WHAT COLOR IS YOUR RIBBON?

My nearby Quick Trip is giving out green light bulbs because November is National Runaway Prevention Month. You're supposed to put the bulb in your porch lamp to stop kids from running away, or "raise awareness" or something like that. I'm not exactly sure how this thing works.

It's like wearing pink for breast cancer, or to be against breast cancer, or to "raise awareness" or something like that. It started with pink ribbons, but now it's pink everything. But what about me? What color is my ribbon? I don't have breast cancer. I have liver cancer. So what am I, pate?

This whole ribbon thing started with yellow ribbons to support our Iranian hostages, which came from the Tony Orlando and Dawn song, which came from a short film on PBS's The Great American Dream Machine, which came from an allegedly true story about a prisoner, which possibly came from the Civil War tradition of girls wearing a yellow ribbon for their boyfriend in the war.

Then there were the red ribbons from Project DARE to tie to your car antenna if you were against drugs, and later there were red ribbons to wear on your lapel if you were against AIDS, or wanted to "raise awareness" or something like that.

When Gulf War One broke out, people called my radio show to ask what color ribbon to wear. The radio station soon provided the answer by handing out red, white and blue ribbons at public events.

But it was when little Timmy blew up 169 innocent people in Oklahoma City, and callers asked me what ribbon they were supposed to wear now, that I knew this whole ribbon thing had gone way over the edge.

But that's just my opinion. And consider the source. I briefly wore a black armband in the sixties to protest the Vietnam war.