Dear Reader>> I have received so many comments about past columns (ahem!) that I have enjoyed. With no staff, I have only been able to reply to a fraction of them. Therefore, I have hired Beetle Bailey to handle correspondence and verbal comments as he sees fit. Little did I know that the first letter submitted would be from Beetle himself!
Dear Jeff>> I wanted to thank you for your seven part series in the Tri County Record portraying me as the one you looked up to and with my expert help, enabled you to make it through your time in the Army, even though you weren’t, shall we say, “Service Material.” Hopefully, it will make you feel a bit better, even with your Service debacles, to know that as the result of your writing, the circulation of my cartoons increased by 10 percent, and as a special thanks from the editors of all the papers that carry my cartoons, I was awarded a trip to Fort Bragg, North Carolina to address the drill sergeants on how best to deal with Service misfits.
Like any good teacher’s review or job appraisal by a supervisor, I started off with your good points (circulation increase and free trip for me). I would like to expound on just a couple of the areas where you might consider directing your attention for improvement. One, as my protege, how in the world could you make me look so bad by arguing with Drill Sergeants on the first day about how many razors to keep or later, how much time should be spent on the weapons range? Two, nearly ruining tables and chairs in the mess hall with the floor waxing machine really came back to bite me. A weak leg of a table I was eating at in the mess hall collapsed, and I was drenched with orange juice. I am almost certain this is one of the tables you damaged… AND my tax dollars were used to replace it. I realize this does not compare to the $175,000,000 blimp that was destroyed recently. However, if every service member did what you did, it would come to a hefty sum.
Now Jeff, I know I said I would touch on only a couple of areas where you need improvement, but what I meant to say is a couple of areas per paragraph. Third, I’m certainly glad you bought your Halloween candy a day before leaving base camp for several days of bivouac in the wilderness. If you hadn’t eaten so much candy before leaving and wised up enough to give all the candy away before going on bivouac, you would have gotten sick to your stomach with no running water for days. Then you really would have been sorry. Fourth, what a doofus you were to knock a helmet down into the tank while on watch in the middle of the night in Vietnam, hitting the tank controls and having the main gun rotate toward the other tanks!
I could go on, but I’d bet you have already given up reading this and it would be a waste of my time. I trust you won’t sully my reputation again, or I’ll have to relate: being left alone, the fight, the other helmet story and other miscues of yours.
Your disappointed hero,Private Beetle Bailey
Dear Private Bailey>> Thank you so much for writing. Believe it or not, I have learned to take the good and the bad, and I read your entire letter. Actually, more of the reason for reading it is I seldom hear from any of my readers other than verbally, so I am glad that you took the time to write me. Even more important than that reason for reading and replying to your letter was what happened to me yesterday, nearly two months after the “Meet Private Beetle Bailey’s Protege” series ended (time frame will change much by the time this article is printed).
As I have related to you before, I am a back-up driver for delivering Meals on Wheels (MOW) to home-bound individuals, most of whom are older. I delivered yesterday, and at the last minute, my good friend, the Coordinator of MOW for the Honey Brook Chapter, asked if he could ride with me. I drove, and we took turns walking the meals into the MOW clients’ homes. The third client we visited lives next door to her son (we’ll call him John), whom I have only met briefly twice. We spotted John working outside his house and the Coordinator wanted to discuss some updated information about MOW. We decided I would deliver the meal, and the Coordinator would go talk to John. I delivered the meal, and the mother and I talked briefly. I waited in the car for a few minutes with no sign of the Coordinator. Because the Coordinator told John I was waiting in the car and he should go, John came with him marching across his yard and to his mother’s driveway. I saw John coming so I put down my window, at which time he bellowed, “HI BEETLE BAILEY!” This is not the first time by far I have received this greeting, but it was certainly one of the most memorable! John went on to thank me for the articles, but more importantly told me how he and his mother appreciated all of the MOW drivers and support personnel.
I would like to dedicate this column to John and his mother, as well as all clients of MOW and those volunteers and paid staff of MOW.
Also, of extreme importance, even though the number of troops in the Middle East has declined, continue to pray for those Service personnel there and throughout the world who are serving you and me while being willing to sacrifice of themselves and their families.
Beetle, now you know why I wasn’t the cream of the crop while in the Service, but now you also know why I enjoy volunteering as a writer for the Tri County Record and for delivering MOW.
Still your admirer,JeffJeff Hall, of Honey Brook, contributes columns to Berks-Mont Newspapers.
