The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

So you wannabee an American Idol?     You’ve practiced in the shower, you’ve performed countless hours at the Stanwoodopolis Karaoke bars, you’ve taken it about as far as you can on your own.  Now it’s time to take it to the Next Level!      The Elger Bay Academy of Pickin and Grinnin, the Julliard of the metropolitan South End, now offers advanced Idol training, especially focusing on proven techniques to maximize your chances at becoming an X-Factor finalist or an American Idol winner.  Our instructors, graduates from the finest D.J. discos in the U.S. and Canada, will provide you with that ‘insider’ knowledge you need to compete at the national level.     You’ll learn  HAIR STYLING TECHNIQUES guaranteed to turn judge’s heads.                             DANCE ROUTINES so easy yet effective that judges scarcely notice  wrong notes.                           FASHION TIPS of former graduates and even regional finalists!  Dress for success!      Our professional staff will train you in voice stylings from rap to bebop, Sinatra to Madonna.  Croon like Crosby one song, then gangsta rap to Eminem.  Wow your friends with versatility instead of virtuosity!

Before your 2nd quarter tuition payment is due you’ll be headlining at the open mikes of Smokey Point and Mt. Vernon.  By graduation you’ll be forming your own act and performing in nightclubs and lounges where Everett talent agents water down.

Don’t spend your most productive years in the Karaoke caverns.  Let the Elger Bay Academy of Pickin and Grinnin hone your talents to a fine edge and put you on the freeway to musical success.        Enroll Now!   Call I-WANNABEE –A -STAR   today and get ready for a dazzling career in the spotlights.   Ask about our E-Z Payment Plans.   Highly endorsed by the South End String Band, 1998 graduates!!

[podcast]https://www.skeeterdaddle.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/audio-5-and-10.mp3[/podcast]audio –5 and 10

The mizzus asked me the other day When Was It the 5 and dime stores became Dollar Stores?  Now, I don’t know about you old codgers, but I barely remember Yesterday, much less the answer to some trick history question.     Ma, I said, my memory is a highway of cerebral roadkill.  No point turning the truck around – what’s back there is dead as a doornail – so I’m just gonna keep driving until I figure out where exactly I’m headed….

But it got me wondering:   when DID all these dollar stores take over the world?  I remember the Ben Franklins and Kresges —   all that cheap junk made in Japan.  They got eaten up by the K-Marts and Targets – all that cheap junk made in Taiwan.  Which got eaten up by Wal-Mart – all that cheap junk make in China.

We don’t have Dollar Stores down at the South End.  We got the Mom and Pop One Stop Shops where the only thing close to being under a buck is a potato or a newspaper or all their free gossip.    Could be they’re the Vanguard of the next big paradigm shift in Retail Marketing:  the 5 and 10 Dollar Store.  Once again Tyee Store is leading the charge.  Better be, cause you sure won’t have enough cash.

[podcast]https://www.skeeterdaddle.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/audio-johnny-appleseed-in-the-garden-of-eden.mp3[/podcast]audio — johnny appleseed in the garden of eden

A lot of folks who don’t live down here ask me:   Skeeter, it’s hard to believe there’s really a place like the South End, kind of some Never Never Land, turn left at the first star by Terry’s Corner and keep on going until morning.  I admit, it does sound damn inviting.  A place where the law of physics and the law of Island County don’t hold much jurisdiction.  A place where jobs are not only scarce but that very fact is celebrated.   A place where maybe too many of us avoided adulthood but we don’t need daycare.

Oh, I suppose I could polish up the vision of the South End as a magical world,  shine it til it glowed like Aladdin’s Lamp that offered 3 wishes but you wouldn’t need more than 1 or 2.  But there is a dark side to paradise, one you might not notice in the brochures.  If I’m going to be the travel agency for Shagri-La-La, it’s only fair I give some warning.  If only to deflect future lawsuits….

Sure, we’re the Banana Belt of the island archipelago.  Judging by the uniqueness of the inhabitants, we’re really a Galapagos, cut off from the mainland and the mainstream.  You visit long enough and it won’t be long before you notice the distinctly odd genetic diversities.  I’m talking, of course, about our artist herds.     Turn over a rock or go down a laurel shrouded drive, you’ll find 200 subspecies of watercolorist, 50 oil painters, 25 sculptors and too many glass benders, fusers, blowers and breakers to shake a punt stick at.  They’re breeding in the nettle hollows, trading art among themselves, putting on studio shows, turning body shops and beauty parlors into ersatz galleries, filling up libraries and schools and fire stations with unsalable artwork, building art parks and sculpture gardens.  It’s as if the Garden of Eden had become an apple orchard, 500 varieties and new grafts every year.  There’s seemingly No End to it.  The inner child has been unleashed, unsupervised and is now unmanageable.

Some folks find an iguana-infested island interesting, I guess.  If you’re one of these, by all means, come and visit.  If the South End inspires you toward aesthetic ecstasy, fine —all we ask is that when you depart, take your inner child home with you.  We don’t need cross pollination from the outside world.  We’re having enough trouble with our native species as it is.  The day may be coming when a quarantine is required.  Not only to prevent contamination from the outside, but to prevent the contagion from spreading…..

[podcast]https://www.skeeterdaddle.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/audio-gimme-that-old-time-religion.mp3[/podcast]audio — gimme that old time religion

The Little Church of the Ravine actually sits on a knoll above an old logging skid road ruled now by blackberries so thick an old Studebaker can be hidden most seasons, only occasionally glimpsed in winter.  The car looks like it was caught in a thorny web and try as it might, no earthly horsepower is going to set it free.  The reader sign out by the church entrance has revolving words of evangelical wisdom Shaky Jake changes when the words come down from on high, meaning when the Reverend asks him.

7DAYS WITHOUT PRAYER MAKES ONE WEAK.

HAVING TROUBLE SLEEPING — SERMONS R US

HONK IF YOU LOVE JESUS — TEXT WHILE DRIVING IF YOU WANT TO MEET HIM

Under the pithy weekly message it says:  REV. RALPH MEAKER and under that:

A NON-DENOMINATIONAL CHURCH

SUNDAY SERVICES 9 A.M.

We South Enders assume by non-denominational they have no money.  What they do have are plenty of sinners in search of salvation.  Well, in need of salvation.  Every Sunday they ring the bell that was stolen (or ‘rescued’ , depending on the teller) from the Mabana one room Schoolhouse which now houses the administrative offices of the Elger Bay School of Aesthetic Enlightenment.  The school has asked for the bell back, but essentially were told it tolls for thee.

The Little Church of the Ravine draws a fairly sizeable congregation, especially considering the Chapel up north’s gravitational pull, with its basketball courts and gyms, youth programs, daycare and state of the art sound systems, could easily drain the flock.  But the Little Church, despite its plain jane exterior, its lack of stained glass filled traceries, its metal folding chairs instead of pews, has saved souls since the early 60’s and stills sends missionary support to far flung infidel-filled places like Indonesia and Africa and Smokey Point.

Back in the 70’s they lost half their congregation over a fight to make a park down at the public Port of Mabana, once a pier hundreds of feet out into Saratoga Strait about 1920, now some amputated pilings exposed at minus tides.  The locals wanted to condemn some unused property to make parking possible and this pitted old family against old neighbors  until the acrimony got so bad not even Jesus Himself could make the peace and the Little Church split into two factions and finally only one stayed.  The private property wasn’t condemned.  Houses were hurriedly built.  Port Commissioners were sued and forced to resign.   The park never got anywhere and folks who’d been friends for generations stopped saying hello.      You can park now by the beach at the port, walk your dog or launch a small boat.  And you can attend services up the bluff at the church every Sunday.  9 AM.  The bell tolls.  The old Studebaker tries to drive on through, but like most things down here gone to rot and rust and ruin, salvation is hard to do.

[podcast]https://www.skeeterdaddle.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/down-at-the-marina1.mp3[/podcast]down at the marina