The Rock Wall

Social distancing was not an issue when Kimball and I ate our Picnic meals on the Rock Wall the first two days. We were the only ones.

On Saturday, my law breaking ways caught up with me.  Sheriff McCarty sat down by us as we ordered our hamburgers from the new Lions Club wagon. At first I told Kimball I wanted a double cheeseburger, as I have ordered in past years. Lion Rosie came out to tell me there had been a change in the menu: Their small hamburger is made with a half pound of beef. The large one is made with one pound. I changed my order to a small cheeseburger.

The sheriff liked the looks of what we got and went and ordered one of his own. After pinning campaign buttons on both of us, he went and sat with some other hoodlums farther down the Rock Wall.  I asked  if he thinks he can beat an empty seat. He said he needs one vote. I told him truthfully I have not heard one complaint.

– We also passed our business around. One day we ate footlong hotdogs from the Optimists. Another we got pulled pork nachos from the FFA. Then we got late day fish sandwiches from the Flounder booth after we cooled off at Rusty Norval’s on the way down. We sat at the Lion’s pool. A hot puppy dog came and jumped in and back out. Looked tempting.

As we headed toward the FFA booth one day we were victims of police harassment. I reported it at the FFA booth but the chief’s wife, daughter and son working the booth didn’t seem too surprised or sympathetic.

– One precursor of the crowd size was the missing lawn chairs in the northeast corner of the Park. Normally, they are wall-to-wall days ahead of the start of the Picnic. Not this time.

I don’ know if Erica took Reese to the Picnic. I don’t blame her if she didn’t. It was too hot for a one year old and why risk a dose of Covid 19?

We didn’t see hardly any masks at the Picnic. Some servers had to wear them. We didn’t. I guess we’ll find out in a few days what we did or didn’t miss.

– When I picked up an obituary at Bland-Hackleman Monday afternoon, Donna Hicks told me Randy Bland is bad and getting worse. I put on the What’s Happening section of our web page that the family asked everyone to pray for him at 8 p.m. Monday night. Donna said the doctors planned to remove his leg Tuesday because it had no blood circulation after more strokes and more blood clots. If you missed the 8 p.m. vigil, I’m sure they’d welcome late prayers.

He’s such a nice man and a pleasure to work with.

– I noticed that the carnival company had more rides in trucks parked on the street that they didn’t even unload.  Looks like they came prepared for what ever.

– Kimball took all the photos for us which I really appreciate. After I braved the heat all these years, she really paid me back. KL