How to tell if you’re becoming a gnome

Ever have one of those days? You may have some serious reasons for concern if it includes the following symptoms.

  1. Feel like you’re shrinking in size? Down to two spans high?
  2. Suffer deep embarrassment or shame?
  3. Have a desire to retreat underground?
  4. Get hot-tempered? Irritable?
  5. Find gold-diggers offensive?
  6. Sense a reluctance to interact with humans?
  7. Sympathize with prudish women?
  8. Have flashes of innovation or cunning?
  9. Wild hair?
  10. Ugly?

And here I had thought these were simply symptoms of aging.

Not to be confused, geographically speaking

Living in Down East (aka Downeast) Maine is confusing enough, considering that it’s mostly north. How about some other place locations?

  1. Upper Cape versus Lower Cape Cod as well as the Inner Cape and Outer Cape, meaning Cape Cod, Massachusetts, not what you’d usually think
  2. Deer Isle (Penobscot Bay, Maine) versus Deer Island (Passamaquoddy Bay, New Brunswick)
  3. Swan’s Island, off the coast, versus Swan Island in the Kennebec River
  4. Saint John (New Brunswick) versus Saint Johns (Newfoundland)
  5. Round Pond versus Round Lake, both in Washington County, Maine
  6. Salem, New Hampshire, 28 miles from Salem, Massachusetts
  7. Portland (Maine) versus the newer one out west
  8. Washington, the state, versus the District of Columbia
  9. Columbia, as in the river, and Colombia, the nation
  10. Missouree, as it’s pronounced in Saint Louis, and Missourah, in the rest of the state

Woodville is its own contentious issue, at least in the renamed Baileyville in Washington County, south of the one in Aroostook. Blame the U.S. Postal Service for trying to end the confusion.

Takin’ a country train

Thorndike, traffic jammed before the train station.
I park on grass down the line
hope the engine sans heat plate doesn’t ignite a fire

one train pulls out just before I can buy my ticket
but sunny, definitely – a 25-minute delay

Old Swedish dining car
meaning prime cutting-edge 1950s

cardinal tattoos on somebody

what faint blue mountains were in the distance
before the 220 turnoff?

return trip train car sinks on one side
before leaving the festival stop

worrisome, slows the run back to terminal
its sharp curves especially front car’s detached before final run
to fairgrounds and back

Ten big prize winners I’ve known or at least met

  1. Elinor Ostrom, Nobel Prize, economics
  2. Clarence Page, Pulitzer Prize, commentary
  3. Dick Locher, Pulitzer Prize, editorial cartoonist
  4. Gary Snyder, Pulitzer Prize, poetry
  5. Jeff MacNally, Pulitzer Prize, editorial cartoonist
  6. Jesse Haines, Baseball Hall of Fame, pitcher
  7. Jesse Owens, Olympic gold medalist, runner
  8. Marcy Nighswander, Pulitzer Prize, photography
  9. Ritter Collett, Baseball Hall of Fame, sportswriter
  10. Steve Curwood, Pulitzer Prize, investigative reporting