The very last thing I will ever write about gnats!
I vow to never write another word about gnats, because everyone else on this noospaper and every other sheet is yelling about the pests. My sign-off on the subject is Absorbine Jr., claimed as the best potion to shoo them away.
My question is whatever happened to Absorbine Sr.
It’s not the miles, it’s the memories
A blip in this space about promises of a mini-grocery store in a nifty downtown Davenport location puts windmills of the mind going backward.
“I remember lots of downtown grocery stores,” says Harvey Prinz. “There were eight grocery stores and meat markets within a four-block radius of 3rd and Brady in the 1940s … my parents’ store, Fruit Land and Florida Fruit; Feeney’s, National Tea, Geifman’s, White Market, Shinner’s Meats and Crescent Meat Market.
“I began my apprenticeship by standing on a box and weighing half-pound cello bags of dried peas. My brother and I were reared wearing big white grocery aprons. I burned a lot of shoe leather delivering groceries on foot to downtown apartments, including the Mississippi Hotel. I wouldn’t trade my early years in Davenport’s thriving downtown for anything. After all, what young fellow wouldn’t enjoy having an occasional cookie from the bulk cookie display of those years?”
MORE OF THOSE WINDMILLS in reverse: I remember walking through swanky Union Arcade in downtown D’port when there were busy emporiums on both sides, even Cooper’s Drug Store. On the second floor, ritzy women clicked their heels on the marble floor to Isabel Ramey Fashions ... Bobby Myer, the Davenport traffic cop at 3rd and Brady, wore a carnation that was as rosy as his cheeks … Betty the Twister was arrested in Rock Island for indecent walking; her derriere swaying from sidewalk to street, but the charges were dropped when her cackling mom represented her in court … when the Rod & Gun Club was a convivial conclave for the swells in the Blackhawk Hotel. Ah, yesterdays.
A squirrel kindergarten — only in Iowa
In the middle of these worried times, there are still small events like this to ease the pain:
“Out there on our hanging bird feeder was a baby black squirrel, hanging on for dear life to get the seeds. Playing around on the ground under the feeder were three baby gray squirrels, romping around like baby puppies,” reports happy Shirley Van Keuren, who lives on Linden Lane, Bettendorf. “Waiting about 100 feet away were two baby red squirrels, trying to get up enough courage to join. It was like a squirrel kindergarten. Suddenly, two tiny baby chipmunks showed up on the ground. We watched and laughed for an hour … only in Iowa. We moved to Iowa from out-of-state and are never bored.”
First joke of the weak
Two little nippers are in the hospital on gurneys, waiting to go into surgery.
The first kid leans over and asks, “What are you in here for?”
The second kid says, I’m here to get my tonsils out and I’m a little nervous.
The first kid says, “You’ve got nothing to worry about. I had that done when I was 4. They put you to sleep and when you wake up, you get lots of Jell-0 and ice cream. It’s a breeze. I went home the same day.”
The second kid then asks, “What are you here for?”
The first kid says, “A circumcision.”
And the second kid says, “Whoa, good luck, buddy. I had that done right after I was born. Couldn’t walk for a year.”
Bill Wundram can be contacted at (563) 383-2249 or bwundram@qctimes.com.