Biscuits and Beyond
All right! Consider yourself warned. If you missed the Chicken and Biscuits Extravaganza at the Garrettsville United Methodist Church last week, you will have another chance in the future, because it got such a good reception that there will likely be a rematch and the dessert table will feature a Greatest Hits tour with...
Ragnarok
Well, here we go again. The Mayan “end of the world” didn’t pan out, so, now we can look forward to the Viking Apocalypse. It seems that in some enormously long poem in Norse mythology written in the 13th century by( Here’s a name to conjure with) Snorri Sturlson, the gods of just about everything and nothing have a whopper...
Time Flies
My, how Time flies! Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana. So, if the line above is an example of a “garden path sentence” or syntactic ambiguity or a pun, a double entendre or an antanaclasis—well, it would be, wouldn’t it—possibly by that great linguist, Groucho Marx, these recent weeks have been an example of pandemonium! (from the...
Caution ~ Auction!
The Kiko folks have taken to putting up signs of this nature along roads where one of their commercial activities is going on, and with good reason. These secondary highways are plenty full of just plain drivers, let alone the avid auction-goers looking for a place to park--without sliding into a ditch or quicksand (as I found to my...
And Another Thing…
I keep discovering (Not through Spring Cleaning–perish the thought) more stuff to put out on the Big Community Yard/Garage Sale coming up in May (as advertised on the electronic bulletin board downtown at the light). Tons-o-stuff stashed around here; some of it I vaguely remember acquiring, some of it, might as well have come from King Tut’s tomb or...
Latest Unlikely News
Ya know, you can’t make this stuff up.... The news is rife with absolutely amazing little bits—factoids, we might call them—about what’s going on “out there”, and I don’t mean outer space. Doesn’t take much more than a skimming of the news to find a fine selection of nutballs running around in front of God and everybody and coming...
Vancura Valedictory
So…here’s my plan: Nearly everyone who knew Barry Vancura knew that he was all about Christmas. He loved shopping for gifts, getting just the right gift for everyone on his list–which was extensive, getting “a deal” on the items which met his exacting criteria, decorating for the holiday (What ? You think that he didn’t have a hand–or at least...
Vermiform
I’m thinkin’ that I may have worms. Now, now, you can stop planning to boil the cushions on the sofa where I last sat at your house. I’m talking about “earworms”, you know, those tunes that get stuck in your brain and won’t go away, even if you don’t really like the music, it’s just there and repeating,...
A File In The Cake?
I’m sure that somebody is going to “rat me out” and tell the Portage Park District that I’ve been pulling up plants along the Headwaters Trail. Indeed, I have been doing exactly that but the evidence will show that what I’ve been pulling up is a vast number of invasive weeds known as Garlic Mustard. Actually, it’s kinda cute,...
Going, Going, Gone!
Well, going to an auction is often an adventure. This last one, though, was more than I had bargained for. First of all, it was being held at what must, surely, have been the last--or nearly the last--farm in Aurora. I saw a sign --kind of faded--that seemed to indicate that this was once the location of a working sugarbush...
Cats Pajamas?
Well, not just yet. You won’t see the Porch Kitties in long johns real soon, but it won’t be for lack of their pointing out the inadequacy of their current accommodations. Everybody got displaced by the painting of the front porch, which necessitated the clearing-out of the miscellaneous items of furniture, food service and fol-de-rol of all sorts which had...
A Quiet Week
Well, it’s been a quiet week in Little Garrettsville. (Lake Wobegone was another story) BUT…things are moving along. The paving over the “grooved pavement” is inching toward finished; there are lines and everything. Crews are on-site to take down the perennial eyesore downtown which has been “slip-slidin’ away” for –LO!—these many years. Haz-Mat suits and all, they seem to be doing...
May be… Maaayyybe not…
I was thinking that May would be pretty quiet, once the monumental trip to Chicago was over, things might calm down, I might be able to kick back, relax, let the mind wander (as it is wont to do), do some stuff that had fallen by the wayside, as often happens, get some things done, maybe. May be… First of...
Amen for Jacks!
Can I get an “AMEN!” out there? Keep your fingers crossed; Spring may actually be here this time. For the occasion, all of the Jack-in-the-Pulpits at my place have climbed up to their little green lecterns and are giving us palefaces H-E-double toothpicks for all they’re worth. They are in the front where the ferns are finally unfurling, they are...
We’ve Been Sentenced To…
Finally ! A national observance I can, as an educator, relate to. I mean, I can serve as a fine example on April Fool’s Day and all, but Bastille Day, Ember Day –any of them, Sadie Hawkins Day (I do miss Al Capp, though), Lammas Day, Cheeseburger Day, Spaghetti Day, Dress up Your Pet Day, Appreciate Law Enforcement Day,...
All You Need is Love
Well, not exactly. The Beatles got a lot of things right but this sentiment is not really gonna cut it when it comes to public works…like, say, the Portage County Park District. Saturday, April 22, was the annual Portage Park District Foundation recognition benefit dinner event, giving credit where credit was due to many of the folks (not all, mind...
Excitement!!
Pretty generally, my cats are NOT about excitement. Mostly, they’re about conserving physical resources, i.e., lazing around, with as little movement as possible. Oh sure, there is the occasional wrestling match, when one of the “guys” has to show how tough he is(This is the same one who is afraid to go outside when the door is open; he...
Mission Impossible
I continue my crusade to rid at least part of the Headwaters Trail of the noxious, invasive weed, Garlic Mustard...and everywhere else I spot the stuff, which is lots o’ places. Taking a loop around the back of the South St. Park (Bill Phelps Park, with baseball and softball fields) I encountered several stands of the stuff to go...
Hear No… See No… Speak No…
Can we quit talking about nothing but the weather? Granted, the weather has been pretty, shall we call it, remarkable–and we have remarked upon it at length. The sledding hill in back of the Y got a work-out, as did the various fleets of snow-removal and salt-spreader trucks. Some of the remarks were NOT something that one is likely...
A Bad Spell
It wasn’t pretty. The brain trust here at the Weekly Villager sallied forth to adventures in orthography by participating in the22nd Annual Community Spelling Bee for Literacy, co-sponsored by the Portage County Literacy Coalition Community Partners at the NEOMED Conference Center on Friday, May 24, 20013. And fourth…maybe fifth… was about where we wound up…out of five. Like lots of vital...
Are We There Yet?
And just where are we going again? By the time that we get there, I’m going to be so out of shape that someone will have to haul me over the line in a wheelbarrow. When the Y closed, it so disrupted my self-designed fitness routine that all of my muscles have declared a national holiday and I’ve had...
Ahhhhh….. Spring!
If Jack-in-the-Pulpits are any indication, my yard is a veritable vegetation revival! Nothing in the bulletin tells what the message is. They’ve popped up in the front, the back, the side lawns. They’ve out hustled even the ferns. They’ve beaten the trilliums, hands down. Wonder what got into them all of a sudden. Maybe the ferocious cold that knocked...
Okay, how do I add a title?
One of the great mysteries of the digital age, as far as I am concerned. Actually, it is a question followed by another : What do I do to send it off, if it has no title? I went to the very informative session at the PCDL—there are more to come, I hope—with a class or two from the...
Bats & The Queen
The season is on! Which season? Football, Volleyball, Cross Country, Golf, Soccer...you name it; the sticks and the balls and the nets, the helmets, the hitting, the sweat—all ramping up for participants and fans alike. And others.... Came home after the football game the other night—which, by the way, could have been played on top of the hinges of hell,...
May You Live In Interesting Times
There is , allegedly, an ancient Chinese curse, which says, “May you live in ‘interesting’ times”. Last week was really interesting. First off.... I have been waiting for and keeping an eye on the paw paws on the finally-mature paw paw bush on the east side of the house. There are only two bushes and only one of them had fruit...
Spice of Life
Sometimes bon appetit, the 0h-so-upscale cooking magazine, is just too much. They just assume that everyone has access to—and a budget for—artisan cheeses and spirits, baby organic lettuces, at least four different varieties of milk…and we don’t mean simply whole, skim, 2% and buttermilk…oh no. You’re deprived unless the shelves boast the lactic fluid of cows, goats and maybe the...
Treatise on Spell Check
Spell Check can’t do everything. I was at the Farmers’ Market at Robinson the other day. Small but interesting; an assortment of vendors with good stuff. Dave Stotler had Lodi apples, good for the first apple pies of the season. A lady from Randolph was there with a food truck that had been featured on WKSU’s “Quick Bites”. Great Harvest...
What in the Weird?
Yes, indeed, There is all kinds if it out there…weird, I mean. For instance, the other day there was a short piece on line about a political uproar in Wisconsin, where politicians–mostly Republicans, I fear–were in an uproar about passing a law against naked bicycle-riding. Seems to me that would be a self-limiting enterprise to start with, but what do...
Gruel to Gourmet: A True Breakfast Alchemist
Well, as an Autumnal au Revoir, we’ve just had a beauty. It’s nearly all downhill from here on out, I fear. There seem to be numerous warnings about an “el Nino winter” and how we could be in for a freezer bowl this time around after having been just barely noticing snowflakes last winter (Was there more than one...
It Must Be February
Must be February, the Easter candy is on the shelves. And the “cabin fever news stories” are circulating. That’s what appears when all of the news outlets are sick and tired of going hysterical about the weather—record-high snowfall, record-low temperatures, funny (or not-so) pictures of people digging out, names for the storms (How about Hortense? We haven’t seen that name...
