Ground Report

"He thought he was having an hallucination but it was just his imagination."
– Dave Channon

Did you see the cloud shaped like a Hawaiian canoe over Highmount last Wednesday?

My friends are listening to the aqua-ska band Too Much Bleach.

A Letter

Dear Sparrow,

Today the snowflakes are not falling, but flying.  They glide sideways, as if searching for food.

Sincerely,
M. L.

Bumper sticker:

WALK SOFTLY AND
CARRY A BIG STICK
OF CHEWING GUM

A Second Letter

Dear Mr. Sparrow, Master of the Hidden Innuendo:

For some reason, I’ve been writing knock-knock jokes:

Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Helen.
Helen who?
Helen damnation; open the door! I have to pee!

Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Thurston.
Thurston who?
Thurston hunger brought me here.

(Do you think they’re too similar?)
 
J. B. 

Apprentice Wind

"My grandmother believed that all winds were like a tribe," Josie Heathcut recalls.  "The older winds taught the new, young winds.  Sometimes we’d hear a gentle rustling in the spruces, and Grandma would say, ‘That’s an apprentice wind.’"

Shandaken Poetry Promenade

Comedy

Comedy’s a
career for smart,
aimless guys.

– Arthur Beame

Thursday

A moth with heart-
shaped wings
died in my kitchen.

– Ann Leavy

A Third Letter

Dear Sparrow:

Did you see the Academy Awards?  What’s the new criterion: the movie with the most blood wins?  I predict next year’s Best Picture: The Surgery Channel’s Greatest Hits.

Old Arthur

Ask Sparrow

"Ask Sparrow" is a feature of this column where slightly uncertain locals ask our columnist for counsel.

Dear Sparrow:

Some of us who feel Dean Gitter has a destructive effect on the Catskills wish to rename Mount Pleasant (where his Emerson Place complex lies) "Mount Crappy."  What do you think?

Disgruntled in Boiceville

Dear D.I.B.,

Seems pretty juvenile to me.

Sparrow

Squash-Tomato "Canoes"

Fry two red tomatoes with ground cumin.  Cut an acorn squash in half and oven-roast at 350° for 45 minutes.  Cover each half with tomatoes.  Place salted peanuts in a clean dishtowel and hammer them.  Sprinkle peanut pieces on tomatoes.  Serve.

A Fourth Letter

Dear Gossip-purveyor:

I walked this morning in a quiet, granular snow which kept tickling my face.  "This is tickle-snow," I decided.

P. T.

Bumper sticker:

IS MY GPS WRONG
— OR AM I IN INDIANA?

Snow Music

"I listen to the radio as snow falls," Geri Hadger told me.  "I found a station in Boston that plays swing music, so I turn that on.  Snow is magical while Bing Crosby sings ‘But Beautiful.’"

A Fifth Letter

Mr. Sparrow, The Bird-Reporter:

Would you rather sleep with a celebrity or be a celebrity?  This is the great existential question of our age.

"Abel"

The Virtues of Pacing

"Nearly any problem can be solved by an hour of pacing," opines Nancy Salti.  "Pacing proffers answers to the mind."

A Sixth Letter

Dear Mr. Gossip-monger:

Freud was wrong.  The main instinct of humans is not sex, but eating.  In affluent societies, where people can fulfill all their impulses, there is little sex, but an "obesity epidemic."  The Freudian analysis has been superseded by what I call "Dagwoodism" — the theory that humans basically want to eat very tall sandwiches.

"The White Owl"