Summer's Almost Gone
- Wade
I used to hate Jerry Lewis.
Not in the way you think. Not because of his character in The Nutty Professor. Not because the French love him.
Because seeing him meant that the time left before the beginning of the school year could be counted in hours, not days.
I hated Labor Day. And there's no better harbinger of doom than the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon, hosted by Lewis. To this day, just thinking about it gives me a pit in my stomach. I'd sit on the couch in my den and watch the "talent" perform all the while thinking about having to do homework again. Ed McMahon would call for a look at the "tote board" and I'd realize that most of my next nine months would be spent staring at a clock, waiting for a bell to ring. Jerry would sing a song with Stevie Wonder and I'd get nervous about having to run outside during gym and not have time to shower before my next class. The TV would cut to the local studio where some farmer would play "Camptown Ladies" on a banjo, and I'd think about all of the uncomfortable new school clothes I'd have to wear every day.
Of course, things are different now. I have no summers off, so I have no sadness about summer being over. I can't hate Jerry Lewis anymore, since the telethon is for a good cause and it's not nice to hate fat people. (I know, I know, it's because of the medicine.) In fact, due to my fam's vacation, I haven't watched a lick of the telethon since the Clinton administration.
But I'll never forget being up at 3 a.m. on September 4th, 1989, watching a youngster impersonate Michael Jackson singing "ABC", trying not to think about how many digits I'd lose in shop class the next day...
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