Some time ago I found a page from this book on reddit and thought it was hilarious. I must have posted about it on Facebook, because some time later, as part of a surprise package from a good friend in Virginia, along came a copy of it. I was delighted, because it’s such a delightful homage to an era that I grew up in (although as an eastern boy, this language never was part of my ideolect.
Most people from my generation will remember Dick and Jane; here I present to you Dude – Fun with Dude and Betty.
I’d copy the whole thing for you, but that would really be bogus; as the copyright notice states,
“No way can any part of this book be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever unless you get written permission, ’cause that would be fully dropping in, dude. Although you can use short quotations in, like, critical articles and reviews.”
And we don’t want to be bogus. So I’ll give you, like, just one page – the one I found the funniest:
“Bud is harshing on Dude’s mellow” made me laugh harder than it should have. But the whole book is like this, with language and feel straight out of the 60s surfer scene. Tubular, dude!
There’s even a glossary of terminology in the back, for those non-cool dudes and dudettes who didn’t dig this scene as kids. Wait, that may be mixing a bit of 50s beatnik terminology in there, but it’s cool.
If you want to score a copy of this book for yourself, you can find it at Amazon.
The Old Wolf has, like, spoken, dude.
