Mullings by Rich Galen | Secret Decoder Ring for January 10, 2001

Do Over!
Wednesday January 10, 2001

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TITLE: "Do Over!" I don't know if this was in everyone's experience, but as a youth (yoot) on Long Island we played stick ball and stoop ball (to be explained at a later date). These games were played in or crossing a street. If a play began when a car arrived on the block (signaled by the cry of "CAR!") the play would suspend until the offending vehicle passed.
If the suspension disrupted the flow, one side or the other would call for a "Do Over" (pronounced DOO-OHVAH!) in which everything would revert to the status quo ante (a phrase which we rarely, true be told, used) and the play would be started anew.

"Can I caaaalllll yewwwwww Al?" From the Paul Simon song of the same name. The refrain goes:
If you'll be my bodyguard;
I can be your long lost pal;
I can call you Betty;
And Betty, you can call me Al;
You can call me Al.

"… Og the Caveman and …" Raquel Welch, before she became the fine dramatic actress we know today, once starred in a movie called "One Million Years, B.C." was largely a vehicle to allow the producers to have her run around with her largely developed, um, self barely covered by some strips of leather-like substance.

"...Orenthal ..." Othenthal James were the first two names of O.J. Simpson.

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