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TRANSCRIPT - Now that the Olympics are in full swing and no one in the United States is watching because, well, we’re not doing well, Spring can only be around the corner. It’s that time of year when we finally start to undo the holiday decorations, file that tinsel away in a manilla folder and dismantle the perpetual fountain of clam chowder that’s been running like clockwork on our fireplace mantle for the last four months. Maybe next year we’ll stock it with manhattan style for a change, although everyone sure likes to dip their cups into the creamy goodness of the new england style, so much so that it often coagulates into an almost chewy fruit leather like snack - mounding up right there next to the lego nativity scene.
Putting away holiday trinkets always makes me a little sad and it never fails to make me ponder about things like…
Dirigibles. No, I’m not talking about blimps - those rubbery gasbags that seem to hover over most major sporting events and flash encouraging messages like WAY TO GO and KEEP ON TRUCKIN! like a gigantic ominous light bright hovering menacingly above the rest rooms. one can only surmise what an ancient civilization would make of this modern day spectacle. We may never know, the use of blimps over tropical forests which often support these forgotten neolithic folks is, at best, infrequent and the international lighter than aircraft safety standards are catastrophically high. So, that’s one for the books.
No, I’m talking about airships like the graf zeppelin. Good old Cruise ships of the skies. They were so popular a hundred years ago, Popular Mechanics Magazine had free plans to build mini versions of these behemoths, and soon every American man, woman and child were floating to sky church every Sunday and attending celestial drive in theaters around the clock. But thanks to Grover Cleveland and his anti-floating initiatives, these personal pan pizzas of transportation were sent to the garbage disposals of history. But those big old giant airships continued to chug above our land, steam whistles a blowing and chunks of coal falling as if from Santa’s sleigh. On board, a smoking jacket was always encouraged for the men, even if smoking was not. Not to be left out, the ladies always wore parachute pants under their hoop skirts. WHAT HAPPENED!?!?
Sure, you can blame The Hiddenburg, but that was a long time ago and I am kind of over it. One thing about a dirigible. No one is going to hijack one and crash it into a building. They move so slow, the building would have time to get out of the way and even if it did hit the building, it would do so in an almost apologetic fashion. “Sorry about that!” “Was that me?” Well, whoever spelt it dealt it.
My grandma used to tell me “If you want to soar with the sky ships you better stop your pitter and patter and dance with the devil in the pale moonlight.” She was always like that. She got more done in a day toting a gallon of corn whisky around in a whimsical hello-kitty bota bag then most time travelers get done sober in a thousand years. So, it only makes sense.
This is Jen Ryedour reminding you that some of the best Olympic Gold you can bring home this spring is lighter than air and twice as heavy. Don’t forget to add another layer to your seven layer dip and call it good enough for the time being.
The Jen Ryedour Tower of Sourdough Flour lands on your front porch whenever and wherever machine elves miss a stitch in their careful knitting of the space time continuum.