A Duck As Metaphor For the White House

by Pem Schaeffer

How to Resolve the Election If All Else Fails by Pem Schaeffer: A Win-Win Situation?
Disclaimer: The author is a proud charter member of the following associations:
> The bitter clingers, hanging on to their guns and bibles (Obama designated.)
> The deplorables and irredeemables (Hillary Clinton designated.)
> The white trash Americans who voted for Trump (designated by a “featured” opinion writer in Brunswick, Maine.)
Nothing said in this brief treatise should be interpreted as in any way indicative of declining enthusiasm for the re-election of Donald Trump as President.

I am a firm believer that Donald Trump won the recent election, and hope and pray that efforts to document and prove fraud and tabulation misconduct in numerous locations succeed in correcting this massive theft. I am also a believer that humor must play a part in our lives.

I am pushing 80 years of age, and accordingly, my experience with comedy and comedians is heavily weighted towards the classic comedy and comedians of by-gone years, and the entertainment formats that brought them to us. Remember one-hour “Variety Shows” on TV? Remember the Steve Allen Show, Ernie Kovacs, Jack Paar, and most of all, the Johnny Carson show? They all date back to the classic years of comedy, all of which was family-rated, and in many cases, leaned towards the art of “story telling.”

Those who excelled in this latter skill often had very expressive faces and related performance skills; you laughed as much over their delivery as you did their words. I remember folks like Myron Cohen, who was a master of facial contortions to create a full-featured story narrative. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6X7sj4wA1I

Many of these comedians were said to have honed their art in the Catskill Resorts in New York, doing stand up routines before large crowds in dining rooms. Much of their humor could be characterized as “dry,” which is how I recall my father's humor. He was a salesman, and by definition, developed a large catalog of two or three line jokes that passed around in his day to day activities, and they were rarely howlingly funny. Instead, they were of the dry humor sort. If you have to ask what dry means in this context, you wouldn't understand if I could tell you. It's a feel thing; an instinct.

With this as preamble, I wish to offer up a humorous episode from the past that gave me inspiration for the title of this piece. In it, Buddy Hackett, one of the classic story-tellers of the golden comedy era, appears on the Johnny Carson show.

The appearance features three “jokes,” or more correctly, three funny stories. Hackett makes it clear that each is an “animal” story, assuming the general public loves animals. The third one gave me an inspiration for the concept of this column.

As you listen to it, think of the hunter as Biden (ironic, you must agree); the farmer as Trump; and the duck as the White House.

You will find the clip here, and I hope you laugh as hard as I did.
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Pem Schaeffer is a retired engineer who progressed to a position in business development leadership in defense electronics. He lives and writes in Brunswick, Maine, and blogs at The Other Side of Town.

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