Shark Week

It’s officially Shark Week and I’m here to tell the world I told you so. When I was a kid, whenever I’d get to fretting about the possibility of great white sharks at Old Orchard Beach or Popham, grownups would just laugh and laugh. Well, who’s laughing now, old people? Who’s laughing now that great whites have been spotted all over the Maine coast? I’ve been trying to call everyone whom I remember scoffing at me back in the day. Soon as I track down my kindergarten teacher Ms. Sleamaker, I can call it a day.

Back to School

It’s still just July, but I’ve been fretting about the notion of seeing “back to school” signs in storefront windows and “back to school” sales all over the shelves. I needn’t have worried. Some stores have skipped the school stuff altogether and they’ve gone straight to the %!@%#! Halloween decorations. %!@%#! Halloween! It’s like some pagan ritual to entice winter to come early and that’s about as cruel as you can get. If I find myself shoveling the driveway in August, I’ll know who to blame.

Humans, not beavers, to blame for dam at Tripp Pond

I don’t know much at all about this particular story, but I sure do dig that headline. All I can imagine is some smug beaver sitting back in his courtroom chair, arms crossed, a scowl of defiance upon his buck-toothed face. “Told ya I didn’t do it. Didn’t I tell ya?” His name is Wally, in this little fantasy of mine, and for some reason I owe Wally $50. Must have been a bet of some kind, I don’t know. Things get crazy when I get down to anthropomorphizing.

4:47 P.M. AND 78 DEGREES!

Now that they’re knocking down the big ol’ Sun Journal building at the corner of Pine and Park streets in Lewiston, I see that the very first thing to go was that time and temperature clock that has stood on that corner for so many decades. The clock hasn’t worked in 20 years or more, but still. She was a beaut, and if I’d known they were getting rid of it I would have volunteered to take that sucker and ride around with it on the back of my motorcycle. Due to the aforementioned not-working thing, I’d have to shout out the time and temperature to everyone I passed on the street, but I don’t mind that. I’m a very giving person.

When all you have is a bowling ball, everything looks like a pin

Saw a guy walking around downtown Lewiston the other day cradling a bowling ball as if he were about to fire it down some polished lane only he could see. I watched the fellow for several blocks, but he just kept on holding that ball close and waiting for his moment. I finally lost him around Shawmut Street, so now I’ll never know if he picked up the spare.