Tassel hassle

My kids are growing up, and I don't like it. My son has now been around for two decades, and my 7-year-old girl will be turning 25 in July. At least it seems like it. Her latest attempt at adding years to her looks is by wearing those fake glasses that have lenses that don't do anything. They look pretty good on her, and she knows it; but I told her that it's a slap in the face to all of us people who have to wear glasses to be able to see. She looked down over the nosepiece of her new spectacles and informed me that she really didn't care.

Last weekend, the boy received his associate's degree from Spoon River College in Canton, Illinois. He really didn't want to go through the graduation ceremony, but unfortunately for him, he has a mother that did. He may be 20, but he wasn't going to win this battle.

It turned out to be a beautiful day, and we had a nice ride down to Canton. When I say we, I mean myself, my wife, my four-eyed daughter and my proud parents who wouldn't miss going to something like this. On the way, we followed, met or encountered in some way, absolutely every piece of farm equipment the state of Illinois has to offer. Even though we left home fairly early, by the time we made it to my son's house, it was time for him to get going.

The graduation was held at a location that was approximately 10-15 minutes from the actual college in the small town of Cuba, Illinois. Since we already had a full car, we took separate vehicles to the ceremony. The plan was that we were to follow him, since he knew where we were going. Inevitably, we somehow got split up. No big deal. It was just my son that needed to be there early. The rest of us still had plenty of time to arrive and find good seats.

However, for some reason, his cap and gown had ended up in our trunk, not his. My advice to all graduates this year ... never ever let your cap and gown out of your sight. You've earned them; you keep them. Trust me. It's just better that way.

As we ambled around Cuba, looking for the graduation venue, we received a couple of cell phone calls from the graduate wondering where the heck we were. Actually I think he was much more concerned about the location of the gown and his funny little hat than he was about the whereabouts of five close family members, but I understood his predicament.

We pulled into the parking lot at about the same time he was supposed to be inside the building. So as my wife was approaching the curb to drop my parents off by the front door, I could see my son striding through the rows of automobiles to get to us. As I held the door open for my mom, he had my wife pop the trunk to get the aforementioned cap and gown.

As he picked up his garments, he decided he was going to throw the gown on right there in the parking lot. So he tossed the hat back in the trunk as he started putting his arms through the voluminous sleeves of the gown. I grabbed up the hat and shut the trunk, so that my wife could proceed to park the car while Mr. College finished dressing on the sidewalk in front of the building. Everything was going to work out fine.

The moment the trunk lid slammed shut, I happened to notice the tassel was not connected to the mortarboard hat. In fact, it was nowhere to be seen. My son and I looked wide-eyed at each other as we imagined him not having a tassel to push over to the other side. I believe that might nullify the whole two-year degree. Hopefully the tassel was still in the trunk of the car which was just now starting to pull away from us.

Not wanting to cause a big fuss in front of the crowd of people who had come to see their friends and/or loved ones graduate from an institution of higher learning, I utilized a subtle technique in attempting to get my wife to stop the car. Instead of yelling "Hey!! Stop the car!!!" and drawing any unwanted attention, I instead started following her bumper whispering, "Stop. Stop. Please stop." and making strange hand gestures in hopes she would see me in the rearview mirror. She apparently did not. Or maybe she did. Either way, it worries me.

Meanwhile, my son followed as he continued to put on his royal blue graduation gown. Not to be left out, my bespectacled daughter also joined in on the slow-speed, silent chase through the bustling parking lot.

There we were, the three of us, me, silently whispering "stop" to myself while waving about my "jazz hands" ... my son, basically putting on the equivalent of a blue, light-weight summer dress ... and my daughter, wearing glasses that she doesn't need, briskly walking behind an oblivious sage-green Mercury Montego that was going approximately one-half miles-per-hour faster than we were. We looked like a trio of crazed, dressed-up speedwalkers that didn't make the cut for the 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics. Except slower.

A quarter of a mile later, we caught up to her. Actually, she parked the car. She wasn't sure why we were there. I explained the situation. We all crossed our fingers as she popped the trunk and were happy to see the tassel laying on the donut-sized spare tire in all it's tassely glory.

He made it to the ceremony on time, and everything else went just fine, although I think I saw several other of the graduation-goers pointing and snickering at us as we took our seats on the gymnasium floor. Jerks.

My brand new college graduate is looking forward to an exciting future as he prepares to go off to Illinois State University next fall. He'll probably do what 90 percent of most graduates do and hang that trouble-making tassel from his rear-view mirror.

For those of you who don't know, the rear-view mirror is that reflective thing stuck in the middle of your windshield.

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If you get a chance, please check out some of the other stuff I've got going:

"Nothing is not Something" on GO Comics.
"Nothing is not Something" on Facebook.
"Nothing is not Something" on Twitter.

Greg Wallace Ink on Facebook
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Sawdust & Paint on Facebook.

Column Sketch

Here's the sketch for the weekend newspaper column.
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If you get a chance, please check out some of the other stuff I've got going:

"Nothing is not Something" on GO Comics.
"Nothing is not Something" on Facebook.
"Nothing is not Something" on Twitter.

Greg Wallace Ink on Facebook
Greg Wallace Ink on Twitter.

Sawdust & Paint on Facebook.

Keep your eye on the sparrow

Yesterday, I left the driver's side window partially down on my Jeep. Sometime during the day, a sparrow made it's way inside. I have no idea how long the little guy was in there but it must have been for a while. For a bird that is no more than a couple of inches long, the amount of fecal material that it contains is truly astounding. The length of it's intestines can probably be expressed in millimeters but the poop stains on my upholstery can be measured in square footage. Just another one of God's little wonders.

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If you get a chance, please check out some of the other stuff I've got going:

"Nothing is not Something" on GO Comics.
"Nothing is not Something" on Facebook.
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Greg Wallace Ink on Facebook
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Sawdust & Paint on Facebook.

Coming clean

On the whole, I'm a much better kid than any of my siblings. They have been nothing but a constant source of worry and sorrow for my parents for as long as I can remember, where as I have been pretty much a complete angel all of my life. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

However, there is one ugly situation from my past I feel the need to get off my chest. So here goes ...

I have been a proud, glasses-wearing American since the fall of 1975 when I was in the fourth-grade. I got my first pair of glasses on a Saturday morning, and they were broken by Thursday afternoon. Those are the cold, hard facts that cannot be disputed. However, the events leading up to that fateful Thursday afternoon have been somewhat fuzzy to most of the civilized world. Until now.

My friend (I'll refer to him as Rob because, well … his name is Rob) and I were playing a mean game of football in Rob's front yard following a Cub Scout meeting. Rob's mom and my mom were the den mothers for us and a group of our classmates who wore the yellow neckerchief with pride.

When we started the football game following our weekly Cub Scout meeting that Thursday, the den was divided up into even teams. As the other moms arrived to pick up their boys, the teams got smaller and smaller. After a while it was only Rob and I who were left. This situation limited both sides to primarily a run-style offense, which was too bad because I could catch the ball a lot better since I could actually see it with my new spectacles.

On one particular play when I was on offense (I believe that it was a sweep to the right), I finally broke loose. As I was headed toward the end zone, I must have started my celebratory Walter Payton high-kick a little too soon because Rob caught me from behind. In what would be an obvious horse-collar penalty in today's game, Rob took me down. As we both tumbled across his front yard, my 5-day-old glasses flew from my head. Everything seemed to be in slow motion as the plastic frames arced across the late-afternoon October sky.

Untangling ourselves from the two-person pile-up, I scanned the ground for my new glasses. The thing is, when you don't have your glasses on, it's impossible to really "scan" much of anything. However, when you're blind as a bat, your other senses kick into overdrive. Just like my keen sense of hearing did when I heard the faint crunch of plastic under my royal blue Pro-Keds shoe.

Rob and I stood there staring at the ground, where my glasses laid in three different pieces. My mind had gone into full freak out mode as I tried to figure out how I was going to tell Mom what had happened. Visibly shaking as shock took over my body, I asked Rob what I should do.

Rob looked at me and said "My Dad has this bottle of glue ..."

It was just like the scene in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" when Spicoli says he can fix the car with his Dad's "awesome" set of tools. Rob and I took this supposedly super strong glue into the bathroom and went to work. Rob did most of the repair work as I lay in the fetal position by the toilet uttering "Glasses … broke … glasses … broke …," over and over again.

After a few minutes, Rob gingerly handed me the plastic frames and told me they were as good as new. I inspected them and half-heatedly responded "Yeah, sure."

It was a quiet ride back home that night because I didn't want to bring any unnecessary attention to my bespectacled face. I also didn't want to move any of my facial muscles as the binding agent in the glue dried. So far so good I thought. In the darkened car, Mom didn't seem to notice anything was amiss. I thought that maybe I could pull this ruse off.

Even as we sat around the supper table that night, my family was oblivious to my repaired glasses. I was actually starting to breathe a little easier when I asked my mom to pass me the salt.

She had a funny look on her face, or maybe I should say that she had a "fuzzy" look on her face. At least out of my right eye anyway. For when I looked down at my plate, there was the right lens to my glasses, laying in my green beans.

I don't remember much after that. I'm pretty sure I went into some diatribe about how cheaply these glasses were made and that our optometrist shouldn't order anything from that company ever again. I was just trying to throw my parents off the scent.

To my surprise, neither of my parents got very upset with me that night. I think they realized that things like this happen when you have a near-sighted 9-year-old boy under your roof. Plus, I think that they thought it was funny that their youngest was giving a heated lecture about the shoddy workmanship that takes place in third-world countries while a string of glue swung from what was left of the frames that were still on my face.

So with a cleaner conscience, I would like to wish my mom a happy Mother's Day. Her and Dad did a lot for our family, and for that I am forever grateful. Thanks for getting me to where I am today, and I sincerely apologize for all the stuff that my brothers and sister put you through.

I'm glad I've finally come clean about the Great Glasses Incident of 1975. I think there is one thing we can learn from this tragic event: It was all Rob's fault.

Wow. I really do feel better getting that off my chest.

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If you get a chance, please check out some of the other stuff I've got going:

"Nothing is not Something" on GO Comics.
"Nothing is not Something" on Facebook.
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Greg Wallace Ink on Facebook
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Sawdust & Paint on Facebook.

Sketch For Weekend Column

Here's the sketch for this weekends newspaper column. If you can't tell, it's obviously about Mother's Day.

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If you get a chance, please check out some of the other stuff I've got going:

"Nothing is not Something" on GO Comics.
"Nothing is not Something" on Facebook.
"Nothing is not Something" on Twitter.

Greg Wallace Ink on Facebook
Greg Wallace Ink on Twitter.

Sawdust & Paint on Facebook.

Spoiler alert

I had a funny thing happen with my comic strip "Nothing is not Something" today. I usually post new strips every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The fine people at Go Comics are the ones who do the actual posting to their website and this happens sometime during the wee hours of the morning. Normally I'll wake up on those mornings and check to make sure that the new strips have been uploaded properly.

At that time, I'll check to see if any comments have been made in an effort to try and figure out what my fan base likes. Over the two to three day spread that the comic runs on the website, I will usually only get 5 or 6 comments. Mostly it's people putting their own little spin on that particular strip. It's kind of fun.

Today when I woke up, I noticed that there were already seven comments made about the "Larry Likes Coal" strip that you see above. Since the strip had only been "live" for a couple of hours, this seemed like an astonishing number of comments.

When I started to read the comments, I couldn't help but chuckle. A couple of people got out their dictionaries to look up the word "bituminous" to find out what the secret joke was. Others were crafting the word into some kind of hidden, double entendre, semi-dirty joke. I could sense their disappointment when they couldn't quite figure out my grand scheme. I think that they wanted an explanation.

Well, here it is: I like the word bituminous. It doesn't make any sense on any level within the confines of the comic strip. I was just having fun with a word that is descriptive of a certain kind of coal. The word bituminous does not translate to a description of a woman, however Larry is woefully ignorant of that fact. (He's also apparently not aware that his coal miner's hat is still on.) There is no hidden meaning. The thought of a guy named Larry, sitting in a bar, with a coal miner's hat on, looking for a "bituminous" woman to hit on, Makes me giggle. Nothing more, nothing less. That's the joke.

As a spoiler alert for future strips, I like to have fun with words. I like to use them in inappropriate settings. On many occasions, I also spell them wrong, which many people have liked to point out.

Like I said before, this kind of stuff makes me smile. For those people who go the extra mile in figuring out the deeper meaning in everything, I respect you for you convictions, but anyone who knows me realizes I'm about as shallow as you can get.

P.S.- For future reference, I also like the words "hibiscus" and spelunker."

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If you get a chance, please check out some of the other stuff I've got going:

"Nothing is not Something" on GO Comics.
"Nothing is not Something" on Facebook.
"Nothing is not Something" on Twitter.

Greg Wallace Ink on Facebook
Greg Wallace Ink on Twitter.

Sawdust & Paint on Facebook.

Nickname protocol

The trouble with nicknames is that you usually don't get to pick out your own. Take me for instance. I would be willing to bet that 98.723 percent of people born with the last name "Wallace" have been called "Wally" at least once in their lives. It's not a flashy nickname, but I like it.

Nicknames are most often thrust upon a person, whether they like it or not. Trust me, if you ever meet a guy nicknamed "Stinky," you can most certainly expect that he didn't select it. But there is probably an amusing little anecdote as to how that nickname came to fruition.

The other day, some people in the office were discussing professional-wrestling nicknames. Professional wrestlers are the exceptions to the nicknaming rule. They get to actually pick out their own nicknames. Growing up, I remember wrestlers with cool names like George "The Animal" Steele, Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart, Jesse "The Body" Ventura, "King Kong" Bundy and "Mad Dog" Vachon. There was also "Hulk" Hogan, "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan, Jake "The Snake" Roberts, "Jumpin" Jim Brunzell, Randy "Macho Man" Savage, Larry "The Axe" Hennig and Billy "Superstar" Graham. The list goes on and on.

Wouldn't it be great if all professions issued nicknames to their employees? In my opinion, the workplace would become much more interesting. To give you an example of what I mean, here are some nickname possibilities that I've come up with looking around the editorial department at the Bureau County Republican:

Kevin "Hollywood" Hieronymus — Kevin already has this nickname. He got it after a former BCR employee saw him on television. He was on the field following a St. Louis Cardinal playoff game.

Goldie "The Kid" Currie — Goldie is the newest and youngest member to the editorial staff. If you look at her in the presence of all of us other crusty old newspaper veterans, you'd swear she's probably only 12 years old ... 13 tops.

Barb "At The Movies" Kromphardt — If you need to know anything about any movie ever made, no matter how trivial, Barb is the go-to lady.

Donna "The Sweet-faced Troublemaker" Barker — As nice of a lady as she seems to be, Donna is involved in possibly more harmless pranks than anyone else I know.

Terri "The Putter" Simon — The BCR editor has been known to have golfball putting contests down the aisle between the cubicles of the editorial department. I know this because my cubicle is where you tee-off from.

Rita "Twelve Fingers" Roberts — She types really, really fast. Using all of her fingers. Without looking at the keyboard. Accurately. (I believe that some kind of black magic is involved.)

Terry "The Stapler" Himes — I don't have a stapler, and I always borrow his. Sometimes Terry runs out of staples. During those times I call him Terry "Paperclip" Himes.

Just think of all the merchandising opportunities that we're missing out on. We could all have T-shirts made. We could have bobble-head day where every 10th lucky subscriber that comes through our doors is awarded a bobble-head of their favorite editorial department personnel. Who in their right minds would not want a Donna "The Sweet-faced Troublemaker" bobble-head sitting on their fireplace mantle? The possibilities are endless.

Well, it looks like I had better wrap this column up. Lyle "The Sleek White Panther" Ganther wants to send this page to press.

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If you get a chance, please check out some of the other stuff I've got going:

"Nothing is not Something" on GO Comics.
"Nothing is not Something" on Facebook.
"Nothing is not Something" on Twitter.

Greg Wallace Ink on Facebook
Greg Wallace Ink on Twitter.

Sawdust & Paint on Facebook.