With time on our hands and a willingness to save a buck or two, for the past few years my wife and I have been going to the the University of Texas Dental School in San Antonio to have dental work done. We have both been pleased with the quality of care we receive there and have enjoyed our relationships with members of the faculty and the dental students.
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One such person is named Vina. She has worked as a Dental assistant at the school for many years and I have observed that she takes pride in not only assisting the students when required but also in training them.
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This past week, I had the misfortune of having to have two teeth extracted. The standard procedure for extracting a tooth is to wrap a towel over your eyes. ( I think they really have the towel chained to the chair so you don’t chicken out and get up and run away.) My dental student, Steve Garlick, grabbed a 4 pound hammer, a steel chisel and a large pair of rusted pliers and began the procedure. My good friend Vina was close by to assist him and to encourage him to inflict as much pain as he could on me.
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With the towel wrapped over your eyes it is impossible to see anything so the only thing you can do is visualize what they plan on doing next to torture you. Steve was doing a good job with controlling any discomfort I had. If I made one small moan, he would take out a one pound needle that was at least 12 inches long and immediately stick the needle at least 6 to 8 inches into my gums to try and “numb away” the pain.   About half way through the 2 hour procedure I was beginning to think I was going to survive when all of a sudden I felt what must have been a 10 pound anvil fall on the top of my head. I knew right away who the culprit was that dropped whatever it was on my head when I heard Vina say “Oh my gosh, in all my years of working here I have never done anything like that before”. According to her version of the traumatic event, she was passing something to Steve and a tool fell off and hit me in the head.  One fringe benefit of this happening was that it allowed my dental student, Steve, and my favorite dental professor, Dr. Vargas, to complete the extraction without any further injections.  When I woke up from the knock on the head — the teeth were gone.
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Am I glad this happened? You bet…. because it gave me the opportunity to record this life-threatening event in the form of a cartoon. Do I still love Vina? You bet …. because I’m almost positive on my next visit to the dental school she will have a box of candy and a bouquet of flowers waiting for me at my dental chair.

Buisiness Cartoons - Dental

As an introduction to a new category of business cartoons which depict humorous church related events I want you to know that I can distinctly remember that during the summer of 1948 during a week of Vacation Bible School sponsored by our church, I became a Christian.  With child-like faith I accepted the fact that Jesus died for my sins, was crucified, buried and rose again on the third day.  When my earthly days are over I have the assurance that I will have eternal life with Him.
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Have I lived a perfect life since making that commitment?  Absolutely not.  But I am so thankful for the way the Lord has blessed me and my family since making that decision.  One of my greatest blessings is my wonderful Christian wife Sue, who has put up with me for almost 52 years.
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I offer this introduction to let you know that I and my family have been actively involved with a local church wherever we have lived.  Being involved with the ministries of the church has been an important part of our lives.
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When we moved to San Antonio from Abilene, Texas in 1967, we joined a church near our home and shortly thereafter I was asked  by one of the church leaders if I would consider being a worker with 4 year-olds in the pre-school department. My first reaction was: “You got to be kidding!”  After much thought I convinced myself that this undertaking would be a piece of cake because there shouldn’t be much work involved in teaching a 4 year-old.  Based on that totally irrational misconception, I said yes.  Boy, was I wrong.  I discovered that it takes more planning to work with pre-schoolers than it does to teach an adult bible study class.
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As it turned out, I loved working with those precious little ones and many of my experiences with them ended up on paper as a cartoon.  I might mention that nearly all of the cartoons about my experiences with pre-schoolers were drawn when I was in my mid to late 3o’s.  The cartoon below shows me rounding up some of the kids as we get ready to go from one activity to the other.  Should you have any humorous church related experiences, I would love to hear from you.  Who knows — you might become famous like Ted Sorich did with his Bobcat story.

" COME ALONG NOW, IT'S TIME FOR OUR BIBLE STORY "

In my last post, my good friend Ted Sorich told of his encounter with a Bobcat while playing golf. He was unable to complete the round because the Bobcat laid claim to his ball and refused to give it back.
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Ted mentioned that he gave himself a score of four strokes for the hole and then packed up his clubs and headed for home. I called into question the validity of Ted giving himself a four because he did not complete playing the hole.
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Ted’s actions have evidently upset many golfers because I have received comments from many of his golfing buddies since I called into question his method of keeping score. Each person who contacted me emphatically stated that Ted’s scorecard techniques are, at the very least, a little unusual. The following cartoon of Ted in action pretty much identifies what his problem is:

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Business Cartoons - Golf - Scorecard

This cartoon can also be used in your Internet Business as an attention-getter to help promote or sell your product. A potential caption for this cartoon might be: “Check out our offer to show you how to add income to your household.”

Ted Sorich and I began a long-lasting friendship when we met in the first grade in 1944 at Greenway Elementary School in the unique mining town of Bisbee, Arizona — a border town in the southeast corner of the state.  We were in grade school together for 8 years plus 4 years at Bisbee High School.
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Although he will never admit it publicly, Ted always thought he was God’s gift to the pretty girls of Bisbee. He would always brag to me about how many Greenway girls he had kissed before he got to High School. When he kissed one of those girls for the first time he would always come to me telling about his accomplishment. I would listen to him as if I was interested and then would end the conversation by saying “Been there — Done That”.  He finally got the message that he wasn’t the lover that he thought he was.
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Ted, one of Arizona’s best known athletes ended up at Northern Arizona University where , as quarterback, he led the Lumberjacks to many successful football seasons. With his natural athletic ability, the game of golf was a piece of cake for him. Ted now lives in Tucson, Arizona and as an avid golfer he  has been keeping up with my cartoon Blog and I recently asked him if he had any unusual or humorous experiences while playing golf. He told me the following story which I thought was fascinating and his description of this unusual event will be much better than mine:
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” I did have something unusual happen awhile back” Ted said. “I was just finishing a solo round late one afternoon and had hit my second shot right of the green into a grassy area. As I approached the green in my golf cart, I noticed a Bobcat playing with my golf ball.  He’d bat it around, flip it into the air and pounce on it.  I was amused..waiting patiently for the Bobcat to “move on” so I could finish the hole, but he never did. He laid on my ball and never moved so I took a 4 on the hole and headed for home!”

Friends and Family Cartoons - Golf - Ted Sorich's Golf Buddy - Bobcat

As I previously said, Ted and I have been friends for a long time and I would never question his integrity but one of the things he said in his story raises serious questions about his character.  I know that all of you golfers, after reading Ted’s story, have the same questions as I do.  Why did he take a four on the hole?  It’s evident that the main reason is that he was playing by himself so no one was there to check the accuracy of his scorecard (by the way I’ve a future cartoon coming soon about a golfer and his scorecard that pretty much decribes how Ted evidently keeps his score).  I’ve played golf with Ted before and he’s really not that good of a chipper from off the green.  What makes him think he would have chipped the ball close enough to the hole to make a one-putt?  There are just too many unanswered questions.  Maybe it wasn’t even a Bobcat– but a skunk.  Who knows?

Men who have contacted the golf bug will spend 4 to 5 hours in rain, sleet and snow hitting a little white ball. Often, after they hit it they have no idea where it went so they spend 10 to 15 minutes looking for it ……. only to hit it again should they find it.
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It makes no difference if the temperature outside is below freezing or above the boiling point of water … the golfer’s passion for hitting the ball, looking for it, hitting it again and again and finally coaxing it into a small hole with their putter is unexplainable.
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I’m reminded of the story about a golfer on the course who suddenly stood at attention, placed his hat over his heart and bowed his head when a funeral procession passed by near where he was standing. The other men in his foursome were baffled as to why he would stop his golf game to show respect for the person who had died. When they asked him why he did this he replied: “It was the very least I could do for her because she had been my faithful wife for over forty years.”
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I have a sneaking suspicion that the man I have drawn in this cartoon may be the same man. I hope you women out there with husbands who are golfing addicts won’t put too much pressure on him to spend more time with you. After all, hitting the ball and trying to find it is enough pressure for anyone to endure.

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Business Cartoons - Golf - True Love

This humorous, attention-getting golf cartoon has numerous possibilities for captions that will make people want to learn more about your product.  One example might be:  Trying to Decide if this Product is for you? or Our program offers you choices that similar programs don’t.