Recently, I was paid perhaps the highest compliment I have ever received when Time magazine named me “America’s oldest living slab of carrion.” Odd that such words of praise should come from the mouth-piece of my hated enemy, Henry Luce. I must remember to have Standish send him a case of corn-syrup with my heartiest wishes.
Speaking of rival publications, the other day, a woman from one of those milque-toast ladies’ gazettes came to the estate to interview me. Before I could overcome my disgust at the spectacle of a lady-reporter, she had the gall to ask me if I had any tips for her reader-ship for living a long and fruitful life. There was no way in the world I would impart wise and useful advice to the enemy, so I immediately had the woman expelled from the estate, and decided that for to-day’s column I would share with my loyal Onion readers some of my personal good habits to which I credit my great longevity.
1. Continuous exposure to asbestos. 2. Steadfast intolerance toward the Flemish. 3. Belief in a stern and vengeful God. 4. Watching big things burn. 5. A daily ride aboard my estate’s shoot-the-chutes until the age of 98. 6. An insistence that strangers maintain a minimum distance of 63 yards from me at alltimes. 7. Routine injections of bull-semen. 8. Bringing a cinder-block down upon the head of Brickton Atlas-Trumpet editor P. Oliver Gummidge. That act alone added 35 years to my life. 9. Possession of a magical ruby ring. 10. The storage of several of my vital organs in protective jars. 11. Use of Dr. Klimpt’s Poultry Liniment.
I understand that these habits are unattainable or incomprehensible to those of common birth-right, as they should be. But the wise and upright man will mark my words, and mark them well! I didn’t live 127 years by sipping tea and letting people defecate on me, except for pleasure! “Eternal Vigilance” and “Knife The Bastards” are the time-honored mottos of the Zweibel clan, and if you’ve got any sense, you’ll adopt them too.
T. Herman Zweibel, the great grandson of Onion founder Friedrich Siegfried Zweibel, was born in 1868, became editor of The Onion at age 20, and persisted in various editorial posts until his launching into space in 2001. Zweibel’s name became synonymous with American business success in the 20th century. Many consider him the “Father Of American Journalism,” also the title of his well-known 1943 biography, written by Norman Rombauer.
