Every Species Has Its Pluses And Minuses

As I was driving thru our downtown on an early Sunday morning, it certainly felt as if I were the only human being who was up and about, and you can be sure I was enjoying it because the traffic noise can be quite annoying during my work week, because for some reason, there seems to be all the more males driving big pickup trucks with loud engines and mufflers in and around our downtown. I’ll never understand why they seem to get their jollies out of such noisy jalopies. There’s a guy who lives in one of the apartments down the block, who happens to be driving an old red pickup truck with a bright yellow sticker on his tailgate that reads ‘#uck Biden’, but it’s actually written with an ‘F’. Now tell me, how can a grown man think he’s got an ounce of common sense when he’s driving around with something like that plastered on his tailgate?

I did manage to get a glimpse of him one day, and all I can say is, he’s no spring chicken, which is all the more reason he shouldn’t have done something like that. I’m now wondering if he has children and grandchildren who look up to him for direction. Gosh, I’m glad I grew up in a family that had strict social standards to where we were never allowed to talk about politics or religion outside our home.

Since I didn’t have to play at a church this morning, I spent all the more time seated in my quiet little corner running thru my contemplative prayer session. For whatever reason, it was noticeably more fulfilling to where I was beginning to believe I’d reached another level, and if I have, I’ll be looking all the more forward to my early Sunday mornings.

After I got several appointments set up for a Realtor, I placed a call to my dear friend, just to inform her of a few more tidbits of news I heard recently, and one of them being, my having been told that Dr. Thoma who’s a urologist at Mercy, is the one who purchased that chunk of land just across the highway from the hospital where Blackmore had their garden store for a number of years, so if you recently read about our City moving two or three houses to vacant lots, they’re the ones which are part of that parcel.

My gosh! I can’t believe how many doctors have been buying up real estate in our city since the pandemic arrived. Now if we were in a big city, most people wouldn’t know who those buyers were because they all put them in LLCs, but we all must remember, we live in a bloated village where gossip is considered a preferred pastime, and don’t even think we haven’t got some seasoned gossipers selling real estate. I’ll be interesting to hear what our good urologist has planned for that half-block of land. Perhaps he’s going to open his own clinic.

We also had a very good visit about David Funkhouser’s recent passing. There’s no question, he was a very kind person who likely did his very best for the many clients he served in his law practice. Unless a person is a true native of Mason City, they wouldn’t make any sort of connection between Dr. Lannon’s family and David Funkhouser, because most didn’t know that David’s wife is a daughter of Dr. Lannon. Both of their families were highly respected in North Iowa, but as we all know, people die and others move away. Truth be told, of all the attorneys who’ve come and gone, I’d say there’ve been only four whom I truly held in high esteem. Yes, it was a good chat with her today because by the time I we hung up, I was already ‘seeing’ David over at his law firm.

Being real estate appointment free, I changed into my work clothes and spent the rest of my morning and part of the afternoon working in my yard and garden. I must confess my having done a really stupid thing by not wearing that netting over my hat, and only because I didn’t think the gnats were out. Well they weren’t earlier this morning, but as the temps starting climbing, they were back at it, so now I have three bites above my right eye which created a noticeable swelling which I hope goes down soon, because if it doesn’t, I’ll have people taking second looks at me tomorrow.

Irregardless what anyone says, those larger black gnats are new to this area because I’ve never in my life had such a problem with them. You can be sure if they were an annual occurrence, I would’ve remembered the affects their bites have on me. I’m beginning to think I’m even more sensitive to them than fleas. After getting a good look at myself in the mirror, I had some wishful thinking regarding early hard frosts. Do you blame me?

I did manage to get six saplings planted which I’ve been nurturing, so if I can keep their soil saturated enough until the frost arrives, they should make it thru the winter. They happen to be three different varieties of willows which when they get big enough, will definitely create all the more diversity in my landscaping. I’ve never been a person who zeros in on one particular tree, because nearly every species has its pluses and minuses. Just the other day, someone mentioned how much they hate boxelder trees, but I know for a fact that if they’re trained to grow straight, along with keeping them trimmed up until they’re tall enough, a person could pass them off as a hard maple. Of course boxelders are related to maples, so there you are. For many years, I admired an ancient boxelder which was located on another’s land, but for whatever reason when they decided to build, they had it cut down, in spite of it being far and away for their ‘new build’. To each his own I guess.

I did manage to get the remainder of my bills paid, along with finishing up on August’s accounting, so I’m good to go for another month, and before heading home, I sat down at my piano and practiced hard and heavy for about forty-five minutes. It was all good.

Tonight’s One-liner is: After listening to your wicked gossiping, it’s given me all the more reason to not be perfect like you.

Joe Chodur

About the Author | Joe Chodur

First of all....Joe Chodur really doesn't like talking about himself but this is what we have found out about him. Joe Chodur began his real estate career in 1981 during the height of the savings and loan crisis. It's hard to imagine how difficult it was to sell homes when…

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