Miss Mabel Talks Tassanoxie

Last night on the local news, the reporter covered a scam that’s going on in the Tassanoxie area. It goes like this. A well dressed young male knocks on your door. When you answer, he tells you he’s from the utility company and they need to cut down a tree on your lot. Would you come with him so he can show you the tree and get your okay? You put on your shoes and follow him out into the yard. While you’re busy being nice and helping the phony utility guy, an accomplice slips into your unlocked, hopefully empty house, and steals your stuff. I’m guessing they know you’re the only one home before they knock at the door. Naturally, they target older folks who tend to be accommodating to polite, well dressed young men. I bet that senior citizen wouldn’t be near as nice to a scruffy, tattooed guy wearing a Hell’s Angel vest. The shotgun would appear and scruffy guy would be invited off the premises. But the scammer is dressed for the part which means you have to be alert. How often

Tassanoxie suffers from a shortness problem that wasn’t apparent until this summer. That’s when the power company started installing really, really tall cement utility poles all around town. I’m talking taller than 50 year old trees. Taller than any building in Tassanoxie. Reaching into the stratosphere tall.  Poles that probably fit in and look right short in say, Dubai, home to the tallest building in the world. But truth is, these poles don’t look so good in little ole Tassanoxie. For folks who don’t live in a small town, there is a dearth of tall buildings. We got three, maybe four floors in some medical buildings and two motels, but that’s about it. This shortness issue doesn’t give the elevator repairman much work here, what so few elevators in town. But no one even knew we had a shortness problem until the power company decided to install these poles. I’m sure some big city fella thought these gigantic poles would get the job done. I doubt he once wondered what they would

There is nothing like learning your handwriting is going the way of the dinosaurs. From what I’ve been reading, school systems across the nation are dropping cursive handwriting from their curriculums in favor of keyboarding. It seems the powers to be have decided cursive is an antiquated way of communicating. They feel today’s students need to learn keyboarding, which by the way, is not related to snowboarding.  Anyway, these folks say learning cursive takes away valuable time from all the other stuff kids need to learn. I say, give me a break, just how much stuff is the average third grader learning these days that the school can’t cram in lessons on how to write in cursive? What, are they too busy learning how to tweet? Cursive is not without its supporters, mostly people who sell pens, ink, and paper. All right, there are other folks who think taking cursive out of the educational process is not a good idea. They say learning to write cursive helps with things like mind and han

It seems there are people out there convinced we need to start eating more bugs. In particular, crickets. On account of them being chock full of protein. And because there are a lot of cricket species–about 2,000–folks can eat. Since those little rascals pack a lot of nutrition in their little bitty bodies, they’re an eco-friendly, sustainable protein producer. The answer, maybe, to the upcoming food shortages due to the human inability to control natural urges and stop overpopulating the planet. I was mainly interested in this whole crickets for food thing because I’ve been wondering where the crickets have gone. The last few years, I’ve been noticing a definite lack of crickets in these parts. There didn’t seem to be any of them hopping and chirping around the house. Learning they’re wanted for food, it’s obvious my crickets have been grabbed by a rustler out to make big bucks by taking them to a cricket farmer. That’s right, cricket farmer, because if you’re going to fe

Here’s a whole new take on relationships. According to one of the numerous surveys folks are always giving and taking, if you’re a successful female looking for a guy, don’t worry, there’s a loser short guy out there looking for you. This is called the George Clooney Effect on account of George Clooney getting hooked up with a hot shot international lawyer who is taller and smarter than he is.   But is she really taller and smarter than he is? Face it, if she’s wearing those popular deathtrap high heels, she’s walking around on her tippy toes. Thus, if he were to walk around on his tippy toes he’d probably be taller than she is. Or the same height. But he’s a guy and he’s already smarter than her because he only wears comfy flat shoes that won’t put him into the podiatrist office in his old age.  Whoops, at 53, Clooney is close to old age. With his looks I guess there’s no need to go there. How about the smart part. Here’s my problem. The media claims she’s intellectually

Sam and I went down to Orlando, FL a few weeks ago for Braves spring training. Nothing beats a visit to a big, congested city to make me appreciate living in Tassanoxie.   It’s a comfort knowing I don’t have to battle traffic in ten lanes going at rocket speed when I go to the grocery store.  Now the Braves play in ESPN’s Wide World of Sports stadium. Since Disney owns the franchise (along with about every other media outlet), all the employees (about 60,000 folks in Orlando work for Disney) at the stadium have been through the Disney employee training. From what I gathered, the most important thing these guys learn is to make the customers happy they came to Disney. To do that, the employees smile and greet you as if they’re happy you’re there. Which of course they should be since you’re paying their salaries. But it sure makes a visit to any Disney franchise feel like home. As we all know, some employees can be downright unpleasant to customers. These types are NOT happy

Land sakes alive, can you believe a clothes designer came up with something called a penis cloak? And then had someone wear it? And because it was worn at a fashion show, someone else took pictures, and then some durn fool put the pictures in an online newspaper. I almost fell face first into my coffee mug. Here I am depressing myself with news of death, mayhem, and the coming end of the world as I know it and wham! I flip the virtual page and get an eyeful of male private parts. And no, I was reading a national online newspaper, not a porn magazine. What, you ask is a penis cloak? If I remember right, and no, I’m not gonna look for it online to refresh my memory, it was a sleeveless, ankle length coat with a section of the front missing.  A very crucial section.  One that if a guy forgets his pants and underpants, which apparently he’s supposed to do, exposes his private parts. Lucky me, the photographer was right in front of the model when the picture was snapped

Used to be, not so long ago, folks looked up at the sky and said stuff like, “There’s a storm’s a coming, I can feel it in my bones.” And while that way of forecasting isn’t something to be sneezed at since barometric pressure plays a big hand in weather changes and human body aches, I’m still more inclined to check the weather channel to see if a storm’s a coming. You see, I’m a weather channel addict. I have been ever since it first appeared on cable TV oh so many years ago. I can remember when nobody thought a channel devoted to the weather was a good idea. Except me. And whoever thought of it. And I’m mighty glad that person didn’t listen to those naysayers.  I check the weather first thing every morning and last thing every night. I use the forecast to decide what to wear when I go out. A coat because it’s going to be cold or a windbreaker because it’s going to be windy.  Since I’m retired, the weather tells me whether I should jump out of bed to walk Jocko or sleep