Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 28, 1991                   TAG: 9103270233
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DON'T WORRY, HIS BARK IS WORSE THAN HIS BITE

This cretin thought it was hilarious to call up somebody with a last name like mine and do that. Didn't realize that kind of nonsense has been going on ever since Alexander Graham Bell invented the phone.

Now, there is new evidence that this type of comedian is surfacing again.

I am not going to mention any names or circumstances.

It is not in the best interest of taste and breeding to encourage such malletheads.

The thing of it is, I don't mind humor at my expense. I just like to hear a new joke every now and then.

The gag about people named Beagle putting their heads out of car windows to let the wind blow their ears is at least as old as the Model T.

The knee-slapper in which people with my last name are asked if it hurts to be picked up by the ears goes back to the Johnson administration. If there is anything funny about the Johnson administration, I would like to know about it.

If I had a quarter for every moron who asked me if I was a newshound or whether I had a nose for news, I would be rich.

Rich enough to put out contracts on people who make these stale jokes.

This lack of originality does not deter these people from believing they are being just devilishly clever.

You can see them now. Slapping their thighs and snickering about the one they put over on old Beagle here.

These are people who wet their pencil tips with their tongues before they settle down to writing all of these really good jokes about a guy's last name.

When they read the gags back, their lips move.

You will notice that their IQs approximate the reading you would get from your average cantaloupe.

Listen, I've been through it all, not to mention my family.

There was a time, for example, when people who worked in city/county offices thought it was absolutely hilarious when somebody named Beagle came in to buy a dog tag.

Ha! Ha! Whoo! Some of you neanderthals out there hadn't thought of that one, right? Well, just wet the old pencil and go back to work.

And then there are the 450 people who have laughed through their noses after asking me if I was a bench-legged Beagle. Hey, you zeroes, take that one and run with it. It's on me.

I know most of you will have trouble spelling a hard word like "bench," but that's what dictionaries are for.