Dear readers,
It’s summertime and the living is allegedly easy.
If, like Daisy Buchanan, you always wait for the longest day of the year only to miss it, well, you missed it. It was Saturday. Better luck next year, old sport.
Meanwhile, the druids and pagans gathered at Stonehenge for their annual summer solstice shindig, swirling around the stones like tie-dye philosophers in sandals. This year, summer officially stretches from June 20 to Sept. 22.
Let’s be honest: you can’t expect me to write an awesome column about The Helbing every week during the summer. It’s hot. My brain is marinating in iced tea. Besides, I’m still recovering from the Juneteenth celebration in Sunset Park yesterday.
So, as any hardworking columnist does when inspiration wilts, let’s reach into the ol’ mailbag.
Dear Kris,
I don’t know what your private inbox looks like, but on Facebook, every time you mention The Helbing, the negative comments outnumber the positive ones roughly 1,000 to 1.
Do you ever feel like the Maytag repairman, loneliest man in town?
Now that The Helbing has been moved (may it find happiness in Blue River Memorial Park), perhaps we can finally install something traditional in that bare concrete circle on Harrison Street. Something welcoming. Something meaningful. Something that doesn’t resemble a spaceship crash site.
Sincerely, Long-time reader, first-time writer.
Dear first-time writer,
You should definitely write more. You’ve got spunk and excellent punctuation. And as fate would have it, I think the next first-time writer has an idea that might just tickle your civic fancy.
Dear Kris,
Years ago, you published a photo of a bronze statue that looked eerily like you. One of your loyal readers stumbled across it while lost in a foreign land and was stunned by the resemblance. It could’ve been a statue of a long-lost twin. Who’s to say?
If you can find that statue again, maybe the artist still has the mold and could cast another. It would be perfect for the now-vacant concrete circle formerly graced (or cursed, depending on who you ask) by The Helbing.
We’d just need to slap a big ol’ sign under it: “Welcome to Shelbyville: Next Door, Next Level.”
Sincerely, Long-time reader, first-time writer.
Dear second first-time writer this week,
I found the photo. And you’re right. It’s uncanny how much this statue resembles me. If only it wore a bow tie and had slightly more self-awareness. Today’s photo imagines how it would look welcoming folks to town.
On a more serious note, I’ve received numerous suggestions about what should replace The Helbing in its old stomping grounds on Harrison Street.
The front-runner?
A statue of Sandy Allen. As the tallest woman in the world, she quite literally put our town on the map and like our new motto Sandy was definitely “next level.”
See you all next week, same Schwinn time, same Schwinn channel.
