"Been trying
to lose weight and gut for the past three months," Ivan said. "So far, haven't lost an ounce or an inch. One day last week I went to the Wellness Center and one of the girls asked me how I was doing. I said, 'It still casts a shadow.' She said, 'Yes, but it is a much healthier shadow.'"
Later, he added: "Been working my ass off to lose my belly."
"Heard about a feller here in town who said the rise in gas prices didn't bother him," Ivan reported. "He just puts in twenty dollars worth every time he goes to the pump."
"I was walking into the First National Bank last Thursday morning," Ivan said. "I was singing, or attempting to sing, 'Yours til the stars have no glory, yours til the birds fail to sing.' That good lookin' red-head from Kensington asked 'Who sang that?' I said, 'It was probably Jo Stafford or Perry Como.' She didn't have a clue to who I was talking about. But her good looks and whistle-inspiring figger more than make up for any other shortcomings she might have."
"Years ago," Ivan said, "when I first started caddying at the golf course, Sherm Duer was the grounds keeper. He used a team of horses. He kept the fairways mowed but he would let the roughs grow until the grass was high enough to make prairie hay. He mowed the rough with one of those mowers that had the bar and sickle off to the side. Back then when you got in the rough, you were in the rough. We had a player who, when he hit a ball in the rough, always had to make sure it was his ball. So he would pick it up and tell us, 'That's my ball.' Then he would very carefully place it back in the rough. He never had a bad lie in the rough."
"Now listen to this," Ivan said, "and it's the truth. Beverly Lambert has a tomato plant in a steel barrel that has over 50 tomatoes on it."
"Kendall Nichols returned from a trip to North Carolina, Tennessee, and Branson," Ivan said. "He showed up at Paul's Cafe last Thursday. Immediately the decibel level of conversation went up dramatically."
"My eyesight isn' the best," Ivan admitted, "but the other day up at Paul's Cafe I saw a young girl who was wearing tight-fitting jeans.... How tight were they? When she walked away, she had a dime in her hip pocket and I could tell if it was heads or tails."
"What I'm afraid of," Ivan said, "is that Echo readers are, well, to put it kindly, senior citizens. Echo is taking off for two weeks. With the kind of reader Echo has, the first week the readers will say, 'I sure miss the Echo.' The second week they will say, 'Just what was the Echo?' When the Echo comes back after the two week break, they will say, 'Now me and the Mrs. can get that bird we've always wanted. We will have something to put in the bottom of the cage.'"
"Don't tell me how many hours you put in," Ivan said. "Marian Lemon, up there at Paul's Cafe, puts in hours. One of her short days is a twelve-hour day. I don't care if her feet are killing her or if customers are hard to get along with, Marian always seems to be in a good mood. Some of those customers would drive a saint to drink."
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