I'm not "dowsing." I know it looks like I'm trying to find water with a willow stick, but I am actually engaged in combat against a conspiracy of arachnids.
Recently spiders have conspired to string their webs between trees along every path I take. On the way to the garden for a tomato, heading to the outhouse for some light reading and on the path to the chicken house, invisible webs are strung about head-high.
I'm convinced this is no coincidence. If I pass and become entangled, you can be sure that when I return five minutes later, they'll get me again.
They seem to like watching portly, balding fellows dance around, brushing frantically at their faces, shuddering with the knowledge that black widows and tarantulas are all over them. To spiders, whose senses of humor are a little primitive, that's funny as all get-out.
I can hear them (and maybe I'm imagining this part) chortling in glee as I spit webs out of my mouth and wipe them off my glasses for the 30th time that day.
My solution is to walk softly and carry a big stick, which I wave before my face as I walk around our little place in the woods.
Should I accidentally find water while I'm doing so, that'll just be an added bonus. My sticks are all oak and hickory, however, so I'm not confident that will happen.
I dislike spiders. I didn't even like Charlotte in Charlotte's Web. She seemed like a know-it-all. She never would have gotten anywhere without Templeton doing all the work.
Somebody ought to rewrite that book from the rat's point of view.
***
I recently misspelled the name "Jackson" as "Smith" in an article in The Daily Record. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. It was a misspelling - not encroaching old age - that resulted in the mistake.
Apologies to associate judge candidate Steve Jackson.
It's not my fault all these candidates' names are so hard to spell.
Compared to the state and national races, however, Laclede County's candidates are a piece of cake. In one race we have a Prapotnik running against a Vontz, a Laszacs and a Purgason.
It's just not fair to the voters.
I'm going to ask if I can write in "Steve Smith" in that race and see if they know I mean Mr. Jackson.
My favorite candidate's name in Tuesday's election is Icet. It's pronounced "ice it," but I always read it to myself as "ice T." That's just really cool somehow.
I suppose I should urge everyone to get out and vote, but I personally think people who can't even spell the candidates' names shouldn't be allowed to.
Except for me, I mean.
Ken York's column appears in The Daily Record, Lebanon, Mo. It is reprinted here with permission.
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