IVAN BURGESS'S ECHO ECHO

"Tain't fair,"

Ivan said. "There ain't nothin' fair about it. Beverly Lambert has one tomato plant that has 26 tomatoes on it. I got five tomato plants and I'll be lucky to get 4 tomatoes. Darn lucky."

"The natives were reminding each other," Ivan said, "that when it quits raining in Kansas sometimes it is hard to get the pump primed again. In 1935 the Republican River flooded in June. Crops burned up in July."

"Casey Edell is back to tuning piannas," Ivan reported. "Hasn't been very long ago that Casey had by-pass surgery. It's just hard to keep those men down who grew up in the 1930s. They have worked hard. That's all they know."

"Arlene Benn was looking through some stuff," Ivan said, "and she ran across a grade card of her mother's when she was a student in the Pleasant Ridge country school. That would have been a long time ago. One of the grades was in Orthography. If you don't know what that is, look it up in your Funk and Wagnell. It is spelling. Arlene said her mother got really good grades. Her poorest subject was Language. Of course I would guess that only German was spoken in the home at that time."

"Someone asked Arloa Barnes who was tearing down the old Mark Cool/Harold Beason house," Ivan reported. "Arloa said Jack and Kathy Yenne and Joe Barnes. I hope they all have their tetanus shots up to date. No more than Joe Barnes talks, he could have lockjaw for a day and a half before anyone would notice."

"There has been a noticeable lull in all the discussion about school mergers, cattle prices, merits of different makes of pick-up trucks, and all the other petty and unsolveable world problems," Ivan noted. "Now the conversation is riveted on the wheat harvest. The nice thing about wheat harvest is that everybody hopes everyone else will have good yields, few breakdowns, and harvest weather. In nearly every other subject, farmers can find a bone of contention which usually results in a decided raising of the decibel level of otherwise subdued almost sotto voiced conversations."

"I was sitting in a restaurant looking at the menu trying to figger out something to eat that wouldn't blow my calorie count through the ceiling," Ivan said, "when a nubile creature came to my table. She saw I was struggling. Then she said - now listen to this and take it and use it - she said, 'You know, it takes calories to burn calories.' Never thought of that."

"One time," Ivan said, "many years ago, many, many years ago, I was thinking of not going out for football. One of the town loafers heard about it and he stopped me in the street one day and said, 'Young man, if you're going to play high school sports, the only time you can do it is when you are in high school.' That sounded like sage advice to me. So I went out for high school football. For four years I went out for high school football. Now in high school football, it doesn't matter how many are out for football, there is always one person that nobody is afraid of. He is the one the rest of the players always pick when they want to look good tackling or blocking. Unfortunately, I was that one player. For going out for football, I had the privilege of getting the snot knocked out of me by the likes of Frank Pattee, Ralph Tucker, Melvin Lyon, John Daniels, Everett Robb, and others. When we would scrimmage, I would always have to be our next opponent's best ball carrier. If I managed to make a measly two yards against the first team defense, the coach would scream and holler and the next time I carried the ball I would get hit so hard and by so many players that my rib cage would meet in the middle of my belly. But you know I played high school sports the only time you can play high school sports - when you are in high school."

"Most kids my age remember playing work-up," Ivan said. "You would have players out in the field and three batters. When a batter made an out, he went to right field. The right fielder moved to center field, the center fielder moved to left field, the left fielder moved to third base. The third baseman moved to short stop, short stop to second base, second base to first base, first base to pitcher, pitcher to catcher, and the catcher became one of the batters. However, in our neighborhood we played a version of work-up called Army ball. The rules were the same in Army ball except if the batter hit a fly ball and it was caught, the person who caught the fly ball and the batter who hit the fly ball exchanged positions. I'm telling you, every time a fly ball went in the air, you had nine players yelling, 'I got it, I got it.'"

"Adrian, the afternoon waitress at Paul's Cafe who lives down in Gaylord, got into her Jeep one morning last week," Ivan said. "She had left a part of a box of chocolates in the Jeep and she noticed chocolate wrappers on the seat and floor. She wondered what had taken place. Then she got in the Jeep and she looked and there was an animal sleeping on a sweatshirt in the back seat. She thought it was a cat so she said, in her most authoritative voice, 'Scat, cat.' It wasn't a cat, it was a raccoon. Adrian bailed out and gave the raccoon time enough to get out. And, so far, everybody lived happily ever after."

"Saw Betty McDonald, Thelma Mace, and Mae McDonald at the Jiffy Burger last Wednesday evening," Ivan said. "The girls all looked nice. They were wearing make-up and had on clean clothes. Mae had her walker with her. She had a hip replacement not too long ago. When Me N Momma left the Jiffy Burger, they were all on their best behavior."

"That Antique Plow Day that was scheduled back there in April or May that you and I both thought had been cancelled wasn't," Ivan noted. "It was merely postponed. It is going to be held on July 14th with a rain date of July 21st. Now here is the information that was handed me by Judy Judy Judy Hall. It says: 'If you have a tractor but no plow, call and we will find one. If you have a plow and no tractor, call and we will get you hitched. If you have neither, we will get you a rig to ride. If you don't want to plow, come on over and visit and watch. If your wife says no, we provide excuses but no attorneys.'"

"If you see Momma sportin' a black eye," Ivan said, "it wasn't me. Momma and Miss Kitty were taking a nap last Wednesday afternoon. Miss Kitty heard the car drive up and she jumped over Momma to get to the front door. Her first leap landed right on Momma's eye. No harm done. Just a brilliant shiner."

"Them farmers at the front table at Paul's Cafe don't know nothin'," Ivan said. "My wife was working a crossword puzzle and she needed a six letter word that was a car that was named after an antelope. They didn't have a clue."

"Lyle Morgan's brother-in-law gave me a pink cap just before he headed back to Kansas City," Ivan said. "Can't you just see me wearing a pink cap amongst the lantern-jawed, rough-hewed group that I hang around with?"

Comments

[the sylph]

that would be "impala" eh?

[Tom Montag]

That would be my guess, too.