The Sunday News

 

The Palmville Globe

Volume 1 Issue 4

Man Humps Luggage to Second Floor

During a short trip away from home recently, Joe McDonnell, 77 and a resident of Palmville TWP, MN, had to carry his and his companion's luggage to the second floor of their lodging. McDonnell told The Globe, "The first thing I noticed in the lobby after locating the coffee pot was a sign stating the elevator was out of service. The elevator had been getting an upgrade for the past month and would be fixed sometime the next day. There was an apology for any inconvenience. I requested a room no higher than the second floor. I usually grab one of those carts to haul all our stuff up in the elevator, so it was good this was a one night trip and we were traveling light. Now I understood why the rate was so affordable. I noticed the second floor hall carpeting looked like it hadn't been vacuumed in a month in contrast to the first floor which was as clean as we've come to expect from this chain. They probably store their industrial size hall cleaner on the first floor. Next morning while turning in my key I asked the manager if he was happy to be getting his elevator back. "Fingers crossed," he said. The upgrade got delayed when our repairman hurt his arm. And I guarantee you our pool will be open for your next visit."

Man Hits Pavement at Food Shelf

 During a recent February warm spell, Joe McDonnell, 77, and  a fit retiree, was able to clear much of the ice off the pavement at the Food Shelf in town. McDonnell tells reporters, "I hear people saying all the time 'I'd hate to live in Iowa, or Missouri where they get all that ice.' That's true, but our southern neighbors have lots of thaws to melt the ice. If we get ice here it can stay for weeks and months. This year we got a heavy rain in late fall, which froze hard. The December food truck semi driver could not get his fork lift with the first of several pallets of foodstuffs up the long, sloping pavement to the Food Shelf entry. The little wheels on the fork lift broke through the ice and the fork lift just went ffffft. It would have been a nightmare for the elderly volunteers to have to carry the crates of food up the slippery pavement to the entry. The driver seeing our dismay made the unprecedented move of backing the long semi trailer up the pavement. I could sense he never wanted to do that again. Before next month’s delivery I threw lots of salt on the ice and a young volunteer chipped off much of the ice during a short January thaw. In February the driver had trouble by the gutter end of the pavement where a puddle had formed and frozen. All the volunteers pushed and got the forklift out of the gutter and we were ok. Recently during the current February thaw I took a chipper shovel and removed even more ice. All these thaws make me wonder if we're turning into Iowa North. I'm glad spring is almost here. Our next big job is to have all our clients fill out these new government forms documenting how many times they've gone to bed hungry in the past month to justify getting help from Uncle Sam. 

Squib Cellar

My friend says she never eats anything with eyes that accuse

I got her a can of worms and a bottle of booze

I could never work with the sickly

I would give all the morphine too quickly 

They look in all mirrors-

Our egos- fine folk

And what is the ego?

The ego's the smoke 

Talk about a long, unwinnable war- scientists say the dust that settles on our furniture is leftover dust from the Big Bang 13 billion years ago. 

Passive aggression is bad when it’s nasty

Resistance with humor is much better vastly 

Our talk is always full of friends who are sick

Especially now, of the body politic 

Our relations with others is like driving a car. When driving, we're aware of the road and the other cars, but know it would be foolish to think we can control those other cars, as we’re tempted to do in our relationships with other people.