A Day At the (Duck) Races

This past weekend, the Red Cross and the school music department held a duck race at a park in Small Town. At this fund raising event, there is a clown making balloon animals, games for little kids, a dunking tank, a tent with hot dogs and their usual trimmings, and mini-concerts by the high school jazz band and steel drum band—my daughter's very last performance with these groups, by the way. The end.

Later in the afternoon, more than 1500 ducks raced down the creek, and prizes were awarded for the winners. If you've never been to a duck race, it may seem odd. I find it oddly fascinating. People buy ducks and are given numbered tickets. Hundreds of little plastic ducks, each with corresponding numbers, are dumped into the creek, and a guy in waders herds them down to the finish line. They funnel through one at a time, and the winners are collected.

I didn't stay for the actual race because it was such a hot day, and I didn't want to stand there idly waiting so I could take a picture. So, here is a picture of someone else's duck race, just to give you an idea of what the spectacle looks like. Fun.

I don't buy ducks, but I do sponsor the race with a donation, so I get my own special prize. A couple of days after the race, someone shows up at my door with a box of sugar cookies in the shape of ducks. I did manage to get a picture of those for you. What does that say about me?

Cindy Loo Who In October

What is it with people and Cindy Loo Who? Of my last one hundred blog hits, forty have been direct visits from regular readers, and fifteen have been as a result of people searching for "Cindy Loo Who," the little pixie from Seuss's How The Grinch Stole Christmas . A couple of years ago, I posted an image of the original Seuss illustration as compared to the TV cartoon image, and for some reason, that post is bringing in the crowds, relatively. Maybe it's the weather. It isn't even November yet, and already we've had frost and have had to dust off our winter coats. When it gets cold like this, I start to think about Christmasy things like listening to Nat King Cole and decorating the tree. It's ironic because I am offended when retailers start pushing holiday stuff early, but I don't mind my own private celebrations. When my sister and I were much younger and still living with our parents, we would pick a day in July, close the curtains to darken the ...

I'm In the Paper Today

Here is an article in today's Small Town Newspaper.

The Ultimate Storyteller—in Life AND in Death

I wrote about The Autobiography of Mark Twain in yesterday's edition of Small Town Newspaper. You can read it here , if you want. This is the photograph I had in mind while I read Clemens' dictations. He really was a masterful storyteller, even when rambling on about the poorly designed door knobs in Florence or in describing the Countess Massiglia, who he described as a "pestiferous character." About her, he said, “She is excitable, malicious, malignant, vengeful, unforgiving, selfish, stingy, avaricious, coarse, vulgar, profane, obscene, a furious blusterer on the outside and at heart a coward.” And I laughed out loud.

Scout Moves

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