Whatchamacallit

Over the years, there has been much confusion about the title of my weekly columns. It doesn’t help that I have two of them with similar names. It also doesn’t help that most of my readers are heavy drinkers. Among other things, my columns have been mistakenly called Heard on the Street, Word on the Street, Turd on the Street, Man on the Street, Coffee Talk, Coffee Klatch, Fraggle Rock, Street Talkin’ Man, Sweet Talk, Street Beat, Street Feat, Street Meat and, for some reason, Rudy’s Discount Socks Emporium. It’s all very amusing, but in the future I’d appreciate it if you’d remember that my columns are titled . . . whatever it is that they’re titled.

Peter Geiger named education head

What do you want to bet the editor of the Farmers’ Almanac predicted last year that was going to happen?

Exit 80 

The ramps on Lewiston’s share of the Maine Turnpike are set to be complete aaaaany day now. Crews will be blasting over a period of days, which makes you wonder why they didn’t just combine this work with the Independence Day fireworks. After all, July 11 is every bit as significant as July 6, which was when the holiday was celebrated this year. It’s all very confusing.

According to prophecy

I stumbled upon a documentary featuring the prophecies of Nostradamus one recent evening and decided that, since I have this space in the newspaper to fill with very important thoughts on life, maybe I should offer up my own predictions for the local future. Scared yet? You should be. Here is my first:

On the street of pine as the hour groweth late

An old palm will cross a young one with currency of green

Body, herb and powder will be exchanged, verily

Blue light will fill the night and the old one will be caged

And now, we wait.

Pig menaces children in woods

It happened one recent afternoon in the town of Oakland. In nearby Fairfield, another group of children was threatened by an articulate spider that spelled out “I will kick your butt” on its web. (If you got this literary reference, thank a teacher. If you thought I was relating an authentic news story, seek help.)

This white space isn’t going to fill itself

What to heck. One more quatrain:

In the great canal between the cities

Water shall give way to mud

Rusty bicycles and shopping carts shall be revealed

to much rejoicing.

Copy the Story Link