Compound Whippersnappers

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Compound whippersnappers

I must have still had some spelunking left in these aged bones; because when Lana showed up unexpectedly to visit for Hailey’s 4^th of July celebration, I escorted her to the Mint, and from an underground room there felt compelled to reveal to her the secret subterranean chamber that webs beneath Hailey’s Main Street. As we spryly passed by the remnants of an old Chinese opium den, I joked that this would make a fitting place to set up a closed meeting to relax the fossils who are paranoid about shifting the airport to a safer position.

While showing Lana the underground door that exits into the Hailey Museum, suddenly some penny-candy dropped from one of the overhead vault openings and we realized that the popular parade had begun. We hustled back to Bruce’s basement, where an undercover Allen & Co. agent assisted us out of the black hole and over to a prime vantage point above the Mint’s balcony. Although we were surrounded by old friends; Lana appeared nervous and every time a firecrackhttp://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,940747,00.htmler popped, she jumped an inch closer. Soon we were holding hands and some of those strong sentimental feelings I had toward her started racing back.

At the high point of the procession, an unscripted fight broke out between two members of the shoot-out gang. Since they had already performed earlier, this made it difficult momentarily to distinguish what was real and what was fiction; until a noble mechanic single-handedly dispersed the actual fisticuffs, moments before local authorities arrived at the surreal scene.

After the heat of this explosiveness, that evening, Lana and I strolled out Quigley to witness the fireworks. Although it lasted barely twenty minutes, it was a fine presentation, and there were a few sizzlers I hadn’t seen since Love American Style. Equally notable was the small number of walkers who had hiked this short distance, as even through the weather was fine; most of the rocket watchers had driven over in a second slow parade.

The next day Lana flew out of town like a blissful comet. Meanwhile, I had been thinking quite a lot about Amy and the inspiring way she interacts with people and pets. For some reason though, we’d been having a difficult time reconnecting. During a long squawk around the library, my cockatiel’s Sheila and Joe had become entangled in the landline, yanking the wire from the wall. Since the walls are 18-inch thick cement, it requires a special drill before I can fix the phone. In addition, the solid cave-like properties of the house creates weak cell reception; so the only time I can reach Amy is when I’m out walking Bud. For the last two weeks, we’ve been mostly misconnecting. Maybe I should suggest that we meet together in person sometime again soon, perhaps for a nice slice at McClain’s.

About the author: After waking from last winter’s long hibernation, Jim Banholzer realized that he had incurred a mild case of Dunlap’s disease; whereby his belly had ‘done lapped’ clean over his belt. For treatment, he skipped pizza for forty long days; and now, since the belt has returned to its old healthy notch, he’s strongly dreaming about a scrumptious pepperoni / pesto pie.