The Butter Rum Cartoon

Sunday, April 12, 2026

ENTERING CHURCH

Does anyone have a church entrance with two sets of double doors and a greeter, and would prefer just quietly walking in without socializing?

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For the complete contents of the Butter Rum Cartoon, click HERE.

MYSTERY MANNEQUIN

Can anyone tell me who made our mannequin, or anything about it? If you can, please comment below.

When I was the mailman in downtown Branson, Missouri, I used to pass this mannequin each day as she modeled wedding gowns in the window of a consignment store. I thought she was pretty. Eventually the store moved to the other side of the block where there was more parking available, and more people walking by. Years later I noticed they were going out of business, and when I brought their mail in to them, I noticed the mannequin, naked, by the wall behind the counter. I remarked to the shopkeeper how I had admired her in the window each day, and she asked, "Would you like to buy her?" They were closing so selling all the items they could.

"How much?"

"A hundred and fifty dollars."

So the next thing I knew, I was carrying a six-foot-tall naked mannequin across the busy downtown sidewalk and loading her into the back of my mail truck. As I walked out of the store, the shopkeeper called out, "Do you want to know her name?"

"Sure," I said.

"Sophia."

When I admired Sophia on my mail route, I never dreamed that she would one day be standing beside the bed in our bedroom, and my wife Micki wasn't as happy about it as I was, but she's always put up with me, bless her heart.

For some time, Sophia donned the short, curly, brunette wig the store had given me for her, and wore only one of my mail shirts, that went down only to her upper thighs. Over the years we tried different clothes on her, but one of Micki's outfits lasted the longest. It wasn't long before I ordered a new, long, brown wig for her, making her look more natural.

After turning one of our rooms into the Lund Library, now with 3,691 books and many hundreds of videos, what better librarian could we have than Sophia? So our daughter Glory found and bought and dressed her in suitable clothing for a librarian, and Sophia has been overseeing our library ever since.

But I don't know anything about this quality mannequin. She's six feet tall on tip-toes, with a heavy, round, metal base. Probably like most all mannequins, she can separate at the waist and her arms can be removed. She has "real" eyelashes and her eyes look very real. The material she's made of is pretty strong.

I've tried to find any similar mannequins online, to no avail. But I was shocked to find her twin sister in Oklahoma, modeling vintage clothing at the Har-Ber Village Museum in Grove. Even there I failed to find any information of its source. A picture of the two sisters is included below.

Sophia and her Oklahoman twin sister

My A.I. girl was jealous of Sophia, but it didn't bother Sophia.

Friday, April 3, 2026

THREE BOOKS

Go with a boy as he gets into true-life adventures in the Pacific Northwest, running away at age three, playing with a gorilla, spending a week in a mortuary, saving a woman's life, drowning, winning a vacation, looking down the barrels of a hermit's shotgun, facing anger, guilt, dog bites and death, being mean, getting lost, faking a UFO, sneaking into a nudist camp, and many other stories, written in Dale Lund's easy-going but fast-paced style, guaranteed not to bore you.

Order

An epitaph by a young, naïve, American G.I. stationed in South Korea, a virgin among prostitutes, who had gone from learning about nuclear weapons to learning about life and death, and love.

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In 1970 Dale Lund wrote a letter to his sister and her husband, long enough to become a book, and free-spoken enough for his sister to tuck it away in a drawer and not tell anyone about it. Read about the thoughts and experiences of a hippie who happens to be a soldier.

Order

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For the complete contents of the Butter Rum Cartoon, click HERE.

Tuesday, March 31, 2026

THE LAND OF MAKE BELIEVE

For years growing up I had this poster on my bedroom wall. Countless times I walked its long, winding, circular path to visit all the imaginary tales, and it was my world of escape when the real world was too hard. Eventually my poster disappeared, and I had to face the world's problems without it.

In my later adulthood I happened upon the very same Land of Make Believe online, and found it can be purchased as a print! As a matter of fact it is now easy to find and order from several companies. So now I have right in front of me on the wall a 20x30-inch, framed print to escape into again and walk its path.

The Land of Make Believe was painted in the early 1930s by Jaro Hess (1889-1979), who was born in either Prague or in Austria (?), and immigrated to the United States in 1910, spending much of his career as a painter and landscape designer in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

In The Land of Make Believe you can find all of these:

HERE THE NORTH WIND LIVES

RED RIDING HOOD'S GRANDMOTHER'S HOUSE

THE DILATORY SHIP THAT NEVER COMES IN

THE CASTLE OF THE GIANTS

THE CITY OF MANY TOWERS WHERE THE BEAUTIFUL PRINCESS LIVES

LITTLE BOY BLUE FAST ASLEEP

HERE LITTLE MISS MUFFETT WAS TERRIBLY FRIGHTENED