Thursday, July 8, 2021

The Botleys of Beaumont County"- How Slerd Botley Morphed Over the Years

 

     When I was in high school near Philadelphia, Ronzoni Pasta had ads about expanding its market from Italian-Americans. There was a very upper-class person from the exclusive bastions of WASP-ness, extolling how good Ronzoni products tasted. His name was something like J. Bryce Cadwallader IV. The ads always ended with him chanting "We want Ronzoni, out here in Devon! Out here in ___!"

     The Main Line was across the Schuykill River from us. It was for the elite, the rich, for families that had been there forever. Practically everyone was a WASP (White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant). MY are was not that way at all. 

     Since I was on the staff of the school newspapers and ended up as editor-in-chief, I wrote a lot;: mainly satire.  Slerd Botley was my quintessentially clueless WASP. 

     When I revisited my novel after many years of doing other things, I kept the name. But Slerd moved south and is not all that clueless. Conflicted, confused, yes. But he is the type of guy I would hang out with.

     The Botleys of Beaumont County...out this month on Blurb.

    I could not find those ads, but here is one from about a decade later. It is a gem!

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IwM9nV25m8

  In the meantime, why not read some of my poetry if you haven't already?

https://www.amazon.com/Arthur-Turfa/e/B00YJ9LNOA%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

https://www.blurb.com/b/10335105-all-in-the-family-2nd-edition

 





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