Mr. Jeepers, Officer Cornhole and Chief Peters

Mr. Jeepers told me he got pulled over by Officer Cornhole the other day for speeding, and he got a ticket. He said normally he really hates being pulled over by a policeman because he usually finds it intimidating. But I guess he’s known Officer Cornhole for a really long time, and knows that his first name is Oliver (I didn’t know that!), and he said it’s just really hard to be intimidated by any man named Oliver, much less one named Oliver Cornhole.

And then he told me something I hadn’t known before. I guess a whole lot of years ago Mr. Jeepers had his own band, and Officer Cornhole was their main vocalist. And even though Officer Cornhole was the lead vocalist, it was really Mr. Jeepers’ band. And they called themselves – and I gotta admit I really like this – Junior Jeepers and the Blue Angel Floor Sweepers. Whoa, that’s good! (I just get this image in my mind of the Blue Angels sweeping a really big floor with really big brooms.) I guess they had a little bit of success, but after awhile they started having some “internal disputes.” What Mr. Jeepers said was that Officer Cornhole started getting a little too “full of himself,” and he demanded that they change the name of the group to Junior Jeepers and the Blue Angel Floor Sweepers Featuring Oliver Cornhole. And he wouldn’t go for that, so Officer Cornhole quit.

Mr. Jeepers said he was just about to disband the group, but at the last minute Curly Peters – our current Police Chief – volunteered to be the new lead vocalist. (Is this a small world, or what?) And just to “stick it” to Oliver Cornhole, Mr. Jeepers said he renamed the band Junior Jeepers and the Blue Angel Floor Sweepers Featuring Curly Peters. And he said that for awhile it was incredible, that interest in the band really took off, and they were playing to much bigger crowds than they ever had before. But pretty soon everybody realized that Chief Peters really couldn’t, as Mr. Jeepers said, “sing worth a crap.” And so when that happened and hardly anyone was coming to their shows anymore, Mr. Jeepers decided to “hang it up.” And he’s never played since.

I hope I have stories to tell like this when I’m old.

* * * * *

I asked Mr. Jeepers if he had any recordings of his old band that I could feature on Our Duncan Funk Song of the Day. He said there weren’t any because that was before anyone knew how to record music. But he said there was one song they played that they always got a lot of requests for, even though he admitted they didn’t do a very good job on it. But I found a video of that song by the group that made it famous that’s really great, and it even features an introduction by Ed Sullivan for all of us “youngsters.” So let’s all watch and listen, and pretend that’s really Mr. Jeepers up there!

Title: You Keep Me Hangin' On
Artist: Vanilla Fudge