34 – The Wetstone Pipeline

RUBBERY SHRUBBERY Post 34

This is the Rubbery Shrubbery (RS) blog, telling you about Yachats (YAH-hots), Oregon, and its inhabitants—called Yachatians (yah-HAY-shuns)—as they acquire a Major League Baseball franchise. To learn more about Yachats, please go to this page or go to GoYachats.

In this post veteran sportswriter Harrison Grutch describes a non-Yachatian community impacted by the Smelt. As you might recall, Harrison spent his vacation in Migraine Springs, Texas, looking into its dream of being the Yachats Smelt spring training site.

The Wetstone Pipeline
by Harrison Grutch

Beginning my vacation I was hoping to get a direct flight from Yachats to Migraine Springs. Unfortunately, the international airport in Yachats is still on the drawing board, and the one in Migraine Springs was decimated in the quasi-zombie uprising during the last half moon. Therefore, I took the train.

Upon my arrival, imagine my surprise.

In all directions from Migraine Springs the landscape was as dry as a mummy’s French kiss. The “lone and level sands stretch far away” must have been written about Texas.

Except for the town of Migraine Springs, that is—it was green and blooming. An oasis on an enormous slice of burnt toast. But as I looked closer at the trees and bushes I noticed tags reading “Machine wash warm. Do not dry clean.” And the tulip beds read “Plastiposies™ – first in floral phoniness.”

The whole town had been landscaped by Rubbery Shrubbery, Inc. Still, I couldn’t let total drought and synthetic maple trees distract me from my mission. I was there to find out what’s up about spring training.

To uncover what the thinking was thereabouts, I figured I’d best take a survey. I picked out the averagest local citizen, a rangy old lizard named “Pecos Billy” Bob, and surveyed him thoroughly.

Grutch Pecos Billy, I can’t help but notice that you’re a long ways from the Pecos River for you to be its eponym.

Bob Hey, this is Texas! Everything else is a long ways from everything here.

Grutch Well, that’s a point worth brooding over.

Bob You betcha! Now, you want to ask me about the Smelt spring training here, I reckon.

Grutch How’d you know that?

Bob I read the introductory paragraph up above.

Grutch Oh. I wasn’t figuring on you being literate. Okay, why does Migraine Springs want to have the Smelt training hereabouts?

Bob Well, Migraine Springs’s drought has taken a bite out of tourism here. We’ve been worried about it, and to be frank, I don’t know what we’d have done if you hadn’t showed up today.

Grutch Glad I could help. So, what can be done to fix this drought? I doubt if Rubbery Shrubbery landscaping is going to do the trick.

Bob Nope, but it’s still a good idea. Can’t trust natural stuff. The only thing you can count on is plastic. But as for the drought, we have a solution coming our way.

Grutch Oh? Would you like to talk about it?

Bob Sure. You’ve heard of the Keystone XL Oil Pipeline? It’s supposed to carry oil from Alberta, Canada, to Texas. Well, we Texans (being no fools) decided we’d rather have water than oil. So, we want to use this Rube Goldberg plumbing to pipe Lake Winnipeg down and dump it in the flat part of Texas.

Grutch Wow! That would kill two pterodactyls with one stone—it would both dampen Texas and help Manitoba with its mosquito problem. Talk about being environmentally friendly…!

Bob You bet! And Manitoba is closer than Alberta. Only one problem…we didn’t realize how shallow Lake Winnipeg is (see Fig. 1). It looks awfully big on the map, but we’ll need a lot more water than that. So, we’re negotiating for Lake Superior. When we add that, we should have enough. We’ll call our lake Lake Supipeg.

Figure 1. Aerial view of Lake Winnipeg. Notice how you can’t tell how shallow it is.

Grutch Is Lake Superior a sure thing, then?

Bob Yep. Every government has its price.

Grutch I’m guessing that Migraine Springs will perch right at the edge of Lake Supipeg.

Bob It sure will. See that big dust devil yonder? That’s where the marina will be. See Fig. 2 for dust devil.

Figure 2. Arizona dust devil. Very similar to a Texas dust devil except with mountains in the distance.*

Grutch And with tourists flocking in like locusts, you need to have some touristy things for them to do?

Bob Of course. I mean, our current tourist attractions are okay—the Hornswogglers’ Cemetery is popular and the re-enactment of the shootout at Pirate Pete’s Used Car Lot is always a hit—but if we have the Smelt here each spring, think of the publicity we’ll get. We’ll be mentioned every day by all three of the remaining newspapers.

Grutch You can’t beat publicity like that.

Bob Yep, and getting Lake Supipeg and the Smelt is a lot cheaper than moving Mt. Rushmore.

* Photo by NOAA (from Wikipedia).

Next time: Continuing his investigation of possible Smelt spring training sites, Harrison makes a visit to Lāna’i City, Hawai’i, to get the skinny on baseball facilities there. He also gets a tan.

NOTE: Brassica has heard from her green friends in Las Vegas—they’re doing fine and have won almost enough money to get back home. Also, we received a call from Phyllicida Thronk. She and Wumpy are still foxtrotting to beat the band at Shaggy’s Joint in Cannibal Mountain. She said not to expect them back in Yachats soon. No word from the Klondikes.

NOTE AGAIN: Eric Sallee and Dave Baldwin have received inputs regarding casting for the screen version of Rubbery Shrubbery. Helena Bonham-Carter has one vote to play Brassica Chin and Sir Anthony Hopkins has one vote to play Wumpy Mugwump. At the bottom of this post, please give Eric and Dave further suggestions for actors, such as George Clooney or Sigourney Weaver, to play any RS characters such as Percy “Pinky” Fink-Nottle or Betsy Rossini. Thank you.