 Someone gave my wife some elephant ear plants which she stuck in the rear flower bed outside the bedroom window to keep for a more fortuitous planting time. They all came up, every last one. It’s a jungle out there.
I am thoroughly intrigued by them, especially when it rains and I watch the droplets roll down the larger ears, some over 3 feet in length, onto the smaller plants. There are dozens of waterfalls all over the place.
JIM SMITH, the Sign Smith, gave us a large group of iris bulbs several years ago and we planted them at the home we left in 1996 … BUT we took the iris bulbs with us. Today they are all over our yard. Every spring beings a new revelation in beauty.
Just mentioning this because there is not a dime invested — just sweat equity — and they are all fine. Nothing like the plants we buy and then watch wither in the Saline County heat before the summer is over.
LISA MAURER, formerly of Benton, lives in Cleburne, Texas, and reads the Courier online. She is retired from the FBI and has begun a new career as a journalist for the local paper there. She saw the column last spring on my buckeye crop and asked if I had extra to please send some her way. Not only did I have extra, we had a bumper crop this year, so my granddaughter, Sweet Pea, and I gathered up a box of buckeyes and mailed them to Lisa. Anxious to know how they turn out. She received her box of buckeyes and says she has enough for a forest … hope that at least one makes it.
DON’T USUALLY USE INTERNET ITEMS, but this one from my brother was just too good:
Q. What do you call two millionaires sitting around a TV watching the BCS Championship Bowl game?
A. The Arkansas Razorback coaching staff.
Q. What do the Arkansas Razorbacks’ Coach Houston Nutt and Billy Graham have in common?
A. They both can make 70,000 people stand up and yell “Jesus Christ!”
Q. How do you keep an Arkansas Razorback coach out of your yard?
A. Put up goal posts, a first-down marker or an end zone.
Q. What do you call an Arkansas coach with a BCS National Championship Bowl ring?
A. A thief.
Q. Why was Houston Nutt upset when the Arkansas Razorback playbook was stolen?
A. Because he hadn’t finished coloring it yet.
Q. What’s the difference between the Arkansas Razorbacks’ coaching staff and a dollar bill?
A. You get four quarters out of a dollar bill.
Q. What do the Arkansas Razorbacks coaching staff and possums have in common?
A. Both play dead at home and get killed on the road.
TYPO: In last week’s column I wrote about poultices hidden beneath flannel shirts. Only trouble was there were not enough letters in "shirt." Oh, well, shirt happens.
SLEEP TIGHT: I’ve had sleep problems for over 30 years. The answer was always more sleep aids, but as you know if you are a perpetual user of these little pills from Winkin, Blinkin and Nod, the old bod develops a resistance to them. What worked wonderfully well this month doesn’t work at all the next.
I got talked into going to Saline Memorial’s Sleep Clinic…a Doubting Thomas, I, then went back for a mask fitting. My son uses a mask and having seen him in it, looks like one of the elephants from Dumbo.
There aren’t many things I am truly impressed with. By one hook or sensitive crook, one can usually poke holes in anything. Well, folks, I am here to tell you that this pachyderm paraphernalia is a winner. It would take me at least an hour to drop off to Never-Never Land, but is now down to minutes.
Old men have a proclivity for multiple trots to the john at night. This also disappears. I am not trying to sell you the program, just telling you that it certainly has worked for me. I wish I had known about it decades before.
WENT DOWN to watch the radio-controlled model airplanes last Saturday at the old Saline County Airport. I know nothing about them. Just like to watch, one heck of a crowd.
We got there early, but still had to walk almost three blocks to get down to the collection of planes.
My brother, Buddy, a former resident of Benton, is knee-deep into balsa, vinyl and paint. We went together, but I soon lost him. There were modelers there from all over the state. I got the feeling it is one big fraternity. I ended up sitting on the tailgate of Mayor Holland’s SUV, eating his peanuts. Modeler Bob Richardson of Benton, one of the organizers, was walking around grinning from ear to ear. Bob is a sometimes contributor to this column.
THANK YOU, JUDY MOORE: As I’ve said, I like El Caminos because when I turn in the seat, my feet are solidly on the ground. Only trouble is that it has been 21 years since the last one was made and the good ones are becoming mighty scarce.
After my column on an East End driver taking the side out of mine, Mrs. Moore of Brownwood subdivision in Benton sent me an ‘e’ telling me she had one for sale, that it had belonged to and had been babied by her late husband Tom. I bought the vehicle.
Now, Mrs. Moore had been ailing for quite some time, had even told me she tried to keep the El up by hiring maintenance done on it over the five years it had been sitting in the yard, but her sickness forced her to stop.
She could not find the title, so I took my bill of sale and applied for the lost document at the Bryant Revenue office. Mrs. Moore also applied for a lost title and the day it arrived, I received an e-mail from her daughter telling me of her death.
Thank you, Judy Moore.
MY SON GAVE ME A PAIR OF CROCS, too small for him, he bought them off the Internet.
We began discussing this at the coffee shop.
Everyone who has purchased clothing or shoes off the Web had a horror story to tell. That pair of size 9 shoes you bought last month is not a guide to purchasing off the 'net; their size 9 may fit an 8 foot. The son buys all his clothes online, I’d like to see his secret closet where he puts the duds that don’t fit. I think it is the state’s way of getting even for not paying sales tax.
I buy only six- or seven-button shirts; they stay tucked in that way. I got a good-looking, high-style shirt for $3, but it had only five buttons. W-o-r-t-h-l-e-s-s!
Ron Meyer is cartoonist, columnist and former general manager of the Courier. His column appears Friday.
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