I’m frightened and/or flattered

So, I got this handwritten letter in the mail and I just don’t know what to make of it. The letter writer might be ebullient or he might be enraged, it’s hard to tell. “You called me out. Well, here I am,” the letter begins. “I’m tired of the bull, so let’s get down to it.”

Yikes, right? Lock the doors and wear a fake mustache, hey what? But then the writer goes on to make some very fine observations about life in Lewiston and he ends with, “Keep writing. I like reading your column.” So, I don’t know. Wear the fake mustache or skip it? I should tell you that it’s a real beauty, made with alpaca fur and waxed just so. Forget it. I’m wearing the mustache.

I Saw It On Pine Street

It’s the exciting new weekly feature that replaces the popular I Saw It At Walmart, which was axed after an unfortunate incident in the superstore restroom. Who needs Walmart, anyway? Pine Street in Lewiston is the place you want to be if it’s comical human behavior you be craving. Saw a dude out there a while ago pushing another guy around in a shopping cart. I also saw a man wearing a bra over his shirt. Then there were the Siamese twins juggling cats, but I’ll save that for next week.

Fatal baseball

Here it is the first day of autumn and there are plenty of playoff spots up for grabs in Major League Baseball. To add to this thrill, my beloved Kansas City Royals still have a distant shot at a wild-card spot, the first time in nearly 30 years they’ve come this close. I should advise you, though, that if the Royals were to squeak in and play a one-game showdown for the playoffs, I probably won’t survive it. They’ll find me flopping around in my KC hat, KC jersey and KC underwear, the first person in recorded history to suffer a stroke, a heart attack, a brain embolism and something new called Frantic Bladder all at once. I’ll make sure to do it on Pine Street. You know: for the symmetry.

I always thought your letters were fake

An alert reader (crazy guy who lives in his van) advises me that Penthouse magazine might be filing for bankruptcy. I have a total of six jokes pertaining to this and not a single one of them will get by the censors. Trust me, though, they’re hilaaaaaaarious. And very distasteful, so you’d be proud of that. My biggest worry is that if the magazine folds, they’ll never publish my letter, written in the summer of 1992, and titled “My CENSORED CENSORED CENSORED With a Chicken Feather.” It’s a must read.

And speaking of summer

Oh, my god, it’s autumn! Apple picking, long pants, the smell of wood smoke, pumpkins squinting out from roadside stands. Isn’t it marvelous? (Answer: No. No, it’s not.) Any day now, some prognosticator will advise that this will be the Best Foliage Season in the history of trees and you’ll hear the low rumble of buses carrying in wide-eyed leaf-peepers from the lower states. As soon as they arrive, a fall storm will sweep through and blow every leaf from every tree and you’ll hear a collective “awww” echoing sadly across three counties. So, there’s that to look forward to.

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