Merry Christmas everyone!

[jimnyc]

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all have a great holiday and Santa brings you everything you asked for!

I hope you all get to spend a little time with loved ones & enjoy some good food.

And may the Steelers win on Christmas Day!

[Kathianne]

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all have a great holiday and Santa brings you everything you asked for!

I hope you all get to spend a little time with loved ones & enjoy some good food.

And may the Steelers win on Christmas Day!

Same to you, Jim!

[revelarts]

Merry Christmas everyone

[Kathianne]

Merry Christmas everyone

A very Merry Christmas to you too! I love the picture.

[Kathianne]

A little gift for you from me. I still remember my dad reading this column to us at breakfast the day it was printed! Yeah, my family was like that:

Editor’s note: This might have been the most popular column Mike Royko wrote, though he often later said he didn’t like it much. He started it in 1963 and tinkered with it, off and on, for the next three years, finally using it in the Chicago Daily News in 1966. The column ran annually at Christmas time in the Daily News and then the Sun-Times for about 25 years. It still resonates.

Mary and Joe, Chicago Style

Mary and Joe were flat broke when they got off the bus in Chicago. They didn’t know anybody, and she was expecting a baby.


They went to a cheap hotel. But the clerk jerked his thumb at the door when they couldn’t show a day’s rent in advance.




They walked the streets until they saw a police station. The desk sergeant said they couldn’t sleep in a cell, but he told them how to get to a welfare office.


A man there said they couldn’t get regular assistance because they hadn’t been Illinois residents long enough. But he gave them the address of the emergency welfare office on the West Side.

It was a two-mile walk up Madison Street. Someone gave them a card with a number on it, and they sat down on a bench, stared at the peeling green paint and waited for their number to be called.


Two hours later, a caseworker motioned them forward, took out blank forms and asked questions: Any relatives? Any means of getting money? Any assets?


Joe said he owned a donkey. The caseworker told him not to get smart or he’d be thrown out. Joe said he was sorry.


The caseworker finished the forms and said they were entitled to emergency CTA fare to County Hospital because of Mary’s condition. And he told Joe to go to an Urban Progress Center for occupational guidance.


Joe thanked him, and they took a bus to the hospital. A guard told them to wait on a bench. They waited two hours, and then Mary got pains and they took her away. Someone told Joe to come back tomorrow.


He went outside and asked a stranger on the street for directions to an Urban Progress Center. The stranger hit Joe on the head and took his overcoat. Joe was still lying there when a paddy wagon came along, so they pinched him for being drunk on the street.


Mary had a baby boy during the night. She didn’t know it, but three foreign-looking men in strange, colorful robes came to the hospital asking about her and the baby. A guard took them for hippies and called the police. They found odd spices on the men, so the narcotics detail took them downtown for further questioning.


The next day Mary awoke in a crowded ward. She asked for Joe. Instead, a representative of the Planned Parenthood Committee came by to give her a lecture on birth control.


Next, a social worker came for her case history. She asked Mary who the father was. Mary answered, and the social worker ran for the nurse. The nurse questioned her, and Mary answered. The nurse stared at her and ran for the doctor. The doctor wrote “Postpartum delusion” on her chart.


An ambulance took Mary to the Cook County Mental Health Clinic the next morning. A psychiatrist asked her questions and pursed his lips at the answers.


A hearing was held, and a magistrate committed her to the Chicago State Hospital.


Joe got out of the House of Corrections a couple of days later and went to the County Hospital for Mary. They told him she was at Chicago State, and the baby had been placed in a foster home by the state Department of Children and Family Services.


When Joe got to Chicago State, a doctor told him what Mary had said about the baby’s birth. Joe said Mary was telling the truth. They put Joe in a ward at the other end of the hospital.


Meanwhile, the three strangely dressed foreign-looking men were released after the narcotics detail could find no laws prohibiting the possession of myrrh and frankincense. They returned to the hospital and were taken for civil rights demonstrators. They were held in the County Jail on $100,000 bond.


By luck, Joe and Mary met on the hospital grounds. They decided to tell the doctors what they wanted to hear. The next day they were declared sane and were released.


When they applied for custody of Mary’s baby, however, they were told it was necessary for them to first establish a proper residence, earn a proper income and create a suitable environment.


They applied at the Urban Progress Center for training under the Manpower Development Program. Joe said he was good at working with wood. He was assigned to a computer data-processing class. Mary said she’d gladly do domestic work. She was assigned to a course in key-punch operating. Both got $20-a-week stipends.


Several months later they finished the training. Joe got a job in a gas station, and Mary went to work as a waitress.


They saved their money and hired a lawyer. Another custody hearing was held, and several days later the baby was ordered returned to them.


Reunited finally, they got back to their two-room flat and met the landlord on the steps. He told them Urban Renewal had ordered the building torn down. The City Relocation Bureau would get them another place.


They packed, dressed the baby and hurried to the Greyhound bus station.


Joe asked the ticket man when the next bus was leaving.


“Where to?” the ticket man asked.


“Anywhere,” Joe said, “as long as it is right now.”


He gave Joe three tickets, and in five minutes they were on a bus heading for southern Illinois — the area known as “Little Egypt.”


Just as the bus pulled out, the three strangely dressed men ran into the station. But they were too late. The bus was gone.


So they started hiking down U.S. 66. But at last report they were pinched on suspicion of being foreigners in illegal possession of gold.

[NightTrain]

Merry Christmas, from our home to yours.

[Gunny]

Merry Christmas

"Today... is Christmas! There will be a magic show at zero-nine-thirty! Chaplain Charlie will tell you about how the free world will conquer communism with the aid of God and a few marines! God has a hard-on for Marines because we kill everything we see! He plays his games, we play ours! To show our appreciation for so much power, we keep heaven packed with fresh souls! God was here before the marine corps! So you can give your heart to Jesus, but your ass belongs to the corps! Do you ladies understand?"

GySgt Hartman - Full Metal Jacket

[Dis]

I just came by to say my Chiefs pounced all over
your Steelers. Hah!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all have a great holiday and Santa brings you everything you asked for!

I hope you all get to spend a little time with loved ones & enjoy some good food.

And may the Steelers win on Christmas Day!

[Gunny]

I just came by to say my Chiefs pounced all over
your Steelers. Hah!

So now you're a football fan ...

[Gunny]

'Ok, Who Got Me The MAGA Hat?' Asks Kamala Harris As Jill Biden Stifles Laughter | Babylon Bee

[jimnyc]

I just came by to say my Chiefs pounced all over
your Steelers. Hah!

They did indeed! Reminded me again that while the Steelers may be a decent team, they ain't going nowhere in the playoffs. That's showed every time they have played other playoff bound teams.

My pick to be in the big game will be Vikings and Chiefs.

[Gunny]

They did indeed! Reminded me again that while the Steelers may be a decent team, they ain't going nowhere in the playoffs. That's showed every time they have played other playoff bound teams.

My pick to be in the big game will be Vikings and Chiefs.

So, out of sheer boredom I tried this year to at least follow along with the NFL in the news. All I've seen is a lot of referees' bad calls determining the outcomes of games and the NFL fining players on Monday for playing football on Sunday. What a racket

The Steelers have too many injuries in key positions where they have no depth. One of the defenders is on his own program and throwing the whole team off and that's all it takes. I suspect it is whoever is filling in for Joey Porter, Jr but no one has named a name. They have one receiver, maybe two if you count Freimuth and they're both hurt.