Love…and listen…to your teddy bear

 Teddy bear logic: Think positively and choose to be happy. This is good advice for young children, senior citizens and everyone in-between.

Fully grown author Margaret Meps Schulte talks to her teddy bear, Frank Lloyd Bear (affectionately known as Frankie). He listens…then coaches her. They have frequent conversations. The result is a delightful and uplifting yarn, “The Joyful Bear.”

Readers of all ages can “learn, grow and become” from this book. A quick read…and dagnabbit funny.

Schulte is no stranger to the Crystal Coast section of North Carolina. She visited her friends here in late February 2018 and spent some quality time with Libby Liles, owner of The Kindred Spirit Gift Shop and Green Gables Tea Room in Down East Carteret County.

“Don’t you just love this shop? It’s so warm and welcoming,” Schulte said. “It’s one of my all-time favorite happy spots, where one can enjoy a cup of tea, a scone and conversation.”

Schulte and Liles stoked up a personal kindred spirit relationship in 2010, and they have remained in constant contact since.

“Libby is so funny, she’s like my big sister,” Schulte said. Liles had a chapter of her own in Schulte’s earlier book, “Strangers Have the Best Candy.”

Frankie actually helped Schulte finish the candy book, coming to the rescue when the author fell into “a deep, unshakable depression, much worse than garden-variety writer’s block.” Frankie encouraged her to set that manuscript aside and start fresh with a different book, about how to talk to bears. She heeded his advice.

Teddy bears specialize in hugging, and Schulte shares some of the health benefits associated with the hugging experience. Bears can also help simplify one’s life and shed the complexities that are barriers to happiness.

Simplicity describes Schulte’s pen and ink illustrations that bring the main characters alive. Her drawings have an abstract flair, which enables her to give them a three-dimensional perspective.

Throughout her story, Schulte reveals a few secrets about teddy bear life. For example, bears maintain their strength by eating air. Coffee air is a favorite, second only to cookie air.

One day, Schulte wrote, “I began to recognize that Frank Lloyd Bear was me. I had given him the best parts of me, to hold until I was ready. He held my wisdom, my unconditional love, my vulnerability, my joy and contentment. He knew who I really was inside: A happy, loving little girl.”

“That little girl has often been afraid to come out and play, which is why Frankie is so alive. Frankie lives, acts and speaks for her. With that realization, Frank Lloyd Bear and I became equals. He no longer carries the wisdom and vulnerability for both of us. Now we share it along with the joy.”

Schulte continued: “I can see he’s just a stuffed bear, and he can see I’m just a squishy human. Both of us are perfectly imperfect.”

Schulte lives in Dunedin, Fla., to be near her 92-year-old father, Henry Schulte, who is also a writer. Her most recent project is known as “I Smile First.” Learn about it and follow her at her website 1meps.com.

Ice cream is its own food group in the South

One of the iconic “summer foods of the South” observes its 175-year anniversary in 2018. Can you say ice cream?

We’re talkin’ homemade ice cream, as prepared in an old-fashioned, hand-cranked ice cream churn that was patented in 1843 by Nancy M. Johnson of Philadelphia.

Serve us up some big bowls of vanilla, chocolate, peach, strawberry, blueberry-lemon…or you-name-it…Southern ice cream. Swallow and wallow. Dagnabbit, that’s good stuff!

“There are some foods that have a powerful connection to summer, and ice cream is one of them,” said Virginia Willis of Augusta Ga., who is a chef and cookbook author. She was a recent guest blogger for the Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi in Oxford.

“Ice cream has a magical quality,” Willis wrote. “One lick…instantly brings back memories of childhood, listening to the rhythmic surge of the ice cream maker while impatiently waiting on the screened-in porch for an adult to pronounce that it was ready.”

Truly, not much is known about inventor Nancy Johnson, but here’s how her churn worked: An inner canister containing the ice cream ingredients was placed inside a larger bucket. Ice and rock salt were placed between the two vessels. (The salt lowers the temperature of the ice.)

Ingeniously, Nancy Johnson used a crank on the outside of the big bucket that was connected by meshed gears to a paddle inside. The hand crank moved the paddle that continuously scraped the frozen milk or cream from the walls of the inner can. Consistent stirring resulted in smoother ice cream with a consistent texture.

Willis commented: “There’s nothing like the old-fashioned, metal chamber-style ice cream maker that uses coarse ice. If you need inspiration (to do it yourself), take a peek at the ingredient list on some of those ‘home-style’ ice creams in your grocer’s freezer. They read more like a chemistry manual than an ingredient list.”

Ten years after Nancy Johnson’s patent, a company was born in 1853 in Laconia, N.H., by Thomas Sands. He named it the White Mountain Freezer Company, and it would become the world’s premier manufacturer of ice cream churns. White Mountain uses New England white pine to create its handcrafted buckets and has been for generations.

Company literature says: “White Mountain has been about making sweet family memories with ice cream made by hand. We keep our standards high because we know that White Mountain Ice Cream Makers become part of a family tradition passed from one generation to the next.

“At the heart of the White Mountain machine is a uniquely designed, twin-blade ‘dasher’ (the term describes the inner plunger-paddle device). One set of blades turns clockwise while another set turns counter-clockwise. That motion action continuously folds the ingredient mixture from the outer walls back onto itself, creating the smoothest and creamiest ice cream.”

White Mountain celebrated its centennial anniversary in 1953 by introducing an electric, motor powered unit that revolutionized homemade ice cream making by eliminating the need for elbow grease.

In 1881, the editors of Puck, a humor magazine published in New York City, commented on the societal effects of ice cream: “Summer would not be summer without ice-cream. Ice-cream is the favorite currency of love.”

Don Kardong, an American author and marathon runner, comments that if there were no ice cream, the world would be full of “darkness and chaos.”

Both of these comments can be found in “The Quote Garden,” a product of quotation anthologist Terri Guillemets of Phoenix, Ariz. She started collecting quotations at age 13 and has made it her career to “spread quotatious joy.”

She also has a knack for writing her own quotations, and she has a love of ice cream. Two of Guillemets’ sayings are:

“Me and ice cream. Best friends forever.”

“I don’t cry over spilt milk, but a fallen scoop of ice cream is enough to ruin my whole day.”

Warren County tourism says: ‘Let’s go fish’

North Carolina’s Warren County is working hard to leverage its primary man-made asset to bolster a stagnant tourism market. The county’s geography includes a network of lakes created as reservoirs along the Roanoke River in northern North Carolina and southern Virginia.

The good news is the recreational opportunities on the lakes are far from being maxed out.

Warren County is one of only three of 100 counties in North Carolina that did not record tourism revenue gains in 2016. Warren County’s performance was flat. (We’re on a mission here to help turn things around for folks in Warren County.)

Warren County “shares” Lake Gaston with neighboring Halifax and Northampton counties as well as two counties in southern Virginia. The lake is 34 miles long and was created in 1963, with the completion of the Lake Gaston Dam on the Roanoke River.

Lake Gaston is the middle lake within a three dam-and-reservoir system, which is owned by Dominion Energy, Inc., and produces hydropower distributed by Virginia Electric and Power Company.

When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began construction of the first dam in 1947, it was called the “Buggs Island Project,” which made perfectly good sense, because the dam site in Virginia was just a few hundred feet upriver from an island in the Roanoke River belonging to the descendants of Samuel Bugg. It was known as Buggs Island.

For some reason, the U.S. Congress decided to intervene and voted in October 1951 to change the name of the project to honor North Carolina Congressman John H. Kerr. That didn’t sit too well with the Virginians…and still doesn’t.

The Virginia legislature got so riled up, it voted in 1952 that the body of water created by the dam shall “forever more” within the boundaries of the Commonwealth be known as Buggs Island Lake.

Nevertheless, the federal government project was completed in 1953, opening the John H. Kerr Dam and creating the reservoir known as Kerr Lake.

The key to success in boosting tourism interest in this section of the Roanoke River basin as a vacation destination requires collaboration and cooperation between North Carolina and Virginia. A bitter rivalry, competition or feud between the two states is counter-productive. The fishermen, in particular, don’t give a damn about the name of the dam or the lake.

Ironically, the world record blue catfish, weighing 143 pounds, was caught in “Buggs Island Lake” in 2011 by Nick Anderson of Greenville, N.C.

For sure, the fishing for blue catfish is just as good in Lake Gaston. Zakk Royce, owner of Blues Brothers Guide Service on Lake Gaston, says: “I feel like there’s a fish in here that weighs 150 pounds. We can break the world record.”

Royce claimed the North Carolina state record when he reeled in a 105-pound blue catfish from Lake Gaston in December 2015. He now sits in second place, however, because while fishing in Lake Gaston in June 2016, Landon Evans of Benson, N.C., landed a 117.5 pounder. (He was 15 years old at the time. The champion angler is now a rising senior at West Johnston High School.)

Who is the bravest fisherman of all? It will surely be the person who catches “Gassy,” Lake Gaston’s “sea-monster-sized catfish with an unfortunate name.”

“He’s in there, all right,” so claims Tyler Houck, an author and blogger from Ohio who is a cryptozoologist, one who specializes in the search for and study of animals whose existence or survival is disputed or unsubstantiated, such as the Loch Ness monster in Scotland or Bigfoot.

Dagnabitt. Could “Gassy” and “cryptid tourism” be a cure for the tourism woes of Warren County?

Well, the “lake monster angle” has worked pretty well for Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. “Ogopogo” is the name of the creature that lurks in Lake Okanagan there.

Ogopogo is the most likely and best documented of all lake monsters, states John Kirk of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club. “Films and video of Ogopogo are more numerous and of better quality than anything I have personally seen at Loch Ness, and I believe…a large, living unknown creature inhabits Lake Okanagan.”

Canadian tourism executive Catherine Frechette said Ogopogo was already a popular enough character, so it didn’t require much promotion.

“There is an interest in mythical beings right now on the world stage,” she said. “You don’t spin cryptid tourism out of nothing,” she said. “It’s got to have roots and legends.”

What if Lake Gaston’s “Gassy” turns out to be a scaly aquatic humanoid that could say: “Catch me if you can?”

Would the fishermen come? You bet. It may be too cold to work, but it’s never too cold to fish.

From the lake, it’s just a short jaunt into the nearby town, Littleton, which has about 660 people and an undetermined number of ghosts.

Visit the Cryptozoology & Paranormal Museum there, if you’re not scared. The museum proprietor Stephen Barcelo can also give you the grand tour of “Haunted Littleton.”

For sure…Warren’s former tourism woes should now be lake woe-be-gone.

Let's address 'bare spots' on North Carolina's tourism landscape

North Carolina’s latest tourism rankings showed a 4.5% growth rate in 2016, compared to the prior year. All but three of the state’s 100 counties contributed to that increase.

The 2017 figures have not been released yet. The numbers are compiled by the U.S. Travel Association (USTA).

Two counties went backward or lost ground in 2016. The declining tourism economies were Bertie County with a drop of 0.07% and Pender County with a dip of 0.04%. Warren County registered 0.00%, or no change.

Dagnabbit. These three counties are the bare spots on the state’s tourism landscape. They really need our help. We need to go visit them.

The USTA says that tourism in North Carolina has an annual economic impact of nearly $24 billion, making tourism the state’s third largest industry after agriculture and the military. All 100 counties in the state have tourism assets that can be better leveraged. There’s always room for improvement, right?

If we all pitch in, we can certainly give Warren County a little boost to push tourism there into the growth column…and then work our way eastward to Pender and Bertie counties.

A small section of Warren County is located on the Interstate 85 corridor. The challenge being faced by all “bypassed communities” in America is: How to get potential visitors off the highway to see, spend and stay?

Warren County may be viewed as a “tough sell” for your average tourism promoter. There’s not a lot of lodging inventory within the borders of Warren County, so “heads in beds” has not been an especially viable revenue stream.

The county seat of Warrenton has about 850 people and two traffic lights, according to town council member Al Fleming. He says the town has about five minutes of traffic congestion around 5 p.m., “but only on Fridays.”

The town is historic, quaint and a little bit quirky. A new streetscape plan, approved in 2017, is designed to enhance “community character” along Main Street.

The “movement” is already underway, as two old homes have been restored and converted to bed and breakfast inns, antique stores have opened and the old hardware store is now a popular lunchroom. A quilt and gift shop is now operating in the old drug store, an old bank building has been transformed into a bakery and the abandoned car dealer showroom has become a restaurant and bar.

Margaret Britt, also a town council member, appears in Warrenton’s new video that can be accessed on the town’s high-tech website. “We’re a front porch town…and a storybook community,” Britt says. (Somebody needs to alert the Hallmark Channel.)

Warrenton is about 55 miles from downtown Raleigh, so attracting day-trippers from the Triangle region seems to be a perfect strategy to enrich retail sales for Warrenton retailers.

The nearby Town of Norlina (slightly larger, with about 1,050 people) offers up the Norlina Train Museum, which opened in 1976. It’s inside a 70-foot, 1945-vintage Army hospital rail car. (Norlina developed in the late 1890s at the junction of the Seaboard Air Line Railroad and the Raleigh and Gaston Railroad.)

Warren County does have its history. The county was formally established in 1779 and is one of 14 counties in the United States to be named for Dr. Joseph Warren of Boston, that great American patriot who was killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill in Boston on June 17, 1775. He was instantly revered as a Revolutionary War martyr.

Dr. Warren, a practicing physician and surgeon, was a friend of Samuel Adams and John Hancock. He was the one who learned that British soldiers were moving toward Lexington and Concord, Mass., and dispatched Paul Revere and William Dawes on their “midnight rides” on April 18, 1775, to warn Adams and Hancock as well as to rally patriot militiamen to prepare to fight.

One of Warren County’s native sons was Nathanial Macon, born in 1757 on the family plantation at Buck Spring, located on Hubquarter Creek north of present-day Warrenton.

In those days, Warren County was a hotbed of horse racing and wagering. Growing up, Macon enjoyed doing both. Author Manley Wade Wellman said no one thought much about it when Macon “gambled to win the hand of Hannah Plummer.”

The story goes: Macon challenged an unnamed potential suitor to a card game, with Hannah as the prize. The offer was accepted, but Macon lost the card game. He turned to Hannah and exclaimed, “notwithstanding I have lost you fairly – love is superior to honesty – I cannot give you up.” This short oratory won her favor. The couple was married soon thereafter.

Macon’s way with words also attracted the interest of a like-minded politician named Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. The men shared a passion to “represent the people and fight against an ever-encroaching centralized government controlled by an all-powerful magistrate.”

Macon was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1791 and selected Speaker of the House in 1801, a position he held for six years. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1813 and served 15 years, retiring in 1828. He was Senate President Pro Tempore from 1826-27.

Historians commented that during Macon’s time in Washington, D.C., he “always pulled the lever of federal power in favor of the people and the states.”

Fort Macon in Carteret County is named for Nathaniel Macon. It opened in 1834. Today, the old fort is a North Carolina State Park, and it is the most visited site in the park system.

Macon would spend his final years back at Buck Spring. Derrick G. Jeter, an author and public speaking consultant, reported that Macon died in 1837, at age 79, and was buried on family land.

“According to instructions,” Jeter said, Macon’s “grave was to be covered with piles of flint stones to keep him undisturbed.” Furthermore, there would be no funeral service, Macon had ordered.

Instead, Macon’s final gift to mourners was to ensure each received ample “dinner and grog,” Jeter concluded.

The county has created a public park at Buck Spring, and several buildings on the property have been restored. Now, that might be worth a trip.

(You may want to clip and save, for we’re not finished here in Warren County.)

‘Down East’ dialect: Music to the ears

In North Carolina, the Down East Carteret County brogue wafts and sways like music in the air to tickle the auditory nerves of humankind.

Thankfully, generations of Down Easters have been and still are dedicated to sustaining their local dialect, which is at the core of the “quality of life” within the Core Sound communities. The rest of us just need to shut up and listen…and savor the tones that are so pleasant to the ear.

For many years, the flag bearer of this collective Down East “cultural preservation effort” was Clifford Lewis Williamson of Sea Level. Folks called him Sonny. He died in 2013, but dagnabbit, ole Sonny Williamson just may have been the best gol-durn storyteller there ever was in these parts of eastern North Carolina.

Sonny Williamson was one of the original members of what became known as the “Fish House Liars,” sort of an honorary club of local storytellers. Among Sonny’s “pupils” was Rodney Kemp, who admired Sonny for his uncanny ability to captivate audiences. Kemp admits he was like a vessel of clay in Sonny’s hands.

“He was a master at recognizing people in the audience and including them in the stories,” Kemp said. “His delivery of the punch line was a thing of beauty. Sonny was a genius, and I really loved working with him. Our friendship progressed to being like brothers.”

About 32 years ago, Jenny and Sonny Williamson, published “The Cousin Shamus Dictionary of Down East Words and Sayings” for the sole purpose of preserving for their grandchildren and those yet to come, a compilation of words and sayings that is meant to keep a “small portion of their Southern heritage alive.”

Pay attention now.

Lesson One: Mommick is akin to aggerwate, but Sonny said he’d “much ruther be aggerwated than be mommicked.” That makes sense, since being mommicked is about as bad as it gets – wrung through the wringer or rode hard and put up wet.

Kemp clarifies: “Mommick, as a noun, is a foul, torn-up mess. As a verb, it means beat to a pulp or worn, slam-out.” You might hear folks lament: “Y’all, I’ve been mommicked this day, I have!”

Lesson Two: There are several words that can be used to describe a sitcheation that is out of sorts, out of kilter, out of sync, out of position, tippy or cock-eyed. They are cattywampus, scronchwise, skewyanked and wopperjawed.

Lesson Three: The wind. Sonny said: “When it’s cam, there’s just a trace of a breeze. When it’s slick cam, there’s not even a ripple. When it’s dead slick cam, the water is like a mirror. That’s when the skeeters will carry you off.” Watch out for the gallynippers, which are giant mosquitos.

Lesson Four: Fishing. It’s a good day when you “cotched a mess of mullets.” (Same as caught.) But beware, some fishermen are prone to exaggerate. Droim/drime is a kind and gentle expression of disbelief. The tongue goes into the check, and the words come out: “Drime, I reckon you did.”

Lesson Five: Cold weather. First of all, one should pull up the bed kivers (covers) a snitchit (smidgen or a tad). When the locals say it’s “colder than the time the Crissie Wright ran ashore," heed the warning to bundle up. (This is a sad story about an early winter shipwreck in 1886, when the temperature dropped more than 70 degrees and sailors on board froze to death.)

Lesson Six: Children. An expectant father may get the budgets (fidgets), hitch up his gallisus (suspenders) and proceed to gander watch (await the birth) by paddybassing (pacing back and forth). The youngern is nionto (almost) poppin’ out of the oven.

As the children fetch up, they’ll be doing summersets (somersaults) in the backyard and carryin’ on as scallions (rascals).

Lesson Seven: Tolerance. It’s important to disencourage friends and neighbors from calling dingbatters or dit-dots chicken-neckers. Having no boat, a chicken-necker fishes from bridges or in drainage ditches. Dit-dots are tourists who come, spend their money and they go home after their vacation. Dingbatters are tourists who chose to relocate here from Off. Sonny always said it took a lot of willpower not to refer to either group as idjits (idiots).

Lesson Eight: Assorted terms. A lapse of memory to is disremember (not forget.) To remember is to raycollect. Santa comes down the chimbley. Sobby is wetter than damp. Slumgullion is a stew with many ingredients. Heffer dust is strong smelling body powder, usually worn by women.

Lesson Nine: The “T words.” Terreckly is directly, sort of, or when one gets around to it later. Thurfer, obviously, means thoroughfare. Twiddles is the word for engaging in daydreaming.

Lesson Ten. There are a slew of “ern” words in the Down East vocabulary. They all are found in phrases. Some of the best are: Brightern new money; limbern a dish rag but dullern dish water; maddern a wet settin’ hen; proudern a peacock with two tails; and purtiern a speckled pup.

We’re plumb nelly (nearly) finished here, because you’ve got to learn to run with the big dogs…or stay on the porch.

“Sonny Williamson was one of my mentor’s in history and storytelling,” said Rodney Kemp. “He was raised ‘to’ Sea Level and a graduate of Atlantic High School. He joined the Air Force and had a successful career in intelligence. When he retired he came back home and worked in education as a truant officer. Jenny, also from Sea Level, was his rock.

“I once said to Sonny, ‘You aren’t any smarter than me, but you can write a book in a matter of weeks.’ His reply was: ‘The key to writin’ a book was put a comma where you want to take a breath, a period when you want to rest and always capitalize Down East.’” Amen to that.

Visit Wagnabbit...just for the fun of it

Visit Wagnabbit…just for the fun of it

Introducing Wagnabbit…a blog that intends to delve into topics of general interest that will evoke genuine “dagnabbit” responses from readers…as in “I’ll be darned, I’ve been mommicked or dang shucks.”

In short, the parameters for eligible subject matter are boundless…just as long as it amazes and/or annoys this writer…and the resulting essays can be enriched with an infusion of humor. If it’s not fun, it’s not worth me writing about it or you reading it.

Dan Nosowitz, a freelance writer based in Brooklyn, N.Y., says “dagnabbit” is one of the “most hilarious words in the English language…full of very funny hard syllables and, for most Americans, it’s most often heard coming out of the cartoon mouth of Yosemite Sam.”

Yosemite Sam is a Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies animated cartoon character, who debuted with Warner Bros. Studios in 1944. He is commonly depicted as hot-tempered, pistol-toting, rough-neck buckaroo who hates rabbits…especially Bugs Bunny.

Yosemite Sam was not the first Looney Tunes character to utter “dagnabbit.” Elmer Fudd, whose cartoon existence dates back to 1940, was the original archenemy of Bugs, and some cartoon buffs credit Elmer with creating the word “dagnabbit” as a Fuddism for “dang rabbit.”

That seems inconsistent with Elmer’s speech impediment, in which he nearly always vocalized the consonants “r” and “l” with a “w” sound. Hence, Elmer would more likely have said, “dang wabbit.”

Elmer was usually cast as a hapless big-game hunter, armed with a puny shotgun, on a mission to “off” Bugs Bunny, who was always stealing carrots from Elmer’s garden. It’s said the studio actually created Yosemite Sam to be a more worthy adversary for Bugs Bunny. Elmer Fudd had been characterized as a dimwitted, bumbling buffoon, so he was a pushover for Bugs.

Then, along came Deputy Dawg in 1962, as Terrytoons introduced a whole new generation of television cartoon watchers to the word “dagnabbit.”

In the clip “Dagnabit Rabbit,” Deputy Dawg solicits help from Muskie Muskrat and Vincent van Gopher to thwart the unnamed father rabbit character who is stealing produce from Deputy Dawg’s garden adjacent to the jailhouse in order to feed his wife and their offspring, a fluffle that extended as far as the eye could see on the TV screen.

Wayne Groner of Springfield, Mo., is a multi-talented author, writer and public speaker. He also has a consulting business through which he coaches people how to write their life stories as memoirs, biographies or family histories. His blog is “Your Memories, Your Book.”

For the fun of it, he’s done a lot of research on the use of “dagnabbit” on the silver screen and in television productions.

Actor Gabby Hayes, who was the scruffy cowboy sidekick of Roy Rogers in the 1942 film, “Sunset on the Desert,” used the word “dagnabbit” in a fit of pseudo cussing.

Born in 1885 as George Francis Hayes, he had a profitable career in vaudeville, retiring in 1928 at age 43. But then lost everything in the 1929 stock-market crash. Hayes resurfaced in Hollywood and quickly began to seek his second fortune by acting in Western movies.

Hayes gained fame as Hopalong Cassidy’s sidekick Windy Halliday in many films between 1936-39. A salary dispute, however, with Paramount Pictures reached an impasse and Hayes was out of a job and legally precluded from using the “Windy” nickname. He evolved into Gabby Hayes and worked almost exclusively as a Western sidekick, teaming with stars such as John Wayne, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and Randolph Scott.

Groner’s research found three other actors, also from the Westerns film genre, who were known to deliver “dagnabbit” lines with great emotion. They were Walter Brennan, Andy Devine and Slim Pickens. All went on to have highly successful careers in the entertainment industry.

From the trivia trove:

Brennan is the only Hollywood actor of all time to win three Oscars as Best Supporting Actor, winning in 1937 for “Come and Get It,” in 1939 for “Kentucky” and in 1941 for “The Westerner.”

Devine’s “distinctive raspy, crackly, scratchy duo-tone voice became his trademark.” Once he was asked if he had strange nodes on his vocal cords, to which Devine replied, “I’ve got the same nodes as Bing Crosby, but his are in tune.”

Louis Burton Lindley Jr. was considered to be an excellent rider. He worked in rodeo for 20 years despite a salary of “slim pickings,” which led to his new name – Slim Pickens. Pickens also worked as a rodeo clown and was inducted into the Pro Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame.

More recently, “dagnabbit” has been featured prominently in the television advertising world for two major insurance companies.

In 2009, Progressive introduced a commercial starring an old coot customer who was confounded when Flo, the sales representative, handed him the “name your own price tool.” He asked: “Do I still get all the dagnabbit coverage I need?”

In 2013, GEICO brought back its celebrated farmer Old McDonald (from 2005), who was a really bad spelling bee speller. His word was “cow,” which he laboriously spelled “c-o-w…e-i-e-i-o.” After being buzzed, McDonald issued his classic “dagnabbit” line with disgust and a classic gesture as he dejectedly trudged off the stage.

Despite his spelling ineptitude, McDonald’s an intelligent chap…probably the only Midwesterner to know GEICO is an acronym for the Government Employees Insurance Company.

Dagnabbit, have you ever been “mommicked?”

Check out the Wagnabitt blog and let me know what you think.