Ketchup Time
Starting with the cost of growing our food, and the meaning of “Mondo! Chicoria!”
It’s been 39 days since I last babbled, but who’s counting? ME!
Unless you were born with the coveted “stay on schedule” gene, goals like a well-intentioned weekly update of Frank’s Buffalo Babble can easily morph into the “I’ll double up next week” excuse once you miss a beat. And I’ve missed a few.
This often happens to people —like me—who vow to improve their eating habits. They’re fine until they attend an event with a luscious charcuterie board; just one teensy little slice of salami can’t hurt.
Source: Reinhard Thrainer on Pixabay
Suddenly you’re a land pirhana, and all of your discipline falls to the wayside. It’s hard to get back up on that horse—the uneaten one— but I’m here, saddled up, posting again.
Homegrown blessings
My inner farmer is underdeveloped. I did not inherit my immigrant grandfather’s skill at turning a backyard into a magnificent array of
Tomatoes (the BEST!!)
Zucchini
Eggplant
Basil
Chicory
Stoppa the car!
I have a special memory about chicory. My grandmother had a sharp eye for spotting roadside freebies on the trip from her Buffalo home to ours in Tonawanda, a small city to the north. As a passenger, she was able to focus on the greenery (just a bunch of weeds to me) in the wild fields separating us.
“Mondo! Chicoria!” she would say to my father. Translation: “Armando! Chicory!” If those tasty green leaves were tainted by lead or other undesirable heavy metals from automobile exhaust in the 1960s, we were unaware of the danger. I want to think the pros of eating salads made from homegrown vegetables and others from the raw fields outweighed the cons.
On dandelions
I have one more related diversion for you, then please come back for the rest of this newsletter.
A fast walk through the cartoon backlog
Here are two editorial cartoons you missed. I will be brief, terse, short-winded, to the point, economical of word, sentence, phrase, and paragraph …
Old-timers might recognize that last sentence as an approximate transcript from impersonator David Frye doing the late VP Hubert H. Humphrey from Minnesota. I’ll elaborate on that memory another time.
Seeing red
This cartoon was one of my most widely read and shared cartoons on Facebook. I can only wish it finds the same legs on Substack.
The Voice(s)
My original thought was this would be only a local cartoon about Buffalo Sabres fans singing the Canadian national anthem after the singer’s microphone failed, but the story got nationwide attention. So I tweaked the concept a bit to add a political component. Our relationship with Canada is special to us as Buffalo is a major border city. It still chokes me up a bit when I listen to the unscripted event.
That’s it, you are up to date with Frank’s Buffalo Born Babble. I left out a few strictly local cartoons about the Buffalo Sabres. I might create another tab dedicated to Buffalo’s other major-league sport, NHL hockey, now that we have a good team and regional interest rekindled.
Canada! Growing up in Ontario whenever Commander Tom or Irv Weinstein would mention the word “Canada” we’d go an excitedly tell our parents. I sense that same feeling with your Sabres cartoon!
Right you are Frank!