Your Morning Kramden

For Tuesday, February 4th, 2025

Week 99 of our regular morning feature here at Friedman of the Plains Worldwide in which we highlight the great words and works of great men and women, as well as those who are insufferable, delusional, and even fictional.

This Week Ralph Kramden

Little background on this one. Ralph and Ed have had an argument, a bad one, so Ralph decides he’s not going bowling with him, as they usually do. Instead, Ralph invites over a friend Teddy Oberman and plans to go bowling with him. Out of childishness and still angry about the earlier argument, Ralph downplays his relationship with Ed, saying how he’s only been friends with him because he feels sorry for him and because their wives are close.

Then this happens.

There’s a banging on the door. It’s one of Ed’s co-workers from the sewer.

Worker: There was an explosion in the sewer on Himrod Street. Norton was hurt.
Kramden: Norton was hurt?
Worker: Yeah. Yeah, he's in room 317 at the Bushwick Hospital.
Kramden:: He was hurt?
Worker: Yes, he was.
Kramden: It's my fault. If I had gone bowling with him, he'd never got hurt. If anything's happened to that guy that's real serious. I'll never forgive myself. I got to get my hat and go over there.

He starts to leave.

Teddy Obernan: Hey, wait a minute. You just got through telling me you and him ain't friends.

(Ed. note: This next line taught me more about the wonderful, complex dynamic of friendship than just about any line I’ve ever heard. Ralph gets right in Oberman’s face.)

Kramden: What I say about Norton is one thing. How I feel about him is another.