newport Beach. I gave them a tour of our offices and introduced them to all our employees. They were a bit overwhelmed by it all.

When we got to my business partner’s office, he greeted them warmly and invited them in to sit down on his sofa. They’d never before met my partner. All they knew what that he was considerably older and far more sophisticated than their son and that — in their eyes, at least — he had taken me in, rescued me from inevitable failure, made me a partner, and set me on a path to success. To say they were intimidated would be a huge understatement.

“I know you have to get over to the photo shoot,” my partner began, ”but I’d love to talk to you for a few minutes. Jim’s told me some crazy stories about you, Bill, and I have a little trouble believing they’re true.”

“What did he tell you?” my dad asked timidly.

“Well, for one thing, he told me that you wear clothes you find lying in the street. Is that true?”

My mom was mortified. Here she was sitting uncomfortably on the sofa in this sophisticated man’s office, and he had just asked her to reveal the truth about what she considered a deeply embarrassing family secret. She was horrified that I had told the story and even more horrified that she was now being asked about it.

“Oh, no,” she blurted out. ”That’s not true.”

“The hell it’s not,” my dad interjected. And then, proudly pointing toward his head, he said, ”That’s where I got this hat.”

My business partner and I burst out laughing. My dad joined in because he felt absolutely no shame from picking up and wearing clothes he found on the road. He was a frugal man, a child of the Depression, and considered it wasteful to pass up a perfectly good article of clothing that he could acquire at no cost. My mom, on the other hand, turned a bright shade of red and lowered her eyes to avoid any further embarrassment.

That hat, the one my dad found lying in the middle of the road, is the one he is wearing in the Tri-Flon ad at the top of this post.

I had other work to do, so I could not attend the photo shoot but I knew our art director would take good care of my parents. When the shoot was over, he brought them back to my office and told me that my dad had been a big hit at the photo studio. The photographer, who had initially been wary of using a non-professional model, had asked the art director a question.

“Where did you find this model? He’s so natural that you’d think he’d spent his whole life on a tractor.”

More cool old photos from the world famous deYong Museum of Stuff Stored In the Shed:

My dad was five years older than my mom so they never went to school together. When asked how they met, they told very different stories.

Her version was that they met at a dance, that he shyly ambled over to her and asked if he could have the next Lindy Hop.

His version was that he was that he was driving down the street one day when he saw her window shopping. He claimed he pulled the car over to the curb and asked her if she would like a ride. Being the refined young lady that she was, she said no and quickly scurried away. He claimed he drove around the block, pulled over next to her again and asked if she was sure she didn’t need a ride. According to his version, she found herself powerless against his rugged good looks and farm boy charm and eagerly jumped in beside him.

She was always horrified when he told this story and responded with an aghast, “Oh, Bill, you know that’s not true.”

He would laugh and give a little nod to assure us that despite her protestations it was, indeed, true.

With their conflicting stories in mind, I asked him if it was difficult for a farm boy to find dates with the city girls. I was thinking about logistics. There were several miles of dirt roads between the farm and town. He was expected to do several hours of chores every morning and afternoon. And making the circumstances even more difficult, there were twelve kids in the family but only one car. The deYong kids had to ride horses to school (I cannot even begin to fathom how that was possible in a Montana winter).

These were the kind of problems I was thinking about when I wondered about dating difficulties.

“Those weren’t problems,” he explained. “The real problem was that it’s tough to go girlin’ when you smell like cow shit.”

You know the old saying, “Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes?”

Well, in this case I just don’t think you’re going to like what you find on his shoes.

I can’t watch Wheel of Fortune. It’s the dullest show on television. Pat Sajak, its host, seems to have been sleepwalking through his job for the twenty years or so. I can’t blame him. I mean, how many times can you say, “Choose a vowel” before you start begging random strangers to put a bullet in your head.

That being said, Sajak is actually a very funny guy off the air. He’s semi-famous for his hilarious Tweets. Like this one, for example:

I forwarded this Tweet to my friend Ray because I thought it sounded like something he would say. He knows Jamie and I have been married for about a thousand years so he asked if that’s how she treats me.

A funny man, that Raymundo.

About five minutes after this photo was taken, my dad finished milking one cow and took one step backward in preparation to begin milking the next cow when some unsuspected short circuit caused a blue bolt of electricity to arc across the barn. His entire herd of six cows was immediately electrocuted, dropping dead as he stood just one step behind them.

In that split second, he lost his entire inventory, his entire production line, his livelihood, and all his savings. Not to mention 100% of his his bovine buddies.

I don’t know enough about electricity to know why he was spared. Was it because he was wearing rubber boots that provided enough insulation to protect him? Was it because he was standing just far enough away to avoid the arc? Was it pure luck of the draw?

Whatever the reason, it triggered a family financial crisis. My parents were forced to do something they were absolutely loathe to do — borrow money from the bank to buy six new cows.

I cannot imagine how it was possible to make enough money to live off the milk from so few cows, but they did it. And they had enough money left over to save up to buy another cow and then another and another and they eventually ended up with a herd of one hundred and fifty.

Every cow, just like every person, has its own unique personality. Some are sweet and gentle, others are mischievous, others are just plain cantankerous. When your entire herd consists of only six cows, you get to know each of them pretty well. And vice versa. They must fall on a scale somewhere between pets and co-workers. Maybe you even give them names. But when you milk hundreds of cows, you probably don’t have time to notice each animal’s individual quirks. You eventually get to the point where numbers become more efficient than names so each cow’s left ear gets tagged with an easy-to-read ID.

I am tempted to say my dad was a hard-hearted businessman who viewed each cow as nothing more than a unit of production, and when that cow no longer produced enough milk she was shipped off to a bovine retirement village. But he had one cow he just plain liked. He kept her long after her most productive days were over. He could never explain why. He’d just say, “I don’t know why I keep her. I just like her.” It’s kind of like why the Dodgers keep Clayton Kershaw on the team. They know he’s not the greatest pitcher in baseball anymore; they know he won’t lead the league in wins; and they know he’s lost a couple miles per hour off his fastball. If asked why they continue to pay Kershaw $30 million per year, Dodgers President Andrew Friedman might say, “I don’t know why we keep him. We just like him.”

One year one of my high school buddies (we’ll call him Tim primarily because his name was Tim) begged my dad for a weekend job. My dad laughed at Tim and told him he was a city boy who wouldn’t last one shift with the cows. But Tim was persistent so my dad finally relented and gave him the job. I, who since I was a little boy had been doing the job for which Tim was hired, was tasked with training him.

Tim showed up at 4:00 a.m. for his first shift. I showed him how to bring fifteen cows into each side of the barn. Cows are not the smartest beasts, but they all learn quickly that they will be rewarded if they walk into the barn and stick their heads through the stanchions. I showed Tim how to pull the lever that closed the stanchions, trapping the cows in the spots where they’d be milked. Although it seems counterintuitive, the cows are happy with this arrangement for several reasons. First, the barn is warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Second, every time they are herded into the barn, they’re given the tastiest food of their otherwise dull dietary lives. And third, the milking machines relieve the painful pressure they feel from carrying so much milk. It’s a win-win-win situation for the cows so they line up in the holding pen at milking time, each one eagerly awaiting her turn. (And to expand the every-cow-is-different theme, some cows are the first in line every morning and afternoon and others are recalcitrant and always wait until the very end.)

After closing the stanchions on the first group of fifteen cows, Tim’s next assignment was to wash them, using a pressure hose to clean all the mud and cowshit off the cows prior to them being milked. But the city boy had never really been around cows and didn’t have a clue how to begin.

I demonstrated the proper washing technique on a couple cows, pushing my way in between them to get at the hard-to-wash spots.

He looked at these huge beasts, suddenly realizing how big they were, and with real concern asked, “Don’t they ever kick you?”

“I”ve been doing this since I was a little boy,” I told him. “And I’ve never been kicked.” It was true.

I handed him the pressure hose. He began by spraying the water from a safe distance beyond the reach of the cows’ hooves. “That won’t work,” I instructed him. “You need to get in closer.” He nodded his head and nervously moved in a little closer. I honestly believe the cows sensed his fear. The cow on Tim’s left quickly took exception to his amateur hosing technique, pivoted its right rear leg forward, and then let loose with a hell of a kick that, unfortunately, struck young Tim right square in the portion of the body in which men least want to be hit. He fell to the ground doubled over in excruciating pain, rolling around on the wet, shit covered floor of the barn. He was my pal, so I, of course, found his pain absolutely hysterical. I was laughing so hard I could barely finish washing the rest of the cows while he writhed in agony. Seriously, he had been on the job for only five minutes before suffering an injury I had never experienced.

As you might expect based on this inauspicious beginning, Tim’s career as a farm worker was not a long-lasting one. He gave notice as soon as he could line up a different job that didn’t include the prospect of being booted in the balls by a 1200-pound bovine. But he left behind a legacy. The city boy thought pets should be named, and he could not get it out of his head that the dairy cows were not pets.

”Why don’t they have names?” he asked.

“There are too many of them,” I responded. “They have numbers instead.”

”What about that cow your dad likes. Doesn’t she have a name?”

Tim kept up this line of questioning for the few remaining weeks he kept the job. It got to the point that I was tired of hearing him prattle on about it. So I took a big red paint stick that we used to mark the cows and began writing names on the their right hindquarters.

“Wilma! Bessie! Gertrude! Bertha! Harriet! Edith! Margaret! ” When I ran out of old-fashioned women’s names that seemed appropriate for cows, I began putting our classmates’ names on the cows. “Joyce!” Linda! Nora! Susan! Patti! Veronica! Lee!” Then I moved on to silly nicknames like “Poopsie! Dollface! Babycakes!”

“What the hell are you doing?” my dad asked. He clearly thought I’d lost my mind.

”Tim thinks the cows should have names so I’m giving them names.” Eventually I was able to put names on all 100 milk cows before Tim came back for his final weekend shift.

He got a kick out of it. But not the kind that made him roll around in agony.

I have been accused of having a story for any random subject that may get mentioned. I do not deny it.

You may have read that hideous, bloviating cow esteemed television personality Whoopi Goldberg is in trouble for opening her ugly pie hole and spewing an anti-Semitic thought or two on national television. No, I take that back. I doubt that any thought whatsoever has gone into anything this vile pile has ever said or done.

So, of course, this would be an appropriate time to tell my own Whoopi Goldberg story. (I normally say that 98% of JimandJamie.com is 99% true, but in this case names and details have been intentionally blurred to protect the innocent.)

A number of years ago I got a phone call from the marketing director at very well-known company that had just signed Whoopi to star in its new commercials. “You’re good at writing funny commercials,” the client said. “We’d like you to write a bunch of scripts for Whoopi.”

“That,” I responded, “would be a waste of my time and your money.”

”Land sakes alive,” the marketing director exclaimed. “Whatever do you mean?”

“This woman’s an egomaniac,” I answered. “She’ll never read anything I write for her. She’ll want to have them written by someone she knows and trusts.

“You think?” he queried.

“Absolutely. But it could be worse. She might remind you of her legendary comedic skills and demand the right to write her own scripts.”

“Oh, no,” said the client. “We love your work. We think she’ll love it, too.”

“It’s your money,” I responded. “But remember my prediction.”

I wrote a bunch of scripts. I thought they were pretty funny. The client agreed and sent them on to Whoopi’s people. A studio was booked and a date was set to shoot the commercials. I cashed the company’s check and forgot all about the project. That was very unusual because I almost always attend the shoots for TV commercials I write. You never know when an on-the-spot re-write will become necessary because words that looked good on paper don’t work as well when they’re spoken. But understandably, I was not invited to this shoot.

A number of weeks went by and I got another call from the client.

”It was even worse than you predicted,” the marketing director moaned.

“Did she insist on writing her own scripts?”

“Worse. She insisted on ad-libbing the commercials. We shot a full day of Whoopi ad libbing about our product.”

“Are they funny?” I asked, kind of hoping for his sake that they were.

“Well, Whoopi thinks so,” he said glumly, “but no one else does.”

So take it from one who knows, I am not surprised that Whoopi got herself in trouble for ad libbing. But I am surprised to find out she’s an anti Semite.

Nah, I’m really not.

Just one additional thought: What the hell was Ted Danson thinking? In addition to being obnoxious, Whoopi looks like she went wardrobe shopping at Barnum & Bailey’s circus tent close-out sale.

(See what I mean, Whoopi? That there was a damn funny line. You should have used the material I wrote for you. Wait! Wait! I have another one: “Whoopi has plenty of funny material, but Joann’s Fabrics doesn’t have enough of it to cover her fat ass.” I’m killing myself here. I’m friggin’ hilarious. But Whoopi’s still just an unfunny anti-Semite.)

More from the deYong Museum of Cardboard Boxes and Plastic Crates:

Only one conclusion can be drawn from this deYong family photo: My grandparents, George and Bessie, would have been the richest farmers in Montana if only their fields had been half as fertile as their loins. They had twelve children, eleven of whom survived to adulthood.

Check out my grandmother on the far left. She was born in 1877 and my dad (fourth kid from the left) was born in 1911. He looks like he’s about eight or nine in this photo, so she was probably only about 43 years old when this photo was taken. But look at her hair. It had already turned pure white. I imagine giving birth to twelve kids will do that to you.

The Depression scattered the Montana deYong clan all across the country. I cannot even name all my aunts and uncles and certainly don’t recognize them based on this photo. I’m not even sure I ever met all of them. And I know for sure that I have cousins out there I’ve never met.

One uncle became a gravedigger in Alberta, Canada and eventually a Canadian citizen. Another uncle ended up as a vacuum cleaner repairman in one of Chicago’s Indiana suburbs. My uncle Hank bought a farm near the family farm and his son still farms it to this day. Another uncle took over the family farm and it is still in the family, too, owned by my second cousin. My youngest uncle followed my dad to California and they milked cows together until he went off on his own.

My aunts are a different story: I don’t think I met my aunts Mable and Bertha more than a couple times, so I don’t know much about them. My aunt Gertrude moved to Southern California, got married, and gave birth to my cousin but died before I was born. My aunt Sue was a school teacher in Washington. I guess that I met her four or five times in my life, and it was always a fun occasion because she was the sort who made everyone laugh.

You might think that twelve kids in one family is pretty crazy, but let me make it a little crazier. My grandmother’s sister also moved to Kalispell, got married, and also had twelve kids. They must have been rationing names in Montana in the early 1900s because the two sisters gave a lot of their kids the same first names (two Petes, two Hanks, two Gertrudes, two Anns, two Susies, two Georges). So that’s 24 brothers and sisters and first cousins, many of them sharing first names, all in a town of just 8,786. Yes, that’s a very precise number but it’s official because I looked up the United States Census to verify the population of Kalispell in 1910.

That’s me standing in front of the old one bedroom farmhouse in which my grandparents raised twelve kids, the same house that’s in the sepia tone photo at the top of this story. I think it has been demolished now, but it was still standing as of a couple years ago.

To repeat: It was a one bedroom house. I can understand how my grandparents handled the first two or three or maybe even four kids in the house. But how do you even make half a dozen more babies when you already have half a dozen running around the house? Where do you find time? Where do you find the energy? Where do you find a place where inquisitive toddlers don’t barge in unexpectedly asking, “Whatca doin’, daddy? Whatcha doin’, mommy?”