RUBBERY SHRUBBERY Post 45
This is the Rubbery Shrubbery blog, where you’ll learn how Yachats (YAH-hots), Oregon, acquires a Major League Baseball franchise. To learn more about Yachats and its inhabitants—called Yachatians (yah-HAY-shuns)— please go to this page or go to GoYachats.
Harrison Grutch returns with his rustic curmudgeon charm to write today’s post. He will interview the Crossbowe brothers, Orville and Wilbur, about their new baseball-related businesses. But first, Harrison has a disturbing rumor from drought-ridden Migraine Springs, Texas (see Fig. 1). If you don’t recall this town, go immediately to Post #34, “The Wetstone Pipeline.”
The Yachats Baseball Industry
by Harrison Grutch
This morning I received a discouraging phone call from “Pecos Billy” Bob, my old buddy in dust-smothered Migraine Springs. He says the Keystone XL Oil Pipeline which is supposed to carry Lake Winnipeg and Lake Superior down to the middle of Texas maybe won’t.
Figure 1. Texas dust. Very big dust.*
The problem is Duluth. It seems Duluthians have gotten attached to their Lake Superior (see Fig. 2). Here’s how our phone conversation went.
Figure 2. Lake Superior. Duluth is the reddish area above the tip of what looks like the needle nose of a big, bad wolf looking to our left.**
Grutch: Do the Duluthians have a good reason for not relinquishing that water? After all, Texas really needs it.
Bob: They say Duluth would have the world’s largest mudflat in its front yard. They say, “Why can’t Texas take one of the other lakes? Like, Lake Erie. It’s just a small pond with green scum—no one would miss it.”
Grutch: Could you use another lake? Well, you wouldn’t want Erie with all that green scum, but how about Michigan or Huron?
Bob: Hey, Michigan would be perfect! We’ve found that a ley line connects the center of the lake with the center of Texas. Think how the flow of Earth energies between those two power centers would force the water right down the globe to Migraine Springs.
Grutch: That sounds good, but doesn’t a ley line also connect Texas with Lake Superior? And Lake Huron? And Lake Ontario? And Lake Wobegon and Lake…
Bob: Turns out, we can’t do Michigan, anyway. Chicago’s even snippier than Duluth. All the big lakes have snippy cities.
Grutch: Have you thought of other solutions?
Bob: Well, we were considering yanking that ice sheet off Greenland and tugging it down to the Texas coast. There it could be chopped up and the chunks hauled up to the middle of the state.
Grutch: You’ve given up on that idea?
Bob: Well, sure! Chopping up the ice would be a lot of hard work.
Grutch: Yep, I can see that. Any other ideas?
Bob: We had one more, but it was a little farfetched. We read that dowsing (see Fig. 3) is a good way to find water. Apparently, something sympathetic emanates from the water and causes a willow twig to bend toward it. So we hired a licensed dowser, the best in metropolitan Migraine Springs. He walked around holding that stick and suddenly yelled “Eureka!”
Figure 3. Famous dowser.***
Grutch: That’s great!
Bob: Nah. I went over and looked at that twig and I says, “Hey, that’s pointing at your feet!” You see, about 60 or 70% of the human body is water, and that includes his feet. It was a bust.
At that point Pecos Billy began sobbing uncontrollably. With no water, it looks unlikely that Migraine Springs will host a farm team of the Yachats Smelt. It’s enough to make anyone cry.
To cheer myself up, I moseyed out to the Gerdemann Botanic Preserve (see Fig. 4) for a chat with Orville and Wilbur Crossbowe, the younger twin brothers of Big Forbes Crossbowe. I found them sitting under a Chilean Flame Tree (see Fig. 5).
Figure 4. Gerdemann Botanic Preserve, Yachats.****
Grutch: I’ve heard both of you are starting baseball related businesses. Tell me about them.
Figure 5. Chilean Flame Tree (Embothrium coccineum).
Wilbur: Sure. We have the perfect setup. You see, Orville here is extremely judgmental, in fact we both are. Well, what better profession for someone as opinionated, yet meticulous as Orville than umpiring? So Orville is opening an umpiring school—The Thumbs Up Ump Institute.
Orville: That’s right. We’ll teach aspiring umpires everything they need to know, from rubbing baseballs to avoiding seven years bad luck by stepping over foul lines.
Grutch: Sounds like a brave new generation of umps is on the horizon. And what is your new business, Wilbur?
Wilbur: Well, being opinionated to the point of being obnoxious, and being an unmitigated loudmouth, I’m planning an umpire baiting school. And I’ll put it right next to Orville’s school. My students will have plenty of opportunities to practice and so will Orville’s.
Grutch: And what will you call your school?
Wilbur: The Heckle and Snide Academy.
* NOAA George E. Marsh Album.
** NASA Landsat photograph.
*** Dowser Otto Edler von Graeve in 1913. From George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress).
**** Photo by Kathleen Sand.
Next time: We’ll give you some little-known baseball history. And it has nothing to do with the Smelt.
NOTE: As you’ve seen from our examples of ley lines and dowsing, use of scientific-sounding language is no assurance of a concept’s validity. Stepping over foul lines, however, is another matter.
NOTE AGAIN: Dave Baldwin and Eric Sallee are very grateful the Rubbery Shrubbery blog has been named one of the world’s best-read.