Popcorn by The Colonel #2

Gallimaufry Means About the Same as Salmagundi

            1         There’s a convention by which many people punch up their Chinese cookie fortunes by adding the words “in bed” at the end. To bow to the aim of The Middletown Eye to focus on the things of Middletown, “Popcorn” will add references to Middletown whenever possible. Go, Forest City!

            2         On a t-shirt seen in Middletown: “I love the sound you make when you shut up.” On Yoda’s t-shirt: “With Stupid I Am.”

            3         Though Winston Churchill earned his living as a writer, he wasn’t a fussbudget. Concerning the “rule” against ending a sentence with a preposition, he wrote, “This is the sort of pedantry up with which I will not put.” He never visited Middletown, not even to see his biographer, William Manchester.

            4         The Latin word for “wave” is “undum” (plural “unda”), from which we get “inundate” and “undulate.” Once (1984?) the Coginchaug River inundated Washington Street so you could canoe to Victor’s Auto Body from the world-class Connecticut River.

            5         Speaking of canoes: The Colonel ate at the Canoe Club at Harbor Park in Middletown and liked the food and the live Irish music.

            6         The Colonel reseeded his lawn with “tall fescue” last fall and is enjoying the results this summer. The fescue grass grows slowly and looks like long hair or sea waves. It seems to crowd out or otherwise inhibit dandelions and other weeds. The rare (4x/yr) mowings require the mower’s highest (3”) setting, because to cut it short would defeat the purpose of shading out weeds.

            7         The Wadsworth Mansion in Middletown was The Cenacle longer than it was the Wadsworth family home. If that sounds like picking a fight, it’s not. The Colonel loves the Mansion and the walking trails in the woods around it.

            8         Although titanium is commoner in the earth’s crust than chromium, lead, manganese, mercury, nickel, tin, and zinc combined, titanium cookware costs the earth. Titanium cookware is so nonstick, however, that you can burn your oatmeal with impunity.

            9      “‘Let us flee!’ said the fly. ‘Let us fly!’ said the flea. And together they flew through the flue.” This doggerel illustrates three ways of representing the “oo” sound in English: flew, through, flue. Only two ways appear in the slogan, “Ya-hoo, Mountain Dew!” Another word for "spelling" is "orthography."