okay. all right, give me a chance.
well, sir, you see, me and my wife, we heard your broadcast, and we got quite a bang out of it, especially my wife.
kept me up half the night saying "that man's right, honey. the trouble with the world isnobody gives a hoot about his neighbor. that's why everybody in town's sore and cranky at each other."
well, anyway, the next morning i'm out watering the lawn and i look over and there's sourpuss on the other side of the hedge straightening out a dent in his fender and, er, my wife yells to me out of the window. she says, "go on. speak to him, bert." and i figured, well, heck, i can't lose anythingso i yelled over to him "good morning, mr. smithers." he went right on pounding his fender, and was i burned! so i turned around to give my wife a dirty look and she said, "louder, louder. he didn't hear you." so, in a voice you could of heard in the next county, i yelled. "good morning, mr. smithers!"
well, sir, you coulda knocked me over with a feather. old sourpuss turned around surprised like, and he put on a big smile, came over and took my hand like an old lodge brother, and he said. "good morning, hansen. i've been wanting to talk to you for years, only i thought you didn't like me." and then he started chatting away like a happy little kid, and he got so excited his eyes begin waterin' up.
and he says it's a shame how little we know about our neighbors, and then he got an idea, and he said, "how's about inviting everybody some place where we can all get together and know each other a little better?" well, i'm feeling so good by this time, i'm ripe for anything.
so smithers goes around the neighborhood inviting everybody to a meeting at the school house and i tell everybody that comes in the store, including mr. schwabacher, my boss.
well, i'll be doggoned if over forty people don't show up. 'course none of us knew what to do, but we sure got a kick out of seeing how glad everybody was just to say hello to one another.
oh, yeah. we made sourpuss chairman and decided to call ourselves the john doe club. and, say, incidentally, this is my wife. come here, honey.
this is my wife, mr. doe.
this is sourpuss. er, excuse me. er, mr. smithers, mr. doe.
well, anyway, ii guess nearly everybody in the neighborhood came, except the delaneys. the delaneys live in a big house with an iron fence around it and they always keep their blinds drawn, and we always figured that he was just an old miser that sat back counting his money, so why bother about inviting him? until grimes, the milkman spoke up and he said, "say, you've got the delaneys all wrong." and then he tells
yeah. and, well, sir, a half a dozen of us ran over there to fetch them and we got them to the meeting. what a reception they got. why, everybody shook hands with them and made a fuss over them, and, well, finally, mr. and mrs. delaney just sat right down and cried.
yeah, sure. er, you know grubbel, for instance.
yeah. that'sthat's him. of course, you don't know grubbel, but he's the man that everybody figured was the worst no-account in the neighborhood because he was living like a hermit and nobody'd have anything to do with him. er, that is until murphy, the postman told us the truth. "why, grubbel," he says, "he lives out of garbage cans because he won't take charity. because it'd ruin his self-respect," he says.
yeh. er, and my boss, mr. schwabacker made a job in his warehouse for old man delaney
yeah! wasn't that swell!
well, er, the reason we wanted to tell you this, mr. doe, was to give you an idea what you started. and from where i'm sitting, i don't see any sense in your jumping off any building.
well, thank you for listening. goodbye, mr. doe. you're a wonderful man and it strikes me you can be mighty useful walking around for a while.
it must be some kind of a gag.
a gag. a gag!
well, there you are, mr. doe!
you're a wonderful man, mr. doe.
yeah? well, if he is, i'm a banana split!
sure, sure. i'd like to believe in fairy tales, but a guy that's fake isn't gonna jump off any roof.
okay, honey, okay.