That is Priceless by Steve Melcher for February 27, 2023

Henrik hoped he could impress the ladies by telling them he was an artist’s model.

/// He looks troubled, the Man at the Bench.

He’d made plans to meet here with a “wench.”

But, behind him’s a trench

which emits a vile stench

and is causing his nostrils to clench.

Clint never trusted another bench since he sat on a freshly painted one.

“Forrest Gump II, Back on the Bench”

One of the Swedish Bachelor Farmers wonderin g where all the other guys are. (And boy, did I just date myself.)

When the squirrels are not looking, I’ll grab their nuts.

*Condensed from a story by Hans Christian Andersen:

“The Old Bachelor’s Night Cap”*

Anthony and Molly were childhood sweethearts. They spent many pleasant hours together on a park bench eating apples, and one day planted seeds, of which one grew through the years to a sturdy sapling. Then one day Molly moved with her family to another town. They promised to keep in touch, but did so only once — and after that things were never again the same.

“How different the world, and the people in it, appeared to Anthony now, to what he had thought in his childhood! What to him now were the minstrel’s songs? An echo of the past, sounds long vanished. At times he would sadly think in this way; yet again and again the songs would sound in his soul, and his heart become gentle and pious.”

Anthony brooded as his family’s wealth diminished; and eventually he became one of the trade clerks known In Denmark as “pepper gentry,” who sold from their small booths all kinds of spaces. As a condition of employment, they could not marry, and many lived to an old age, often the butt of ridicule from unkind men and women around them.

“God’s will is the best,” Anthony would say. “It was well that I was not allowed to keep my power over Molly’s heart, and that she did not remain true to me. How I should have felt it now, when fortune has deserted me! She left me before she knew of the change in my circumstances, or had a thought of what was before me. That is a merciful providence for me. All has happened for the best…”

[Continued …]

[… Continued]

”The Old Bachelor’s Night Cap”

Many years passed in this manner, and as Anthony aged he lay, as often as not, in the bed of his tiny house. He shed many tears as his strength gradually ebbed, until he could shed no more. He thought of St. Elizabeth, the saint of his childhood who gave comfort to the sick and poor. He imagined he could see her kind face, and with it the fragrance of roses filled the room, mingled with the smell of apples from the tree, now grown large, he and Molly had once planted together. Through a miracle, his tears had turned to pearls.

Finally, after a bad snowstorm, Anthony had not shown himself for three days. Then his opposite neighbor stepped over to the house in which old Anthony lived. There he lay stretched on his bed, dead, with his old nightcap tightly clasped in his two hands.

“The nightcap, however, was not placed on his head in his coffin; he had a clean white one on then. Where now were the tears he had shed? What had become of those wonderful pearls? They were in the nightcap still. Such tears as these cannot be washed out, even when the nightcap is forgotten. The old thoughts and dreams of a bachelor’s nightcap still remain.

But never wish for such a nightcap even for all its pearls, should it pass along to you even fifty years later. It would make your forehead hot, cause your pulse to beat with agitation, and conjure up sad dreams that would appear unwelcome realities.”

.

http://hca.gilead.org.il/old_bach.html

Does the E bus stop here?

On a clear day, you can see forever. Today? Not so much.

Rowan Atkinson’s Dad. Now we know where Rowan got his good looks from!/s

The not so successful Mr. Rodgers neighborhood.

That’s ok, we’re not so comfortable with seeing Mr. Rogers in the nude either.

Tyrone Horneigh did not know it at the time, but he would be waiting decades on this bench before his destiny showed up in the form of Gladys Ormsby.

Especially when it is 63 degrees out.

And then he said, “Excuse me but have you seen Godot?”

It’s grey, it’s grey ….. Since she went away, oh oh

“I can’t believe I ate the whole thing..”

Karl wondering why his game of pocket pool is not so enjoyable today.

I stand here today fully clothed and not ashamed of it, however tomorrow is another day!

“It’s ten degrees out, Carl. Surely you’ve heard of ‘shrinkage’.”

“Sunny” Svendsen, Copenhagen’s own Rodney Dangerfield.

Robert Mitchum waiting for his cue.

“No, I am not a party girl! Get some glasses!”

Splinters

Would you like to go for a walk in the park

we can stay out until it gets dark

you know a girl like you is not so easy to find

I’d like to make you all mine.

CARL: I’d sit but you need quads like Arnold to get back up from these dam low benches. Did this town get a deal on left over props from the Wizard of Oz Munchkin Land set? Is Michael Dunn * the mayor here?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Dunn_(actor)

“Great, now that Magritte has gone and taken his green apple with him, I can take off my bowler and relax!”

“Let me think. Was I going to work or coming home?”

The man at the bench: 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carl_Vilhelm_Meyer_-_Manden_ved_b%C3%A6nken_-_1919.png 

has info and links that point to more info about this painting.

 

Again, a larger strip image is shown by (Ctrl- or right-) clicking the image in Mr. Melcher’s MASTERPIECE #3087 (February 26, 2023) blog entry, accessible by the Check out the blog! box after the last comment, and using the dropdown menu (even larger if you trim what’s after .png from the URL). I have added a comment there (awaiting Mr. Melcher’s approval) pointing to info about this artist I used to point to here. First work by this artist used here.

He suppresses the constant demands/

Of his ever-insistent hands/

But his ten(!) kids suggest/

That he’s seldom suppressed/

The demands of his pulsating glans!

Helo children, will you help me find my dog, he got off his leach and i think he was headed towards the men’s room.

He made it to the finals of the National Adult Spelling Bee but lost out on the final word: ‘Lugubrious’.

Looking at his shabby, ill-fitting clothing, you would never know that Viggo is Denmark’s top body builder, with the muscular body of a Greek god. Tired of being looked at as “a piece of meat” he now wants to be admired for his skill at cutting amazingly accurate silhouettes from black paper.

When you thought the bus was coming but it’s a garbage truck.

Well … this didn’t work very good for the commercial. What say we try it on a pier?

Liberty.

“Dansk Manden ved baenken”