47 – Dzunukwa Takes the Reins

Posted on April 8, 2013 by Dave Baldwin


RUBBERY SHRUBBERY Post 47

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.

Today Brassica Chin interviews several au courant Yachatians regarding the selection of the new Smelt general manager. A general manager to humble all other general managers, as you will see.

Dzunukwa Takes the Reins
by Brassica Chin

After reviewing many resumes and interviewing a superlative aggregation of candidates, the Yachats Smelt have named a general manager at last. She is Dzunukwa*, a well-known doyenne of Yachats society and author of the current best seller Fun with Wrinkles. (See Post #32, “How We Will Spend Our Vacation,” for a photo of Dzunukwa.)

The announcement sent shock waves through the baseball world. In Dzunukwa the Smelt have hired the first Sasquatch witch to lead a major league baseball organization (several have headed major corporations, of course).

A few major league general managers submitted their resignations immediately upon hearing the news. “They don’t pay me enough for me to negotiate with Dzunukwa,” said one executive who asked to be anonymous. “In fact, I wouldn’t do that for all the money in China.”

We have yet to hear from the Baseball Commissioner’s office regarding the rumor that Bud Selig will be stepping down from that position as soon as he can get his desk cleaned out.

To learn more about this enigmatic new Smelt force, I’ve asked two Yachatian old timers, Wumpy Mugwump and Yabby Weezer, to speak with us today.**

Brassica: Gentlemen, you probably know Dzunukwa better than anyone else. Could you tell us a little about her, uh…childhood?

Yabby: Sure, Brassica. Old Dzunukwa is a true Yachatian. Born and raised just east of town in the Siuslaw National Forest. Came from a large family—too many kids to count. All the boys went off to play football at the University of Oregon. The only members of the family I knew besides Dzunukwa were her older sister Dkenesaw and a younger sister Dfanny Mae.

Wumpy: Yeah, Dkenesaw was named after Judge Landis (see Fig. 1) who was Commissioner of Baseball long ago. She was straight-laced and calculated. And Dfanny Mae was just the opposite—a real party Sasquatch. A wild one, let me tell you. But Dzunukwa was different still. Wanted to be a witch from the time she was relatively little. Studied witchology hard.

Figure 1. Kenesaw Mountain “Happy” Landis. On one of his up days.

Yabby: That’s right. The three sisters were as different as night and day and…uh…

Wumpy: But they had one thing in common—they loved to play baseball. All the kids loved baseball. Played in a meadow in the middle of the forest.

Yabby: And they were good, too. Outstanding athletes. Any of the kids could’ve played football for the Oregon Ducks if they wanted, but Dzunukwa and her sisters turned down scholarships so they could stay home and play meadow baseball.

Brassica: So Dzunukwa learned baseball by actually playing it. That must be a rarity for today’s baseball execs.

Wumpy: It probably gives her an advantage. Also, despite all the tales about her being dim-witted, she’s really very sharp and that gives her an advantage, too.

Yabby: Yep, she’s a rarity, all right.

Brassica: Has she moved into her office yet?

Yabby: She sure has. Now understand, buildings find her to be a problem—she’s a challenge for door frames and faucet handles. Therefore, her office is in the wetlands out beyond center field. (See Fig. 2.)

Figure 2. Dzunukwa in her new office suite viewed from center field of Rubbery Shrubbery Stadium.

Brassica: I’m sure she must feel at home there. Has she settled in enough to begin making Smelty decisions?

Wumpy: Oh, it took almost no time for her to pick the Smelt field manager. It’ll be Terry Francona, who had so much success bringing championship teams to the Boston Red Sox. See Fig. 3.

Figure 3. Dzunukwa with Terry Francona, soon to be manager of the Smelt.***

Brassica: But the Cleveland Indians just hired him to be their manager!

Yabby: Well, Dzunukwa was very polite about it. She said that if the Indians agree to let Francona manage the Smelt, they wouldn’t have to negotiate with her. The Indians were so happy, they said they would give her Francona and three players to boot. They said they would give her the roof off their stadium if it had one.

Brassica: That’s very nice of them. It’s wonderful to see how well everyone gets along in Baseball. Obviously Dzunukwa encourages cooperation. Has she made any other major decisions?

Wumpy: Yep. She picked her new farm director and assistant farm director (see Fig. 4). Now the Smelt can start building a strong farm system.

Figure 4. Dzunukwa with the new Smelt farm director and her assistant, Hiram.****

Brassica: Wow! Dzunukwa has sure gotten right down to business. It sounds like she has shaken off her earlier reputation.

Wumpy: She has taken steps, no question. For one thing, she’s become more judicious in her use of magic. Also, she no longer coos “Huuu huuuu.” (She used to do that all the time.) And that gunny sack thing’s no longer a problem, I’m sure. For many months now, the Yachats/Waldport area has had no reports of missing children.

* Dzunukwa is pronounced DZOO-noo-kuaw, where “DZ…” starts with the tip of the tongue pressed against the back of the upper incisors.
** I agreed to write this article with the stipulation that I wouldn’t be required to interview Dzunukwa. She scares me.
*** Photo by Keith Allison.
**** “American Gothic” by Grant Wood (1891-1942)

Next Time: Perhaps we’ll take a look at the Smelt’s minor league teams as the new farm director shapes things up.

NOTE: As for Dzunukwa’s sisters, Dkenesaw became the largest fashion designer in the world and lives in a forest near Paris. Dfanny Mae went to Hollywood where she has starred in many Indie films, such as Bigfoot Meets Godzilla and the Bobbsey Twins and Yeti Beach Blanket Party. Last year she was nominated for a Golden Noogie for her performance in Abominable Snowwomen in Love.

NOTE AGAIN: Eric Sallee and Dave Baldwin will be happy to address any issues regarding the Rubbery Shrubbery blog. They’ll respond to suggestions, requests, and vexations only during their normal business hours, however.

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46 – Why Nine Players on Each Team?

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Dave Baldwin


RUBBERY SHRUBBERY Post 46

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.

For this post, we stray from the Yachats Smelt story to give you a tale of baseball’s early history. It might not be historically accurate, but it is precise.

Why Nine Players on Each Team?
by Dave Baldwin

One day in the 19th century three guys were lounging around ye olde tavern with nothing much to do, so they decided to invent baseball. Let’s call them Alexander Cartwright, Henry Chadwick, and Abner Doubleday because those were, in fact, their names. See Figures 1, 2, and 3.

Figure 1. Alexander Cartwright (middle, second row). The New York Knickerbockers Baseball Club, 1847. Only six members on the team—obviously before the invention of baseball.

When it came to specifying how many players would be in each team’s line-up, they dithered. Finally, Alex said, “I have an idea. Here’s how we’ll resolve this. We’ll take a random number… say, my birth date (4/17/1820) without the slashes and parentheses. Then we’ll scramble the digits good and proper to make a second random number (e.g., 2011874), and subtract the smaller number from the larger. Like, 4171820 minus 2011874 equals 2159946. Am I going too fast?”

Figure 2. Henry Chadwick. An inveterate jokester with an enviable sense of humor. See the sparkle in his eyes?

Abner grunted and Henry groaned. “Good,” Alex enthused. “Now let’s sum up the digits in that number: 2+1+5+9+9+4+6 = 36. Next, we’ll sum those two digits: 3+6 = 9. So that’s how many players we’ll have on each team.”

“Okay,” Abner yipped. “Now, I’ll figure out how many innings we’ll play. But I’m going to use my birth date instead. I was born on June 26, 1819. I’ll shuffle that 6261819 to give me 8619261. So, 8619261 minus 6261819 gives me 2357442. I add those digits to get 27 and add those to get 9. Wow! We’re going to play nine innings.

Figure 3. Abner Doubleday. We’re not sure who taped the squirrel to his head.

Henry scowled. “Wait a minute. I don’t trust you hornswogglers. Let me calculate using my birth date – October 5, 1824.” He whipped up a jumbled version of 1051824 and hammered out the math.

“Holy mongoose, Hank!” Alexander shouted. “You came up with 9, too. That cinches it. Nine it will be.”

Figure 4. Mongoose. Just minding his or her own business. Not claiming to be holy.*

We are indeed fortunate that they stumbled on nine as the number of players on a team, because that is actually the correct number. To demonstrate this, we’ll use the precise total number of players who have played in the majors and the Negro Leagues since that fateful tavern rendezvous: 19,623. We’ll yank out the comma and rearrange that number (randomly, of course) to get 62193. Now we’ll subtract: 62193 minus 19623 equals 42570. Summing these digits gives us 4+2+5+7+0 = 18 and 1+8 = 9. QED.

* Helogale parvula in Korkeasaari zoo. Photo by Miika Silfverberg (MiikaS) from Vantaa, Finland

Next time: We’ll have big news regarding the selection of the Smelt general manager. Very big news. Frightening, too.

NOTE: Our tavern trio sipped a bit more and continued with exuberance, using their method to determine the number of strikes for a strikeout, balls for a walk, outs for a half inning, bases on the infield, foul lines, goal posts, and cows in the outfield. Fortunately, Ms. Eliza Mae Rizzleblurt, proprietor, saw the trio was topsy, stepped in, and made them rewind to the point at which our story ended. Unfortunately, in the only photo we could find of Ms. R., the woman who saved baseball, she had her eyes closed.

NOTE AGAIN: Dave Baldwin borrowed this tale from “Baseball Paradoxes” on his own website, http://www.snakejazz.com .

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45 – The Yachats Baseball Industry

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Dave Baldwin


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.

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44 – A New Smelt Farm Team

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Dave Baldwin


RUBBERY SHRUBBERY Post 44

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.

Now for something completely different. Yachats’s mayor, Ron Brean, has agreed to join us in writing this post. Ron has contributed the basic ideas for it, and he’s done most of the writing. The Rubbery Shrubbery staff has fiddled with it slightly to fit it to our usual format, but be assured, all the good stuff is Ron’s.

A New Smelt Farm Team
by Ron Brean

Naturally, the soon-to-be famous Smelt will have farm teams. Like every other team that aspires to greatness, they need a pipeline of new players. Naturally, the farm teams are placed in locales with much smaller markets so as not to interfere with the draw to the Smelt games.

Given the current level of the Smelt’s newest developmental club, however, there is little worry of that. The team is composed of has-beens trying to make their way back to the show, never-weres that probably never will be, and young prospects. They are all wanna-bes.

That’s not to say they don’t have a following. They do. In fact there has been some sort of a following since the team was first conceived. “Conceived” may be the operative word there. It seems there are an inordinate number of pregnant ladies proudly wearing the team’s puce and mauve colors in the stands (not that a puce paunch isn’t very fetching). Market surveys have also shown the crowd to comprise a surprising number of bill collectors, IRS auditors, and bounty hunters. Odd though it may be, it is a following. “Following” may be the operative word there.

This farm team, like most franchises, has moved around a bit, its current location and status being a step up the ladder…or at least up the valley. They started somewhere kind of near the lower reaches of the Willamette Valley in Oregon, somewhere near the confluence of the Great Columbia and the almost as great Willamette Rivers. They have now moved about 3 hours up the watershed.

The specific location of origin, like everything else about the team remains obscured in the team’s history. There isn’t one. No one chronicled the team formation, early players, the origin of the name (yes, the team has a name and I’m getting to that), or anything else. No diaries have been unearthed to shed light on the team’s past. Local newspapers didn’t bother to mention their games.

The only record is word of mouth that has passed down from generation to generation of team fans. Since many of those mouths in the early years were so stuffed with tobacco products as to make speech both undistinguishable from sounds made by a sleeping bag in an industrial sized washing machine, and dangerous to be in front of, even that history which came to us orally is of questionable value.

Nevertheless, the story is this: The first rendition of the team was a bunch of pioneer types that got together to play baseball. They knew their team needed a name—a team can’t win a game (or lose one, for that matter) without a name.

Like sports teams of all types everywhere, they tried to come up with a name that was suggestive of spirit, of courage, of prowess, and of …well, I guess marketability. Now, most of the animal names with enough panache to fill the bill had already been spoken for so they continued past the menagerie to historic heroes. However, being a relatively uneducated lot (perhaps explaining the lack of a written history) they didn’t know any heroes they could agree on. See Fig. 1. Fast moving pieces of machinery like, say, “jets” hadn’t been invented. So they were a bit stuck for a while until a fad of the time brought forth an idea. The fad was “dare-deviling”.

Figure 1. Alexander the Great. One of the historic heroes they couldn’t agree on.*

In those days, before technology advanced dare-deviling equipment into bungee jumping and parasailing, daring devils were forced to devise less equipment-centric means of defying death. Dare devils were much respected and looked up to and thus fulfilled most of the requirements of a good team name choice. Just calling yourselves the “Dare-devils” wasn’t adequate, though. Too vague. You had to be specific and find some tie to the local community.

It turns out that while waiting for equipment technology to advance, dare devils were forced to use natural phenomena, scary tall buildings, and low-tech equipment to dare the devil. Flagpole sitting arose as one of those, but it seriously lacked the required heart thump of a team name. See Fig. 2.

Figure 2. Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly flagpole sitting. Mr. Kelly started the flagpole sitting fad in 1924. Notice how lacking in heart thump this is.**

A widely publicized thrill-seeking, crowd-awing endeavor of the time was the attempt to ride a wooden barrel (very low-tech equipment) over Niagara Falls. That was too “eastern” for the locals, and frankly too high-tech. So, to prove themselves gutsier than the eastern namby-pambies, local dare devils took to launching themselves off the tops of waterfalls without barrels, a feat far superior to that of mollycoddles in other time zones. They splashed into the shallow plunge pools at the base of the waterfalls in the Columbia Gorge, and none ever bragged about it. See Fig. 3. Plenty of pizzazz and moxie there.

Figure 3. Dare devils at Acapulco, Mexico. Very similar to Oregon dare devils.***

That’s why the team became the Multnomah Falls Plungers. Of course, they might not have been all that near Multnomah Falls, but everyone knew where Multnomah Falls was, and nobody then or to this day knew where the team’s real roots were. See Fig. 4.

Figure 4. Multnomah Falls, Oregon. High but not at all similar to Niagara Falls.

So the team was proud to be called the Plungers. Each time the franchise moved it always kept that name. The latest move of these nomads was when they were acquired by the Smelt and moved up the Willamette Valley to their new home. No one seemed to realize there might be some consternation with keeping the same name while moving to Drain, Oregon. Consequently, the Drain Plungers have become the pipeline of the Smelt. When first introduced to the new farm team, long time Yachats fans took one look at the Plungers and simply said “Oh, those Smelt!”

* Detail of the Alexander Mosaic, representing Alexander the Great on his horse Bucephalus. Naples National Archaeological Museum, Naples, Italy.
** From HistorybyZim.com.
*** Photo by James Huckaby. From Wikipedia.
**** In case you are anxious to find Drain on a map, it is seven or eight miles west of Yoncalla and a hop, skip, and a jump southwest of Naughty Lady Meadow.

Next time: We’ll take a look at how Yachatian entrepreneurs are grabbing the Smelt brass ring.

NOTE: The Stadium Committee has not yet heard from Willamette University Professor of Chemistry J. Charles Williamson. An experienced LEGO architect and construction project foreman, Dr. Williamson would be the perfect selection to take charge of the youthful labor force working on building Rubbery Shrubbery Stadium. If the committee can’t get Dr. Williamson for this task, out of desperation it might have to resort to asking Donald Trump to do it. (Dagnabbit!)

NOTE AGAIN: Dave Baldwin and Eric Sallee are very grateful that Mayor Ron Brean joined us in writing this post of the Rubbery Shrubbery blog.

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43 – Yachatian Voyage to the Moon

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Dave Baldwin


RUBBERY SHRUBBERY Post 43

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.

By a stroke of Yachatian luck, Ingeborg Von Root returns to write this post about surprising new developments in the construction of Rubbery Shrubbery Stadium.

Yachatian Voyage to the Moon
by Ingeborg Von Root

The nose of the great red-yellow-and-blue LEGO1 Rocket Ship juts into the last hour of brilliant Yachatian sunlight, high above the titter and giggle of its urchin engineers. It stands on its launching pad, a proud monument to the variable whims of innocent fingers and moppet minds.

The LEGO1 kiddie spaceship wasn’t always such. Not long ago, after one charismatic imp named Crankelwitz had instigated a toddler war, those same rocketry LEGO® blocks were distributed amongst several juvenile fortresses locked in mortal battle. (See Post #37, “Dagnabbit!”) The LEGO® blocks were then redirected back toward becoming a stadium by Tabitha Wolf, the art teacher who is trying to keep the kids focused on the task at hand. (See Post #30, “Smelt Go with Youth.”)

But the tykes strayed again a few days ago, and once more Crankelwitz was the leading troublemaker. Apparently inspired by a TV documentary about Robert H. Goddard (see Fig. 1), he rallied his shaver mates to finish most of the rocket’s exterior before Ms. Wolf finished her second cup of coffee and became mindful.

Figure 1. Dr. Robert Hutchings Goddard, rocketry pioneer and inspiration of Yachatian youngsters.*

Ms. Wolf now has an undercover tot reporting (tattling) what the squirts are up to. By the latest report, they’re collecting lighter fluid, gorse oil, and various household flammables for fueling LEGO1. But according to Dr. Roswell J. Barnburn, who once applied for a job with NASA, it’s unlikely the spaceship will make it to the Kuiper Belt or even Mars on such a meager energy source. “I’d guess the far side of the Moon is about the best they can hope for,” he said. See Fig. 2.

Figure 2. Far side of the Moon.**

Still the Smelt’s Stadium Committee is mighty concerned about the situation. The committee’s chairperson, Brassica Chin expressed her greatest fears, “What if the kiddies get enough lighter fluid to go into orbit, but not enough to get to the lunar surface? They’ll be up there whirling around the Earth with nothing nutritional— just cookies and milkshakes (you know how kids are). And who’s going up there to get them down?”

To try to stem this youthful tide, the Stadium Committee is seeking professional help. This is described in a Note at the end of this post.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR GAWKING AT LEGO1:

Those of you who have never been to Yachats and are chafing at the bit to see the LEGO1 Rocket Ship before it launches, pay attention. This is how to get to within sight of the launching pad.

Approaching from the north you will be driving south on Highway 101. As you near the city limits, you will come to the spot where the “Woolly Mammunk Crossing” sign used to be before tourists stole it. From there the launching pad will be about 1.5 miles. (Don’t worry about the woolly mammunks—without the crossing sign, they no longer cross the highway.) Turn right onto Sixth Street (named after Yachats founding father Jedediah Sixth). You’ll see LEGO1 right in front of you. Parking is optional.

Approaching from the south, driving north on Highway 101, you will have a spectacular view of the rocket from Cape Perpetua (see Fig. 3). Continue on 101 over the Yachats Troll Bridge crossing the Yachats River. Go through the heart of the city (shouldn’t take more than forty seconds if you drive at the speed limit, ten seconds if you go with the flow), and you’ll come to the city’s financial district (bank) on your left. The next street is Sixth Street. Turn left. From here on, follow the directions given for approaching from the north.

Figure 3. View of Yachats from Cape Perpetua. Photo taken before rocket was built, but use your imagination.***

Approaching from the east is treacherous and interesting. All mountains and deep forests. Be forewarned, a night in the woods is filled with scary sounds. And organisms that don’t realize they are inferior to us.

Approaching from the west is a little tricky. It’s best to anchor your boat in the Yachats estuary (harbor). From there kayak to the south beach (that will be the one on the right—there’s no north beach). Secure your kayak or take it with you. Climb the stairs to the state park. Look north and you’ll see LEGO1 towering above the Yachatian skyline. Carry your kayak to the Yachats Troll Bridge where you’ll find a pedestrian walkway. Pay the Norwegian troll on duty one billy goat and you’ll be on your way. Continue through town, following directions given for approaching from the south. Also, pay close attention to your instincts.

* Photo by NASA. From Wikipedia.
** Photo by NASA. From Wikipedia.
*** Photo by Elizabeth Gates.

Next time: We’ll be joined by a new contributor, Mayor Ron Brean. He’s the actual mayor of Yachats. No, really!

NOTE: To get the Rubbery Shrubbery Stadium construction back on track, the Stadium Committee is hoping to hire Willamette University Professor of Chemistry J. Charles Williamson. He’s an actual college professor. No, really!

Dr. Williamson also is an experienced LEGO architect and construction project foreman. One of the world’s best. The committee is certain he can make the nippers shape up and buckle down.

Figure 4. Dr. J. Charles Williamson.

NOTE AGAIN: Dave Baldwin and Eric Sallee are astounded that the Rubbery Shrubbery blog is still alive and kicking.

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42 – Welcome Back, Phyllicida and Wumpy!

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Dave Baldwin


RUBBERY SHRUBBERY Post 42

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.

Isabel Stackhollow joins us again to write about the big welcome home party being thrown at the Ona Restaurant in Yachats. Wumpy and Phyllicida have returned!

Welcome Back, Phyllicida and Wumpy!
by Isabel Stackhollow

Yachatians really know how to throw a party! This bash, at the refined Ona Restaurant and Lounge, celebrated the arrival of Phyllicida Thronk and Wumpy Mugwump from an extended vacation. Extended so much, in fact, that we were beginning to worry they might never return.

You see, by happenstance, Phyllicida and Wumpy took their vacations at the very same resort and soup manufacturing town, Cannibal Mountain. By chance, they both moseyed into Shaggy’s Massage, Libation, and Ballroom Parlor at the same moment. There they decided to take a twirl on the dance floor, little realizing how addictive ballroom dancing can be (see Fig. 1).

Figure 1. Ballroom dance abusers. Note the wild, cattywampus look in their eyes.*

Weeks passed and still they continued dancing, seemingly unable to quit. I asked Wumpy about this unsettling experience. He replied:


It all started innocently enough, just a foxtrot—I think it was “Change Partners” —followed by a nice easy Strauss waltz. Before we knew it, we were hooked. As the weeks quickstepped away we became more and more frantic to escape from the endless string of tangos, polkas, and cha-chas. We knew we had become Lindy Hopheads. The townsfolk in Cannibal Mountain tried to save us, but they were powerless. Finally, in a desperate attempt to help us, Shaggy’s burned itself down.

Phyllicida and I are much better now, but we know we’ll never be completely cured. We must be very careful about music we listen to—Beethoven and Mahler are fine, but we’ll never be able to watch a Fred-and-Ginger movie again. And we don’t dare tap our feet to any kind of rhythm.

Wumpy and Phyllicida hope that at least one good thing might come out of their nightmare. “Perhaps from our experience other people can learn to avoid ballroom dancing,” Phyllicida said. “Don’t take the risk.”

So I join Wumpy and Phyllicida in saying, when it comes to ballroom dancing, please just say no.

After talking with Wumpy and Phyllicida, I looked around the restaurant in search of a good story. Soon I spotted the Dolish twins**—Arthur, with a lean and hungry look, and Debbie, not so much—standing at the punch bowl. The twins (as we call them affectionately) were instrumental in establishing the Yachats Ninja Hall of Fame (see Fig. 2). They’re always good for a story.

Figure 2. The Yachats Ninja Hall of Fame. A popular tourist attraction. Note that Macho Mole, who you might or might not see in this photo, is a ninja.

Stackhollow (with enthusiasm): Hey, you two! What have you been up to?

Debbie (smiling knowingly): I guess you haven’t heard. Art and I have been negotiating with the Baseball Hall of Fame—that is, the one in Cooperstown, New York—to establish a western branch in Yachats. I think we’ve made some progress.

Art (matter-of-factly): Well, it’s pretty obvious that New York is too far to travel for folks west of the Mississippi. Besides, Cooperstown is way off in the sticks. Almost impossible to find it.

Debbie (oozing knowledge): Not only that, but they’ve jammed in as many players and odds and ends as one museum can hold. I’m not a betting man, but if I were, I’d wager the Cooperstown boys will be begging us to take a lot of that stuff off their hands within a year.

Stackhollow (delighted): That would be fitting since Yachats will have a major league team by then. Maybe the Hall of Fame West should be built close to Rubbery Shrubbery Stadium. Then fans could just walk from one to the other.

Art (with enthusiasm): Great idea, Isabel. Just one small step in making Yachats the Baseball Capital of the World.

About that time Debbie noticed Crazy Bop McSkittle headed toward us.

Debbie (whispering): Don’t look now, but Crazy Bop is coming this way. Let’s get out of here.

Isabel (whispering): Is he still going on about how Yachats should start working to get a World’s Fair and forget about the Smelt?

Debbie (whispering): Yes, and he doesn’t talk about anything else. He’s been blathering about it for months.

Art (whispering): A World’s Fair here in Yachats! Can you imagine? It’s preposterous!

* Photo from simply-ballroom.com. Simply Ballroom is a dance studio in Omaha, Nebraska. They do NOT encourage ballroom dance addiction at Simply Ballroom.
** Arthur Dolish and her brother Debbie were victims of a tragic mix-up when they were inadvertently switched as babies in the hospital.

Next time: The construction of Rubbery Shrubbery Stadium has gotten further out of hand. We’ll find out if there’s any hope of bringing the tots (who are building it with LEGO™ blocks) into line.

NOTE: As all of you know, the Rubbery Shrubbery Stadium roof is currently on loan to the Seattle Mariners™. But upon learning that both of their fans are emotionally attached to the roof (an awkward situation), the Mariners became reluctant to give it up. Recently one of the fans has begun to weaken her resolve, though. Learning that Yachats has more rainfall, she now sees that Yachatians need the roof more than Seattleites need it. Bless her heart!

NOTE AGAIN: Dave Baldwin and Eric Sallee still claim that the Rubbery Shrubbery blog is the result of hanging out with the wrong crowd, despite the avalanche of emails declaring pish tosh.

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41 – Why There Are so Few Ferraris in Wart Wallow

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Dave Baldwin


RUBBERY SHRUBBERY Post 41

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.

Again Edgar Allan Spindlehopper reports to you from Wart Wallow, Oregon, as he continues from the last post. Perhaps you remember that when we last heard from Edgar Allan he had accused Mayor Cramp McSnort of harboring a fugitive from justice.

Why There Are so Few Ferraris in Wart Wallow (See Fig. 1)
by Edgar Allan Spindlehopper

WART WALLOW, OR — Before I called the sheriff to have the mayor pinched, I made a dash up the stairs to the Wallow House historical museum to see the very rock that Warton Wallow used to pound nails when building this very same Wallow House.

Once I recovered from the jolt of seeing Willow Wallow, Wart Wallow’s ex-widow, propped up at the top of the stairs, the rock was easy to find. Bathed in spotlights, it was displayed in an unbreakable case in the middle of the room. Two security guards stood on each side of it. I was awestruck. What a story that rock could tell if only it could talk!

After gazing at the rock for a good half hour, I suddenly remembered that I had justice to uphold. I hurried downstairs where I found Mayor McSnort calmly waiting for me at his desk in his office. I confronted him and his bear skin rug sternly.

“Mr. Mayor, I’m calling the sheriff. You’ve sheltered your murderous bear skin rug long enough. It’s time for you and it to come clean.”

McSnort countered. “Now, hold on there, young fella. This particular bear skin rug has an airtight alibi. First of all, it was at the Wart Wallow Bear Skin Rug Cleaners and Renovators at the time of the alleged death of Wart Wallow. Second of all, it was dead at that very same time. That’s a double alibi.”

Suddenly I was overcome with embarrassment. There are few things in this world as bad as blame wrongly cast. To make matters worse, I couldn’t think how to shift the blame to McSnort’s secretary.

Figure 1. Ferrari in Wart Wallow.

So I said, “Okay. Tell me about your efforts to get baseball in Wart Wallow.”

Fortunately, I caught McSnort right in the midst of an attention deficit. He replied, “Well, Wart Wallow has always loved sports, but we don’t have any teams to satisfy those gambling needs. So, for years Wart Wallowers have done all their betting on Bo von Gletzendorf’s hog, Rocky. Exciting enough, but we hungered for more variety.”

“Of course,” I replied. “You wanted more for your sports dollar. When you learned that Duck Egg is getting a minor league baseball team you volunteered to host Duck Egg’s home games.”

“You bet. We knew that Duck Egg, being a 100% witness protection program town, didn’t want anyone to know where the town is. Duck Egg went along with our idea, but we ran into a snag. For a new stadium, we needed a plot of ground that was level. Not easy to find when you live in a canyon.”

“I can see that would be a problem.”

McSnort shrugged. “But we had a solution. There’s a large meadow up under Rumbling Rocks Ridge. A large herd of woolly mammunks used to graze and cavort there until Daisy Dawdle decided to have a flower farm. Daisy is usually at least half Sasquatch, and she just walked out into the field and shooed the mammunks hard. They panicked and have never returned.”

“So it belongs to Daisy now?”

“Yep. It’s Daisy Dawdle’s Daffodil Farm. A beautiful sight. Daisy isn’t one for hard work, though, so she put in Plastiposies™ artificial daffodils.”

“Is Daisy willing to sell her property so you can build the stadium?”

“Nope. Wouldn’t budge. So we resorted to eminent domain. That means we yank the farm right out from under her. And we would except she’s poor and elderly and…we’re all terrified of her—those mammunks knew what they were doing. No one in town has the stupidity to tell Daisy we own her land.”

“Oh, oh! You have no place to build your stadium, then.”

McSnort broke into a self-satisfied smile. “But we remembered that Jezebel City, just over the mountain from here, has plenty of flat, level land. We bought a plot and we’re planning to build a multipurpose stadium. We can host the Duck Egg Toxic Sox and have our own college football team (we’ve started an online college for this purpose)*. All our problems are solved.”

And this takes the pressure off Rocky, too.

* Wart Wallow College Widowmakers will play in the Big Concussion Conference next fall. And on New Year’s Day the Wart Wallow stadium will host the first annual Aspirin Bowl Game.

Next time: We’ll return to Yachats where there’s some exciting news regarding the Rubbery Shrubbery Stadium roof, which is currently on loan to the Seattle Mariners™.

NOTE: The recent discovery of an ancient cave painting showing a pedigree chart for the woolly mammunk has mammologists flabbergasted. The chart clearly shows that the mammunk is a triple hybrid—a cross between the chipmunk, the woolly mammoth, and the American lion. “The lion in the mix is a complete surprise,” said noted expert Professor Rafferty McDaff. “This explains a few mammunky things, though, such as their tendency to sleep most of the time and why they occasionally pounce on unsuspecting Ferraris.” (See Fig. 1.)

NOTE AGAIN: Dave Baldwin and Eric Sallee claim that the Rubbery Shrubbery blog is the result of hanging out with the wrong crowd.

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40 – The Tell-Tale Bear Skin Rug

Posted on February 18, 2013 by Dave Baldwin


RUBBERY SHRUBBERY Post 40

This is the Rubbery Shrubbery (RS) 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.

Today’s post comes to you from Wart Wallow, Oregon, where Edgar Allan Spindlehopper reports on how Mayor Cramp McSnort hopes to persuade that town to leapfrog over the 20th century directly into the 21st. Letting Duck Egg’s minor league baseball team play all its home games in Wart Wallow might be a good start.

The Tell-Tale Bear Skin Rug
by Edgar Allan Spindlehopper

WART WALLOW, OR — Mayor Cramp McSnort’s office is in the historic Wallow House, a Victorian mansion dating from before the Civil War. The Wallow House, like everything else, sits on the outskirts of town. The town hall occupies its first floor and a historical museum fills the second and third floors.

As I came into his elegant office the mayor, a gaunt, fiftyish gentleman, had just soiled his tea cozy and was mightily perturbed, flinging his caramel egg rolls to the floor in a pique. He quickly recovered, however, and being a professional, I suppressed witticisms and began the interview.

“Thank you for meeting with me, Mr. Mayor. Sorry about the caramel on the awesome bear skin rug,” I said, demonstrating my empathy.

McSnort glared at me a quick acknowledgement and grunted.

“And let me say what a magnificent building this is,” I added. “Such a novel exterior color scheme—red, green, blue, orange, yellow, and purple. I don’t think I’ve seen a building so kaleidoscopic before.”

By now Mayor McSnort was scrubbing the rug with vigor, but he looked up with concern. “Call me Cramp. Yes, the Wallow House is quite unique. Our local housepainter—Dogeye Pollock—is colorblind, you see. (Check out Fig. 1.) Can only distinguish blue, yellow, gray, and brown. But even beyond the colors, this building is pretty remarkable…does caramel stain?”

Figure 1. A very, very good painter. Much better than Dogeye. Makes Dogeye look like gardyloo.*

Dogged by uncertainty, I grappled to get hold of my nerves. “I don’t think so. Would you like to talk about it?”

With an edge in his voice, McSnort replied, “Of course I would. This valley is swarming with Wallows because Warton Wallow and his prolific, hardworking wife, Willow, were the first folks other than the Sasquatch to settle here.” I was impressed that he managed all that without taking a breath and with a lighted fig clenched between his teeth.

I know I showed unwise impatience but couldn’t help myself. “Okay, now tell me about baseball coming to Wart Wallow.”

Snarling, he replied, “Yeah, sure, but first I’m going to tell you about the Wallow House, okay? Now, Warton built this house with his own two hands, chopping down and carving trees with nothing but a snickersnee. His wife, Willow, held all the logs in place while Wart nailed them with a big rock…I think all the caramel is out now. What do you think?” There was fire in his eyes.

I put my glasses on and gave him a reassuring smile. “Nope. It doesn’t look like you washed behind his ears. By the way, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a Victorian log cabin before.”

Snickering heartily and oddly, McSnort replied, “Oh, drat! I’ve scrubbed there, and look at it! Well, no, I bet you haven’t. If you want tangible evidence, that rock’s upstairs in the museum right now. So’s Willow. You can’t miss her—they have her propped up at the top of the stairs. Pretty surprising if you’re not expecting her. The staff gets a lot of laughs with their candid video camera.”

I took a chance. “I suppose old Wart’s up there, too?”

Smiling only through his nose, McSnort retorted, “That’s what you suppose, is it? Well, you’re dead wrong there, buddy boy. Old Wart’s buried right proper in the town cemetery. Besides, he wasn’t much to look at after the bear…” McSnort suddenly turned both away and silent.

My keen journalistic reflexes kicked in immediately. All I learned in newspaper school came back to me. I began scribbling notes onto my little notepad with a fury reminiscent of other great journalists such as…well, you know who they are.

McSnort suddenly seemed defensive. “Hey! You there, writing those notes. Yes, you. Are you a reporter? I’m not going to have people reading about how I soiled my tea cozy. I have a political career to protect.”

“Oh, you have more to worry about than your fancy tea cozy, Mr. Mayor. Is that the bear skin rug that murdered Old Wart Wallow?”

McSnort was nonplussed. It was a joy to see. I moved in for the kill. “You’ve been harboring a fugitive from justice, haven’t you, McSnort? Well, right now I’m going upstairs and take a peek at that historic rock (I can’t resist), but when I come back down we’ll talk to the cops.”

As I ascended (creaky, creaky) the stairs, I thought for a moment I could hear an eerie little-girl giggle filling the mayor’s office behind me.

To be continued!

* “Michelangelo Buonarroti” by Jacopino del Conte (1510–1598).

Next time: When we say “To be continued!” we mean just that.

NOTE: We have received a disturbing telephone call from Penelope Proudhorse, Tyler Macaroon’s wife. She asked us to stress that Tyler is indeed indelibly married, no question about it. She said they’ve had a spate of phone calls, email messages, and smoke signals from ladies inquiring about such matters. So, TYLER IS IRREVOCABLY HITCHED! That should take care of the problem. Sorry for any inconveniences we might have caused.

NOTE AGAIN: In a similar but opposite vein, Dzunukwa, the Sasquatch witch who has made several appearances on our pages, has requested we point out that she is single and looking for someone who likes mango ice cream, long walks on the beach in the moonlight, and eye of newt. She wants to stress that she no longer does that gunnysack thing—she’s gotten help.

Rubbery Shrubbery evolves under the watchful eyes of Eric Sallee and Dave Baldwin.

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39 – O Brave New Wart Wallow

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Dave Baldwin


RUBBERY SHRUBBERY Post 39

This is the Rubbery Shrubbery (RS) blog, your update of the efforts of Yachats (YAH-hots), Oregon, to acquire 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.

Today’s post comes to you from Wart Wallow, Oregon, where Edgar Allan Spindlehopper reports on how that small bedroom community is coping with the decision of Duck Egg’s minor league team to play all its home games in Wart Wallow.

O Brave New Wart Wallow
by Edgar Allan Spindlehopper

WART WALLOW, OR — It wasn’t easy, I can tell you, but this afternoon I hiked over the hill from Duck Egg to Wart Wallow, a pleasant town scattered among the firs, aspens, and woolly mammunks in a valley of the Coast Range. In Duck Egg it was suggested to me that I should look up Lenny Bruesteen here, he being the most cordial of the Wart Wallowers.

When I found Lenny leaning against a lamppost, considering collywobbles, imagine my surprise. Buck-eyed, cross-toothed, with apprehensive gizzard, he was the most unlikeliest of people. I opened our conversation by asking him about the woolly mammunks, but we soon moved on to serious baseball issues.

“That’s Condorcet’s Paradox*, that’s what that is,” said Lenny when I told him how Duck Egg failed to come up with a nickname for its team. (See Fig. 1.) Flipping a coin to choose between the three final candidates led to Smog Sox is better than Soot Sox is better than Toxic Sox is better than Smog Sox. A three-way draw.

Figure 1. Marquis de Condorcet (1743 – 1794).** Famous for the definition, “Philosophy is kinda like science but sloppier.”

“How can we fix it?” I asked him.

“Nothing to be done. You can’t have three nicknames. It’s a hopeless situation.” He thought for a moment. “Wait a minute! This is crazy, but it just might work. You could keep flipping through the pair-wise whatsits until you break the tie.”

Clearly, Lenny was some kind of genius, and I’d picked the right guy to interview regarding baseball coming to Wart Wallow. I’d heard rumors that Wart Wallowers weren’t pleased about Duck Egg playing their games in this quiet bedroom community. I asked him about this.

“Duck Egg has been nothing but trouble from day one,” he replied. “We’ve had it down to here with them.”

“Bad neighbors, huh?”

“I’ll say! They think they can get away with anything. Like sneak here in the dark of night and let the air out of our pumpkins.

“Have they actually done that?”

“Well, no, but they think they can, and that’s what matters. And then they had the nerve to come and say, ‘Oh, pleeeease take care of our tourists. Duck Egg mustn’t let anyone know where we are.’ Then they dumped their whole tourist industry in our laps.”

“But you agreed to host their tourists?” I asked.

“Well, yeah. Looking into damp puppy eyes, how could we say no?”

“And the tourists have been a problem?”

“Sure. They swipe squares from our hopscotch courts and swing in our birches.”

I replied, “One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.”

“Yep, and they do. Thrice they’ve run our local cougar up the flagpole.”

“Really?”

“You bet! Turns out he likes it, and now he makes a real pest of himself.”

“But about the Duck Egg baseball team…”

“Yeah, that’s all we need…baseball fans heaped on top of tourists. We don’t want to resort to ugly violence or even rather attractive mayhem, but we will if we must.”

I responded, “I’d think you’d welcome baseball here. It would be a source of entertainment.”

He studied me with quizzical squinty eye and tilted head. Then he said, “You do know we are a bedroom community, don’t you?”

* Condorcet’s Paradox is named after the Marquis de Condorcet, French polymath cheated of a Nobel Prize in economics throughout the 18th century because Alfred Nobel didn’t get around to it until 1895. (Also, there was that matter of performance enhancing drugs.) During his classic study of scissors-paper-rock, Condorcet made his famous observation, “If A > B and B > C and C > A, then D must be bumfuzzled as all get-out.”
** Portrait by Jean-Baptiste Greuze.

Next time: We’ll talk to Wart Wallow mayor Cramp McSnort and find out about his town’s future or otherwise.

NOTE: A later, abstruse Condorcet (Skippy) famously snickered, “Metaphor is the philosopher’s Q.E.D. when push comes to shove,” and died in a duel as a result.

NOTE AGAIN: Eric Sallee and Dave Baldwin are as aware as anyone of the national tizzy regarding the extended absence of Wumpy Mugwump and Phyllicida Thronk from Rubbery Shrubbery. You might recall that the vacation plans of Wumpy and Phyllicida went pair-shaped, and they have been dancing dances no one has seen before at Shaggy’s Shady Dump and Ballroom up in Cannibal Mountain. They don’t even return our calls.

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38 – Duck Egg Is the Early Bird

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Dave Baldwin


RUBBERY SHRUBBERY Post 38

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

As you can see by the dateline (sans date), today’s post comes to you from Duck Egg, Oregon, where Edgar Allan Spindlehopper reports on that town’s petition to field the first farm team of the Yachats Smelt.

Duck Egg Is the Early Bird
by Edgar Allan Spindlehopper

DUCK EGG, OR — This quaint town sitting on the banks of a historic log pond is widely recognized as the unguent capital of the world. A dizzying array of ointment factories cranks away night and day (see Fig. 1), and the consequent great billows of smoke places Duck Egg among the top producers of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Thus, it is one of the leaders in the manufacture of benzo[a]pyrene, an important industrial additive to DNA.

Figure 1. Ointment factories, cranking away.*

But perhaps Duck Egg is best known for another delightful feature—it’s the only town in the Pacific Northwest with its entire populace in witness protection programs (WPPs). Even the name “Duck Egg” is an alias.

Add to that the charm of having no roads in or out of town. This feature is one of the reasons Duck Egg is so popular with WPPs. With no roads, Duck Egg isn’t shown on any road map! If there were a sign to greet visitors coming into town, it would read: “The nation’s finest city without a dot!”

Yet, despite these amenities, Duck Egg has failed to acquire a baseball team of any real dimension. You can imagine the squeals of delight when Duck Eggians learned the Yachats Smelt had been conceived. A major league team just over yonder a piece! Immediately they went into a huddle, scheming to get themselves one of the Smelt’s farm teams.

While huddling, the Eggites chose themselves a leader, Dr. Felix Hoenikker** (not his real name, of course), who swore to do whatever it takes to bring baseball to this town. I spoke with Dr. Hoenikker about the future of Duck Eggish baseball. (In this interview, Dr. Hoenikker is the one on the left.)

Spindlehopper: Dr. Hoenikker, where (cough) are you planning (sniffle) to play your games? (Cough, pant) I haven’t seen (rasp) a ball field here (wheeze, choke, croak).

Dr. Hoenikker: Well, there’s a large vacant lot (cough) about three factories (gwawk) to the west of here (gag, wheeze, gork). Covered with brambles now, but it could be (hack) fixed up to be a spitting (croak) image of the Yachats ballpark (choke, sniffle). Let’s step into this beauty shop where we can (snurgle) breathe (snort, grack, whiffle).

[To grasp what downtown Duck Egg looks like, see Fig 2.]

Figure 2. What Claude Monet imagined downtown Duck Egg looks like.***

Spindlehopper: (Hack, gag, gulp!) (Wheeze?)

[Safely inside the Oeuf de Canard Hair Salon, Dr. Hoenikker and I wiped our eyes, blew our noses, and recovered.]

Dr. Hoenikker: But we don’t want to play our home games in Duck Egg, anyway. It’d be hard to play ball wearing gas masks. Also, with no roads in or out, teams would have a transportation problem. By the way, how did you find Duck Egg?

Spindlehopper: I noticed the smudge on the map. Then I hiked through the magic forest from Jezebel City.

Dr. Hoenikker: So you walked here, eh? Not an easy hike. I’m glad the cougar didn’t…never mind. As I was about to say, we plan to play our home games in Wart Wallow—a bedroom community just over those hills.

Spindlehopper: It’s Duck Egg’s bedroom community?

Dr. Hoenikker: Nah. Just a bedroom community.

Spindlehopper: Well, have you picked a name for your team? I assume “Duck Egg” will be the team’s first name.

Dr. Hoenikker: Oh, sure. Can’t beat that “Duck Egg” branding power. But it’s tough agreeing on a nickname. There’s a large faction that favors the “Omelets” and a smaller bunch likes the “Humpty Dumpties” and I’m partial to the “Pythons.”

Spindlehopper: No, no! The nickname’s job is to direct the threat of violence toward your opponent. All those nicknames suggest doing violence to yourself. That’s counterproductive, that is.

Dr. Hoenikker: But we really don’t like ourselves very much.

Spindlehopper: Can’t you think of one that isn’t self-destructive?

Dr. Hoenikker: Well, yesterday a guy named Larson called to suggest the team be named the “Anatidaephobics.” He explained that “anatidaephobia” is the fear that somewhere, somehow, a duck is watching you.**** That doesn’t seem self-destructive.

Spindlehopper: I guess “Anatidaephobics” is better than “Omelets.” Umm…I know this takes a different tack, but have you thought of calling the team the “Aliases”?

Dr. Hoenikker rejected my suggestion, and we tried out several more names, such as “Chameleons” and “Octopuses,” without success. Since the Oeuf de Canard Hair Salon is actually a café, we ate breakfast as we mulled further. All the menu items had phony IDs, of course, so I wasn’t surprised to be served porridge when I ordered steak and sea beans.

I was on my third bowl of porridge when we finally narrowed our search to the Smog Sox, Toxic Sox, and Soot Sox. At that point we flipped a coin, comparing two at a time. Here are the results: Soot Sox better than Toxic Sox better than Smog Sox better than Soot Sox. A three-way dead heat! Go figure. Nothing to be done.

I selected a backpack, a hiking stick, and a gas mask (see Fig. 3), paid the waitress, and began my trek to Wart Wallow, keeping my eye out for the cougar.

Figure 3. Second-hand gas mask bought at the Oeuf de Canard Hair Salon.*****

* From HurricaneCandice.wordpress.com.
** Dr. Hoenikker has gained fame through his paper, “A new massless, figmental thingy,” recently published in the Journal of Capricious Studies. This ground-breaking article describes the noom, a fictive subparticle that only interacts with other nooms, and then only before breakfast.
*** Claude Monet, Trouée de soleil dans le brouillard, 1904, Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
**** From The Far Side cartoon by Gary Larson, © Universal Press Syndicate.
***** Photo by Mutante. From Wikipedia.

Next time: We’ll take a look at Wart Wallow and ask a few Wart Wallowers pertinent questions. For one thing, do they know what baseball is? For another, bedroom community?

NOTE: Although ”Anatidaephobics” would have been an excellent nickname for the Duck Egg team, anatidaephobia is a much rarer condition in these parts than megapedosmackophobia—the fear of being kissed by a Sasquatch.

NOTE AGAIN: Dave Baldwin and Eric Sallee are still waiting patiently for guest celebrities to grab the bull by the horns and contribute posts for the Rubbery Shrubbery blog. Candidates must be funny enough to not disappoint the blog’s faithful and discerning readers. We’ll let you judge how funny that is.

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