ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, December 30, 1996 TAG: 9612310018
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: BEN BEAGLE
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
I want all of you people out there with quivering lower lips to put all this post-holiday depression garbage behind you and realize how lucky you are.
I think it's a safe bet, for example, that none of you had to put up with Martha Stewart for Christmas.
If she had been around, you'd have been up to your hips in her homemade wreaths and other cute stuff. This is not to mention the bundle you'd have dropped at Kroger's for all that stuff she puts in her snooty recipes.
She'd have bossed everybody around in the kitchen and this would have hacked off your local wreath makers who don't have their own television shows.
Actually, we had a lot of cute stuff around our house. But it was our cute stuff. We had a nice Christmas dinner without Martha there to put little red shoes on the turkey drumsticks.
We had fried oysters and I don't care whether Martha hears about it or not. It's pretty hard to do something cute with fried oysters.
In addition to avoiding Martha at Christmas, I'm sure most of you also didn't have a visit from Kathie Lee Gifford - the talkative wife of Frank Gifford. You remember Frank. Ran for the old New York Giants. Was once almost killed by Chuck Bednarik of the old Philadelphia Eagles.
I don't know how much of a wreath person Kathie Lee is, but I know she's a talker and I suspect your Aunt Zelda would either have told her to shut up or gone home with a sick headache.
You ought to be glad that good old Regis, who talks as much as Kathie Lee, didn't come by. Aunt Zelda would've decked him shortly after he got the first word out of his mouth.
I should mention that you didn't have to put up with Richard Simmons, who would have watched every bite you took at dinner and showed up at the table wearing his funny little exercise outfit.
He might have asked you to do one of those funny little aerobic dances. Just once, I'd like to see that guy in a decent pair of sweat pants.
Terry Bradshaw almost certainly didn't come by and if he had, you can bet your Aunt Zelda would have told him to button his lip and stop acting weird.
Also missing - I hope - were Rush Limbaugh, Larry King, Sonny Bono and Michael Jackson.
You're not out of the woods yet, though. Just make sure Martha Stewart doesn't elbow her way into your New Year's Eve party with a lot of cute homemade resolutions nobody wants to hear.
LENGTH: Medium: 52 linesby CNB