Gasoline Alley by Jim Scancarelli for August 03, 2009

As predicted, Up To No Goode is having his Saul on the Road to Damascus moment and has repented. I can’t wait to see how the congregation reacts to that lone dissenting voice in the wilderness behind him.

smite, smote, smitten … i wonder where et is.

Yeah, but if you didn’t like gentle, somewhat cliched storylines, what in the heck are you doing reading Gasoline Alley? Edgy and cutting edge this isn’t.

Does Gasoline Alley have any police to call?

Response to BlitzMcD–they’ll react and call police when Ramona starts smiting Upton, and get a twoferone deal (Upton for fraud, Ramona for A&B).

(btw Norman–it’s Ramona who should be hauled away in thatwagon).

I’m afraid Upton is about to be martyred. He has only one chance for survival, and that is admittedly Slim.

Speaking of Slim and the “Road” - where IS the Reverend? He has had enough time to walk into town by now. BTW - how come no Wallet kin in the congregation - as they are in the Sunday supplements?

Oh it’s so hard when you repent and your spouse doesn’t. Upton is in for a hard time until Ramona also “sees the light”!

axe-grinder said, I’m afraid Upton is about to be martyred. He has only one chance for survival, and that is admittedly Slim. ——– Buddy, pal o’ mine, you’re lucky I don’t have a pie right now. That was oh so bad!

I think, Macush, that someone will have texted (admittedly, GA’s regulars are not generally apace with tech, but that doesn’t hold for “one-timers” as the bulk of the congregation shown in second panel) the police, and they will likely be there shortly.

Jazzlilly - I’m sure you’re both right, but Axe still needs a pie! Maybe cocoanut cream.

Is Ramona sitting with the choir?

Joe Allen, with respect toward your linguistic knowledge, languages have been changing and evolving ever since humans started speaking. It’s not at all unusual for meanings to change.

There are GA police, they came when the mailcarrier reported the robbery at Skeezix’s house. I loved it when people commented about Mayor Melba as a familiar part of the cast. Once upon a time she was spandy new. Maybe the new characters some folks have been complaining about recently will eventually become a familiar and welcome part of the cast….

Stringmusicaner - Yes ma’am. That’s why it’s important to know what they USED to mean. So that you can properly understand what they really meant, not what we think they meant. If I see an word in an old text, such as martyr, I might think that they meant one thing rather than the actual meaning.

The problems which some have today with “archaic” language is of recent origin. Back in the 50s, when I was in high school, it was a general rule that if you planned on going to college, you should have a pretty good foundation in Latin, Greek and Hebrew as well as English. The reason for this - at least in most Wester states - was that most institutions of higher learning had been established by churches for the purpose of training ministers. Even small high schools were expected to provide instruction in Latin, Greek and Hebrew to students who planned on going to college. Students were expected to be familiar with the “classic” languages BEFORE they turned up on the college campus. Admittedly, where I grew up, there were only about 12 students out of every hundred who would be able to go on to college. However, public school were expected to provide students with all the tools which the students would need to have when they entered college. By the time I had entered high school, the rules had been relaxed and students were only required to have two years of Latin and advanced math - such as two years of Algebra or one year of Algebra and one year of Trig.

Even though my mother knew she probably would never be able to go to college - she still took advantage of the Latin, Hebrew and Greek classes which her school offered.

Even when I was in grade school, students could earn extra credit by reading through the KING JAMES version of the Bible. Although the Revised Standard Version was available by then - the extra credit was only for reading through the King James version of the Bible. The theory of educators at that time was that IF students could earn to read and understand the King James version of the Bible, they would be able to read anything - but especially complex legal documents. The theory was that if young people could ACCURATELY read anything which was set in front of them, it would never be possible for some sharp trader to take advantage of them. In those days, many (if not most) legal documents were still written in King James style English. And, we couldn’t just READ through the Bible and get credit. We had to actually pass tests on what we had read. Of course, this was all done for extra credit - so if you wanted to pull your grades up with extra credit - you could choose to use that approach - or not.

A few years ago, I took a literature course at a local college. The book we were reading was set during the turn of the century. There was one character who had supposedly only had an eighth grade education, but went around quoting from Shakespeare all the time. Some of the students said it was highly unlikely that someone with only an eighth grade education would be all that familiar with Shakespeare. They were all astonished when I told them that, as recent as the 1950s in the rural school where I grew up, students were introduced to Shakespeare as early as the third grade and our third grade reader had extensive passages from both Shakespeare and the King James version of the Bible which third graders were expected to be able to read. Since the rest of the students in the class found this hard to believe, I brought in my third grade reader and passed it around in the class. Not only did the reader include extensive passages from Shakespeare - but - when we passed the reader around the class - a majority of the students had difficulty reading through an entire paragraph without stumbling on the words. Most of the rest of the students in the class were 18 and 19 year old recent graduates of local high schools.

We have lost a lot in the quality of education when high school seniors can no longer read from a book which third graders were expected to be able to read as recently as the 1950s.

So people having difficulty reading through something written in an “archaic” language is a problem which has developed only recently. One of the reasons why my mother chose to take the Latin, Hebrew and Greek classes which were offered by her school was because she believed that, so long as she could read the Bible and other classic literature in the original language - no one would ever be able to lie to her about what it said.

Besides martyr, another word which no longer means what it used to mean is celibate. In its original form, celibate merely meant “unmarried.” A whole host of other meanings have since been attached to the word. I believe that learning the origins of words is rather interesting.

So - carry on Dypak!

Didn’t the GA police arrest Slim last Christmas when he made a Santa Clause visit to the wrong house?

Edit: Not the Georgia police!

I don’t think I am qualified to add to that! I will say that at my school we have a Shakespeare unit for our 8th graders. Granted it’s an introductory type unit but they do become familiar with some of the better known soliloquies and poems. And they read A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The high school asked us not to do several others, especially Romeo and Juliet, because they want to cover it. Not bad for a little redneck school in rural Kentucky.

Rufus & Joel are going to cart Upton and Ramona Lisa off to the dump.

I have wondered, too, about why Ramona Lisa appears behind Upton. And while there are several women in the congregation who look a little like Clovia, I don’t see Slim and you couldn’t miss him if he’s there.

Slim is still at Stuckeys, they have a Sunday breakfast bar. He’ll make the 11:00 sermon. It’ll be over before kick-off.

Education in our country today is some what like the U.S. dollar .What I’m saying is I can remember 16 cent gasoline .

I am probably telling on myself, but I can remember when McDonalds was the new kid on the block and offered hamburgers for ten cents each. OR - you could get a baker’s dozen (13) for $1.00 The Baker’s Dozen order ALSO included four cola drinks and four orders of fries. So four people could double date and go out to eat following the movie and everyone would get something to eat for only $1. And that was as recently as the 60s.

One of my favorite Gene Autry movies has a scene where Smiley asks Gene to loan him a quarter - so he could take his girl out for a movie and then treat her to a hamburger and cup of coffee following the movie. I think the date on the movie was something like 1939 Of course, Gene didn’t have a quarter to loan him - but can you imagine two movie tickets plus two hamburgers plus two cups of coffee for only twenty five cents?

I also have a copy of the Dick and Jane reader which they used in first grade at my school. In the later editions, when mother goes to the grocery store, the pictures no longer show the prices on the various grocery items. However, in the edition which I have, the prices on the groceries included 3 CENTS for a head of lettuce and 8 CENTS for a dozen eggs! The date on the book is 1948!

Seems to me like it has been all downhill since then!

I agree with you Dypak, any enlightenment on the use of words can only be good.

I only meant that “misused” perhaps doesn’t apply when an entire culture uses a word in a different way and it is perfectly well understood in that context. That’s why languages are so often called “living.”

i nominate deborah to be our new et laureate.

Deborah—I’ve been looking for the hand basket for a long time . Mr.Obama don’t know it but he might be it . For sure if the printer brakes down . Downhill and there’s grease on the skids .