WAUKESHA SEWER RACCOON NEWS: Gingko trees; Raccoon behavior; Jazz for cows; Then and NOW; You want camping?; Buffaloed; On the run

South Street Gingko trees

are budding

to become this: (last year)

^,^

Reported Raccoon Behavior:

While the City Sleeps

Waukeshans complacently enjoy their town-grown-to-city

With it’s well-policed, clean, safe streets

And the cerulean blue skies overhead;

Or when it rains

The rain washing everything anew and flowing

If heavy

Away like dirty bathwater down the drain

Out of sight, out of mind; oh yes,

We think of everything and take for granted

That the solid terra-firma plane on which we work and play

IS as storybooked as it appears

And that the SKY overhead here is relatively terrorless

That covers two of the three physical dimensions

But we never think about the seething subterranean world

Beneath the city where that dirty bathwater flows

Unless we happen to be with the Sanitation Department

And as far as I know, they aren’t talking;

My friends, we co-exist over a nether-world

About which we never think

And the Sewer Raccoons down there - that’s right - count on our ignorance;

Their profligacy festers beneath us

Growing daily, like whiskers becoming a dread-locked beard

But we don’t know it because we trust in our local government

And in what we see

The coons, woe to us! phantoms of this opera are

Just a few feet beneath Waukesha in archen coves and caverns

Until nightfall when every storm grate at every corner

Becomes an open doorway into our elysian yards and gardens;

Marauders on velvet paws which they keep licking, masked,

They steal about under cover of nocturnal shadows, late,

When the windows of our proud houses show black;

It’s then the Sewer Coons take over the town; by day,

These slick creatures have free rein in their underworld

Bartering our garden produce in little shops and bazaars

In their sub-city

Where they swarm and reproduce like rabbits;

They have their own school district where all the little coons

Study burglary and ankle-nipping;

So far they are content with their lowly position, hence,

The Sanitation Department, the Mayor and the Aldermen

Only monitor them and do not tell us of their spreading presence.

An Amos or a Paul Revere I send this warning

For I live nearer the Fox River in one of the town’s ruder huts

And the Sewer Coons are, though proliferating

Concentrated only in our poorer neighborhoods at the present time;

By the railroad tracks and the Fox River waterway,

But the storm sewer web is beneath us all, free and accessible

And even now no one is completely safe

I have again lately seen the coons emerge from the grate at our corner

As has my wife; we know the desolation

Of having our grapes stolen from our vines;

We’ve actually heard the coons’ little “chick-chick-chick” sounds;

Close-up, we’ve seen the phosphorescent reflection of their eyes

In our flashlight beams; they run, are not brazen yet – oh, no -

Carrying little bindles over their hump-ed shoulders

And making their dash back to their grated holes,

Furred hit-and-run warriors, in place,

Waiting for their messiah to come, perhaps from Milwaukee or Chicago

The Really Big Coon, to marshal them into an invading army,

Meanwhile waxing stronger in secret on Dix grapes and sacked left-overs;

And sometimes I think I can hear muffled “tink”s

As they pound on their tiny anvils under Arcadian Avenue

Making suits of armor on foot-pumped forges; flaring

Light seems to flash from the gratings after the clock has struck twelve

And I go out and listen at my corner sewer entrance

And hear their deep “YO-OH, HO HO!” chants

Echoing softly up from below;

The Sewer Raccoons are coming, the Sewer Raccoons are coming
!

[David Dix 9-19-2002]

^,^

When the saints...

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/lXKDu6cdXLI?rel=0

Yes, we know this is an oldie

but so is the fellow 1954 WHS classmate

who sent it to us.

Thanks again!

^,^

Dee when I met her in 1982

and

4-28-2015

^,^

As people now get ready for church camping

it was like this in 1972:

(Archival: 1972)

Many are called, Few are eaten

An entourage on four wheels waited

In line at the Yellowstone park entrance

For the ranger with his clipboard who

Spoke grimly to the would-be campers

In their tinned vehicles with lawn chairs

And bicycles lashed to the sides

In many ways we weren’t like them:

We were traveling light, the only way to go

We had a VW beetle with a pop-up

Canvas tent on top and two ten speeds

On a rack over the rear bumper

The back seat of the car was out

To make room for our six month vacation

Gear and space for Sally the Siamese cat

A mere speck we offered on that canvas

Of seriously-traveling metal units

Lined up to be admitted into

The nirvanic national treasure, Yellowstone

The Ranger had something serious to tell

All entering vehicle’s occupants

Something that caused most of the

Drivers to do U-turns and head out

With expressions of chagrine

Was the park closed?

We finally reached the number two position

At the Ranger’s shack and I got out

To hear what he was telling the vacationers

Ahead of us:

“Enter at your own risk!

A grizzly bear had dispatched a woman

The night before by performing “A howlingly

hungry, hurried historectomy,

Hideously, horrifically, Honestly!”

Proclaimed the harried Ranger, who

Seemed taken with the letter H

That explained the U turns out of the park

But the man driving the camper ahead of us

Wondered if they wouldn’t be safe

In their mighty Winnebago

The Ranger stuck his fingernail behind

The camper’s door edge and said

“You see this? This is a grizzly claw

behind your door. He’ll peel it back with

no more effort than it takes to open

a can of sardines!”

“Oh,” said the man, and he did a Yooey

While his wife said, “And, you know I’m…”

But after hearing our own private warning

From the hellacious Ranger, we said

“We’re going in! Lower the drawbridge

As we are the Dixes!”

This was in August of 1972, and the Ranger

Didn’t know I had a break-down .22 Browning

Semi-automatic rifle but if he had known

He would have said, “Those little bullets

Will bounce right off a grizzly; no disrespect,

But you’re a fool!”

So we signed a warning acknowledgement

And deep within a thickly wooded campground

Found a secluded site

And spent

A~ very~watchful~ night

Encanvassed atop our car

With me hoping I could shoot a bear

Exactly in the eye

[David Zep Dix

The fact that I am telling this in 2015
means we survived, saw no bears, left early in AM
Fear not, Devils Lake WI has no known grizzlies]

I can't wait...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdlyi5mckg0

^,^

Re:Buffalo poem from last week
daughter Laurie in Alaska sent this after reading the Raccoon:

http://www.adn.com/video/video-wood-bison-released-southwest-alaska