To quote Miss Manners, “Gentle Reader”: How are you today? I hope you are well. I’m about to take Tricia over to Max’s apartment for a field trip to the city, but before I do that, I’m going to name another Exemplary Codger for you to idolize. Today’s Exemplary Codger is the Officer Bill Gannon character from the timeless television program Dragnet, as played by Harry Morgan. If you’ve never seen the program, you’re probably too young to be reading this “lifestyle column” “LOL”! But don’t worry if you fall into that boat; I’ll tell you all you need to know.
Officer Gannon was a wonderful detective for the LAPD’s police department, where he worked with his partner, Sergeant Joe Friday. Friday was a bit codger-like in his own right, but he didn’t have Gannon’s zest for life, such as keeping quail eggs in his lunch box.
Gannon (left) with Friday (right)
One time, Friday is at Gannon’s house and Gannon decides to roast a duck, but only after showing how to make a “garlic nut-butter sandwich”: With pumpernickel bread, peanut butter, cream cheese, and crushed garlic (The official recipe is kept here). Then a girl comes over trying to sell magazine subscriptions to pay for her nursing school tuition, but Friday and Gannon can tell she’s trying to swindle them with bogus subscriptions, so they arrest her. Unfortunately, it takes too long and the roasting duck gets all dried out when they cut it open. At first, you think that the duck looks delicious, like it’s stuffed with stuffing and spices, but then you realize that it’s just dried out.
Gannon is also an expert when it comes to busting hippies, like the time that the ringleader hippie, named Blue Boy, has his head in the ground and then starts spouting out a lot of nonsense about “the train, the train, the train”. He dies at the end because he’s on drugs. Gannon helped make cops “cool” to young people everywhere because he wasn’t above talking to hippies, but he showed them that their lifestyle can only lead to disaster.
Gannon and Friday trying to save Blue Boy from the hippie lifestyle
Another time, Gannon has to go under cover as a furrier, where he learns that when a fur is “stagey”, it is smooth going down but rough going up when you stroke it. This isn’t a good thing, nor is it when it’s a “split skin”. Bill Gannon: Exemplary Codger.
Until next time!
Ahoy,
The Codger
From the desk of The Codger 