Jon Swerens

Music and lyrics

Friends and family

We give no quarter with these criminal music puns

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tuba-puns

Not that my household needs much of an excuse to start a punning war. But this story that happened across Facebook recently was too, too much to resist.

Music Teacher Caught Selling Tubas for Drug Money

YES.

As I announced: “Music teacher hits a new low: Steals tuba to sell for heroin. May the punning commence.”

So, saved for posterity and your amusement, our Facebook exchange:

  • Jon Swerens Also accused of trying to score some blow. #2punsin1
  • Joe Carlin Her bass instincts sunk her to a new low. Call in the brass & march her off to jail.
  • Mary E. Swerens String ’em up!
  • Jon Swerens Boy, is she in treble with the law.
  • Mary E. Swerens She needed to drum up some money…
  • Jon Swerens … but the cops snared her.
  • Mary E. Swerens #rimshot
  • Sarita R. Swerens Tubad I don’t know much about music, I’d be making some puns.
  • Jon Swerens It’s a felony to be caught with a band substance.
  • Jon Swerens By pleading, she staved off a harsh sentence.
  • Mary E. Swerens Who orchestrated this plan, anyway??
  • Jon Swerens That would be the key to the case.
  • Jon Swerens Hate to think they’d be trumped-up charges.
  • Jon Swerens At least she got her one sousaphone call.
  • Sarita R. Swerens That one was clef-er. But we can stop harping on about it now?
  • Jon Swerens She’s got a high-powered lawyer from D.C.: Al Coda.
  • Jon Swerens That’s how I woodwinda case.
  • Jon Swerens That’s what you get when you piccolo-life boyfriend.
  • Mary E. Swerens We’re just oboeing our way through this all by ourselves. Where is everyone??
  • Jon Swerens Hope they reed her her rights.
  • Sarita R. Swerens Maybe you should just give it a rest…
  • Mary E. Swerens “…anything you say can and will be used against you in a coda law…”
  • Hope Banks Do you all realize how wonderful you are? I so enjoyed reading these comments. I would try and make a pun but puns are not my forte.
  • Jon Swerens She tried to act natural, but not being too sharp, the police caught her flat-footed, although it was accidental.
  • Sarita R. Swerens I was trying to compose a pun with ‘sharp’, but you stole it. I feel minorly disappointed.
  • Jon Swerens It’s a major bummer, I know.
  • Sarita R. Swerens Your tone denotes sarcasm.
  • Jon Swerens Of course, she’ll get a suspended sentence.
  • Jon Swerens And on that note, with a measure of satisfaction and some concerted effort, we’ll put her behind bars, the perfect finale, a fitting cymbal of justice.

I was there when one of the Wallendas fell to his death

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When I was 5, I attended a circus where one of the Flying Wallendas fell to his death. Another 5 year old, a girl I didn’t know but whom I would meet and marry many years later, was there, too.

Mary and I don’t remember a lot from that night at Wheeling Island Stadium, only bits of images and emotion. I do remember an electric flash and a gasping crowd. I also remember being hustled out of the stadium by my subdued parents.

Mary remembers being disappointed that the circus was over, but didn’t really understand what was going on. And both of us recall the confused heaviness of the moment.

It all comes to mind with Nik Wallenda attempting a crossing of Niagara Falls tonight on national TV. The show told a bit of the history of the Wallendas and mentioned the well-known tragedy in Detroit, but the death in Wheeling wasn’t mentioned. I’m not sure I wanted them to bring it up.

This is the AP story I could find via Google News:

‘Flying Wallenda’ falls to his death

WHEELING, W.Va. (AP) — Richard Guzman, a member of the famed “Flying Wallendas” high wire troupe, fell to his death before an opening night circus crowd here Friday night.

Guzman, 29, a son-in-law of the troupe’s founder Karl Wallenda, apparently contacted a live electrical wire while climbing a pole during the family’s act and fell 60 feet to the ground, police said.

It was the second time Wallenda had watched a member of his family die in the aerial act. Two members of the troupe, including Wallenda’s nephew Dieter Schepp, were killed in Detroit in 1962 when their seven-man pyramid collapsed. Mario Wallenda, Karl’s adopted son, was permanently paralyzed in that accident.

Wallenda, 67, was walking a wire across the Wheeling Island Stadium when the accident took place Friday (July 28, 1972) and had to continue his walk after seeing his son-in-law fall.

A reserve policeman, Harry Croft, rushed to break Guzman’s fall and was slightly injured when Guzman fell on him, police said.

Guzman, who was married to Karl’s daughter Carla, was not breathing and had no heartbeat when officials reached him. His breathing was restored by mouth-to-mouth resuscitation administered by a registered nurse who was in the audience, but Guzman died a few hours later at a Wheeling hospital.

Officials said the cause of death was tentatively listed as head injuries.

The family was performing in the Osiris Shrine Circus here.

Notes from the staycation

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Mary and I decided not to go to Shipshewana during my two-day vacation this week. Instead, we stayed here in Fort Wayne and were tourists in our own hometown. And here are the tweets I would have tweeted, if I had been tweeting:

  • At Hyde Brothers Booksellers, I discovered that the books I love the most — and the ones I hate the most — are all in the Sociology shelf.
  • I wanted a bubble tea at Firehouse Tea & Coffee Cafe, but they were out of “bubbles.” They were cooking more tapioca, but we went with a simpler iced tea instead.
  • Pio Market on East State, according to a kid inside, is pronounced “Pee-oh.” He may be wrong.
  • We went for pizza at 800 Degrees to cool off. We also saw Tommy and Heather Schoegler!
  • We checked into Stay Inn Suites on Lima Road near the interstate. If you stay there, you get free access to Spiece Fieldhouse!
  • For dinner, we went to a nice little Greek restaurant called Maza Grille. Delicious! Mary had a little lamb.
  • We went to play darts at Break & Run on Goshen Avenue, but despite my call checking to make sure they’d be open, we were greeted with a CLOSED sign. So we ended up grabbing something at Starbucks and catching up on some fun reading.
  • The next day, after a filling complimentary breakfast at the Stay Inn, we ended up browsing some more bookstores — Barnes & Noble and Every Other Book, which, as Mary said, has a wonderful homeschooling section.
  • Thanks to a Groupon, we spent the afternoon bowling six games at the 56-lane Pro Bowl West. I’ll spare you the details (rimshot!), except that we later had achy muscles in places that we didn’t expect.
  • And we finished with a great stir-fry supper at one of my favorite spots,The Flat Top Grill.

Mary and I are considering making tourist in our hometown an annual event!

You Can Cook Another Omelet

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The lesson here: Just write it down.

My daughters Hannah and Sarita are budding authors, and this short essay by 13-year-old Sarita reflects what they wish to accomplish and how they intend to get there.

You Can Cook Another Omelet

a short essay sort of thingy about ideas

By Sarita Swerens

Just write down the idea.

When you detect that feeling, that inexplicable sense that you’re on the verge of becoming the author of a whole series of novels that no one has ever thought of, no one has ever read, no one has ever imagined in their deepest dreams, write it down.

When you feel the inspiration strike, wait for nothing and no one. Don’t post about your enthusiasm on Facebook or Tweet about your idea on Twitter. Don’t send a letter to your friend that you feel like writing; write. Don’t call all your friends on the telephone and shout that you’re about to get the most brilliant idea ever heard of on the face of the earth; write it down. If you have to dash out of the kitchen and let the toast burn or the roast combust or the egg-and-broccoli omelet smolder, then do it. If you have to tear through the house tipping over chairs and knocking your favorite purple coffee mug to the floor to hastily type down a fast-fading story idea from a dream about a song in a book you just heard about from a friend, then do it. You don’t have to use an online thesaurus, or dictionary, or rhyming dictionary, or rhyming thesaurus. You don’t have to spell pontification or serendipity or onomatopoeia or perspicacity correctly. Just write.

Don’t let the small things go. If a single sentence pops into your head that has a neat feel to it and makes you think, don’t leave it there. Don’t think, “Oh, I’ll write it down later, when I’m done with this English assignment,” because if you do, before you read two more paragraphs, the sentence will be a thing of the past; it will have faded away into the winding, cobwebby maze of ideas, stories, dreams, and fantasies that is your brain.

Even if it’s a single sentence, an entire story can be molded from it. A romance from an adjective. A villain from a noun. An ending from an adverb.

Even if it’s a single sentence, a tale of betrayal and faith and battle and love and hope against all odds can be woven into a rich, twisting story that is light and relief in this darkening world.

If it’s a dim, fading image from a dream that you just remembered you had a week ago, and it fills you with a desire to share your perception of the world with others, then write it down, even if it’s on a wrinkled piece of paper from an old history report that you just pulled out of the trash and scribbled on with a dull pencil from the junk drawer. Just write it down. Describe the feeling, the experience. Set your mind down on paper and trace it with ink. Scrawl down your scheme before it wanes and perishes and becomes an illusion of the idea you once had, the skeleton of a greater notion that can never be retrieved from the farthest reaches of you mind. Scribble down the inkling of better tales to come, before the passion dwindles and passes on into the inaccessible realm of lost stories. Just write it down.

Because if you write it down, it’ll be worth it later. If you write it down, then later you can correct your misspelled version of onomatopoeia. You can buy a new purple coffee mug. You can finish your English assignment. You can cook another omelet.

Because if you write down that idea and let it bloom, then later you can embellish it. A romance from an adjective. A villain from a noun. An ending from an adverb.

Mmmm… hearty potato soup

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Here’s the recipe for the simply delicious soup Mary made for us this week. Enjoy!

Hearty Potato Soup

6 potatoes, peeled and sliced
2 carrots, diced
2 celery stalks, diced
2 quarts water
1 medium onion, chopped
6 Tbsp. butter
6 Tbsp. four
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. pepper
1½ c. milk
Opt.: 1 bag frozen corn, shredded cheddar cheese to taste

Cook potatoes, carrots and celery; reserve water. Saute onions, flour, salt and pepper. Add milk. Stir until thick. Optional: Add shredded cheese. Stir in vegetables. Add water from vegetables. Heat and eat.