{"id":2591,"date":"2005-03-07T14:35:11","date_gmt":"2005-03-07T19:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=2591"},"modified":"2022-10-09T16:10:58","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T20:10:58","slug":"lest-we-forget-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=2591","title":{"rendered":"“Lest We Forget” Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here is Part 1. <\/a><\/p>\n

Here is one of our jokes, written down in the Lest We Forget book described in Part 1. I cannot describe it without making us sound insane. I suppose we were insane. But dammit, we cracked each other UP.<\/p>\n

We drove across the country together in a beat-up Westfalia. We took two months to do so. We went all over the place. BUT. The first leg of our journey was a night in Chicago, to hang out with friends … and then we headed up north, into Wisconsin. Our plan was to camp our way through Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming … and on and on … which we eventually ended up doing.<\/p>\n

But here is basically the ENERGY of the whole trip, encapsulated in one moment in Wisconsin.<\/p>\n

It was our first day on the road, after leaving Chicago. The trip was still new to us. We had been saving up for a year in order to do this. And now … it was here! Yippee! So we were giddy.<\/p>\n

And we pulled off randomly, into a town called Beloit (please, if any of my readers are from Beloit – try not to take offense. We were in your town for all of 5 minutes and I’m sure it’s a lovely place. But whatever, it sure gave us hours and hours of enjoyment.) We wanted to pee, get some water, get some groceries.<\/p>\n

Beloit looked like the town in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape<\/i> (BEFORE the big supermarket came along). There was a gas station, a grocery store, some houses, and corn fields as far as the eye could see on the outskirts of town. So Tonio and I went into the grocery store to buy some fruit. Only to find that they had no fruit.<\/p>\n

It was a grocery store, no doubt about it … but unless you wanted to buy Oreos, Pampers, super-size Capn Crunch, or 6-packs of Pepsi … there wasn’t anything there for you. We went to the produce section, and all we saw were a couple of sickly looking shrink-wrapped peppers. That was it. Pretty funny, considering the endless corn fields stretching off to the horizon on all sides.<\/p>\n

So okay. No fruit. No big deal. We’d find a better grocery store somewhere else.<\/p>\n

But … as we merged back onto the highway … Tonio said, in a kind of flat voice, just giving the facts, as though it were a travelogue or something, “Beloit has no fruit.”<\/p>\n

There was a long pause, as I considered the truth of this statement. Yup. No fruit. In Beloit. Don’t even stop there if you’re lookin’ for some fruit.<\/p>\n

Long story even longer – our experience in Beloit was very very quickly (in about 15 minutes) turned into a full-blown song, which we sang with GUSTO as we careened north into the wild. I am telling you – we sang the SHIT out of this song. Over and over and over ….<\/p>\n

I want you to realize that I realize how stupid this sounds. I know. But still. To us, it was “fucking funny”.<\/p>\n

Here is the song (and this is how crazy it is – I even remember the tune):<\/p>\n

Beloit Has No Fruit<\/u><\/p>\n

Well…….(long drawn-out note)
\nTonio and Sheila – they were lookin’ for some food
\nSo they looked on the map
\nAnd they said “Beloit looks good!”
\nSo they went to Beloit – lookin’ for some fruit
\nBut OH!
\nIn Beloit, there is no fruit.<\/p>\n

Chorus<\/i>
\nOhhhh Beloit is a place where they have no fruit
\nIt’s a place on the map where there isn’t any fruit
\nSo if you want an apple, a banana or a pear
\nDon’t GO to Beloit
\nThere’s no fruit there.<\/p>\n

Repeat Chorus ad nauseum<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is Part 1. Here is one of our jokes, written down in the Lest We Forget book described in Part 1. I cannot describe it without making us sound insane. I suppose we were insane. But dammit, we cracked … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2591"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2591"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178298,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2591\/revisions\/178298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}