June 1
Today I shall address a typical day in Fairhope. Maybe I'll tell you something of what I did yesterday, or will do tomorrow, or plan to do this very day. Then I shall suggest some things you can do where you are, wherever that is.
The least interesting thing I will do today is spend 15 minutes on the elliptical machine at the gym ("Wellness Center," they call it) at the local hospital. Dues for this exercise paradise is $40 per month, and if you are in possession of a body you should enroll. I don't think I need to tell you why; the news that exercise is necessary to your well-being should not be all that earth-shattering. Even if you play tennis or swim regularly, you have other muscles that need attention, and it's very helpful to have professional advice as to where they are and what to try to make them do.
Then you should go to the corner of Church Street and Fairhope Avenue and see what the tomato lady has on sale. I went yesterday, and the peaches are already out. I ate a fresh peach and am here to proclaim that it will be a very good year.
Another thing I did yesterday that I will not do today, is write an email to Rheta Grimsley, the syndicated columnist who writes think pieces out of Iuka, Mississippi, and happened to write one on Fairhope's brave stand against the advent of Wal-Mart which ran in Tuesday's Mobile Press-Register. I wrote her the original phrase, "There is more here than meets the eye," and she emailed me back that she was aware there probably was. Maybe we'll communicate further; she said she wants to read Meet Me at the Butterfly Tree because she'd like to know a little Fairhope history. Makes me wish I had put more Fairhope history in it. Maybe When We Had the Sky will actually get published and she can read about Upton Sinclair, Clarence Darrow, some of the teachers from the Marietta Johnson School of Organic Education, and digest some of my diatribes about the demolition of the cottages, the indifference and downright hostility to the theory of Single Tax -- in other words, the heartbeat of Fairhope.
Don't you love the name Iuka, Mississippi? For those of you reading it for the first time, it's pronounced Eye-you-ka. Musical.
Something I've been meaning to share with my readers is a hilarious blog by someone called Justin Kahn. He may be more than one person, I can't quite figure it out. But he's a jackanapes, a merry andrew -- I've always wanted to be able to call someone that -- whose field is irony. His blog can be found at http://www.conceptofirony.blogspot.com
Grab a fresh peach and check it out. It's summertime down South, and there ain't much else to do.
5 comments:
Saw that one the other day myself. The guy's too good for me. I didn't get it.
Oh, wow! Did you check out his "monologue" of the paper-clip on the microsoft desktop? And the fund-raiser rubber band bracelets? What part did you not understand?
Sorry. I was confused. Paper clipped as it were to the ass end of nothing in particular. Re-upped Justin. I can think of nothing more noodalicious than clipping a double-back-twisting Gates while slurping soda water on your best tie.
At your recommendation, I went to Justin 's blog. The guy has an active, agile, expanded, and sometimes off-the-wall mind. But it was about as juvenile and disjointed as anything I've come across. The guy's driving around in an ego car. His engine is fueled by other juvenile minds -and there seems to be quite a few, judging the number of comments- shoveling coal into the burner.
Maybe some of you should look up the word irony before attempting to decipher young Justin. Then, click on his archives to read the actual "Imagined Monologue" to which the blogpost featuring the kid in the paper clip costume who performed the schtik for his school assembly refers. Or maybe Justin's not for everyone.
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