SOUTH END PEST REMOVAL

Add comment July 22nd, 2006

PEST REMOVAL

JOSEPHINE CONCERT INTRO

Add comment July 22nd, 2006

Good afternoon Josephiners. And you Josephshiners too. We’re the South End String Band, sort of a back porch rockin chair forget-the-marchin old time philharmonic band. We don’t usually leave the comfort of the South End but when we heard you were havin a down home old time BBQ, the Band decided it might just be time to make the long haul into Stanwoodopolis and see for ourselves the improvements the city fathers and mothers have made since our last trip in. Plus get some much needed protein.

Wow! When did you get the new stop lights? And where’d Bryants’ Hardware disappear to? Thrifty foods is gone and so’s the Viking grocery. I see you built a whole new Stanwood up the hill. Now you got east Stanwood, west Stanwood and uptown Stanwood, when you gonna change Twin City Food to Tri-City Food?

Still, we recognized a few landmarks. I see mayor Pearson’s still keeping up the house but the fire station’s are lookin pretty run down. I had a hard time getting the Band out of the Stanwood Hotel, but they report things haven’t changed much inside. Except for the price of the beer. And they’d certainly know.

Towns change pretty fast, I guess. So it’s important all us old timers keep the history alive. Maybe write a book and sell it down at the new CostCo and WalMart. Anyway, we’re gonna play you a few histories of the South End. Where time doesn’t just stand still, it sits right down and takes a nap.

401-NO-K

Add comment July 22nd, 2006

Now the truth is some of the Old Timers in the Band are here tonight to check out retirement home options. And some are just waitin to see if the Stanwood Hotel will fix up the upper RENTAL rooms in time for THEIR golden years.

I know we ought to be loyal to the South End’s premier assisted livin retirement home –Tyee Villa, sort of a Peril Gardens – but their idea of group entertainment is an old Black and White TV that’s fuzzy cause they won’t pay for more than a rabbit ear antenna. And the meals …. I mean, I like oatmeal, but for dinner??

Used to be retirement wasn’t much of an option on the South End. I mean, if you never had a job in the first place, how do you retire from it? And the Band here, we been waitin for our CD sales to kick in so we can set up our 401-K accounts, but obviously, that’s been on hold now since the Eisenhower era. So we’re gonna just keep playin to survive. Don’t you all worry about us geezers. If all else fails, Chaim here runs the Stanwood House Art Gallery and Jewish Cultural Center. He’s generously offered to turn it into a nursing home for the Band if we need it. Altho I have to tell you, I’m already too old for a cot. And oatmeal’s gonna look real good compared to Mozza Balls for lunch.

SCANDIHOOVIEN BOSNIA

Add comment July 22nd, 2006

Most of us Old Timers can remember when Stanwood and Gomorrah was a sleepy little town. You got off the freeway, there were no gas stations, no fast food, no nothing, just a 7 mile jaunt thru the woods til you got to the Farmette, a little burger joint they replaced with strip malls and Haggen and condos and health clubs and real estate offices and banks and dollar stores and all the fast food joints in the world, sort of dropped a Lynnwood smack on top of the Farmette, practically overnight.

Funny little town, Stanwood. Two towns really, east and west. Couldn’t get along so they had their own mayors and schools and fire departments and police. Sorta like a Scanihoovien Bosnia down here ….. thankfully WITHOUT the genocide.

Stanwood was a river town. Most of the newcomers don’t know that. Twin City Foods burned down awhile back and folks could SEE the river for the first time. But they got the concrete walls back up PDQ before folks started wantin a riverfront park instead of fast food franchises and more gas stations.

Too bad really. A lot of history’s hidden behind Twin City Foods view blockin walls. History’s like us old geezers here tonight. We got plenty to say after livin all these years, plenty of experience some might call wisdom. Kind of a shame, dontchathink, to hide it behind a wall?

BOTTLED AIR

Add comment July 22nd, 2006

Used to be we got our water out of a faucet. Turn a tap, stick a glass under it, fill her right up. You ever lived in the Good Old Days, you might remember pumpin your water. A little elbow grease, up she came out of the well, cold as glacier water. They make a special line in the refrigerator these days to chill it.

Course ALL of this is obsolete now. We like our H20 in polyvinyl containers in today’s future. Costs more’n gasoline even after the price hikes. Not that we’re recommendin drinking gasoline – we need that to make the plastic jugs for the water.

We’re definitely a consumer culture when boutique water can be marketed to the well scrubbed masses. Remember Perrier? I bet most of us chuckled back then if not laughed out loud. Who’s laughin now??? They’ll be bottlin air next. Go ahead and laugh. They’ll be marketing expensive boutique atmospheres. You entrepreneurs, get a jump on this. Alpine Air. Oxygen du Jour.
Salty Breeze. Trade Winds. Fragrance de Flatulence.

The Band’s already got their formula for maximum profits. South End Enviro Elixir. Two parts oxygen, a piquant hint of chimney smoke, and a big dose of laughing gas. I know we’re gonna be chuckling all the way to the bank.