Boy oh boy, the excitement from our Bowl-to-swim-a-thon yesterday here in Lake WhaddyathinkImean is still thick as pudding and sweet as molasses. Everybody came out to Clarisse and Charlie Crumcatcher’s Balls-A-Flyin Bowlin Alley, just off Main Street on Willie Lane next to Hair-So-High beauty and toe-nail clipping parlor, don’tcha know.
Some folks came to watch and cheer fer the teams. Others were a-throwin’ balls, raising money fer something we need real bad here in Lake W … a community swimming pool!
That’s right. We got so many folks with Arthur-itis, new knee caps and hip problems and no place to exercise them in the winter, don’tcha know. And we all know how good swimming is fer that.
Why we don’t even have an indoor mall where folks can walk about in. And the roads are just too icy to be driving an hour away to go swimming in some other community’s swimming pool or to go walk in some strange mall, don’tcha know.
And that’s not all. We also have too many kids who don’t know how to swim. That’s right. And we need to, living next to the biggest lake in the county. Plus, it’s just a good healthy way to spend time with family and friends.
So our Lake WhaddyathinkImean Balls-a-flyin Fun Raiser was just the right way to get us closer to getting that pool.
Now I could tell that Beanpole Starkman was there before I even set foot in the place, cause his Tiger Moth bi-plane was parked right next to Officer Stanley Penelope McBottom’s police cruiser.
Even Bogart was there to roll some balls for the cause. After all, he’s not just a furry face, don’tcha know.
All told, we had us 4 teams with 6 players on each. We called our team, the Missfits. Kinda revolusionary like teenagers.
Vilma Yuccch tie-dyed her hair for the occasion…pink and green and purple. Officer Stanley McBottom wore a bowling shirt he got at the Sally Ann with somebody else’s name on it. Folks kept calling him Burt all day long.
Burt! Wow, a strike!…or Burt! Get yer Dr. Pepper out of my poutine!
Twindle Mumbly kept tripping over the glow-in-the-dark shoe laces on his rented bowling shoes… and I think the ghost that’s living in his bungalow came to the bowling alley with him, cause every time he rolled a ball, it went right between the pins. Every time! Poor Twindle got so fluster-ated he threw himself down the alley and knocked down all 5 pins with his head!
Well, when Bogart saw that he growled so loud it set the disco ball a-turning and the confetti buckets to rain down from the ceiling all over the mini-cupkakes Clarisse and Charlie Crumcatcher were passing out.
The kids went crazy, screaming with laughter, and that’s when it broke out into a FUN raiser and everybody just started dancing.
Sybil Beaucannon Hughes set herself on the laps of every buffed volunteer firefighter there and then locked lips with her favorite resident, Neville … her husband of forty-seven years.
Balls-a-flyin’, friends a-laughin’…confetti, sticky cupcake frosting fingers, poutine, soda pops, raffle tickets, donated prizes…and in the end we raised $3,500 dollars more than we had before we started.
We just may get that swimming pool yet!
Nightie night. Maybelle
Comedy: Maybelle's Fireside Stories 