Ballard Street by Jerry Van Amerongen for August 29, 2015

Horsey is gonna find himself in the trash bin in a minute.Poor Pieter, he doesn’t get any respect, he is Ballard’s Rodney Dangerfield.

I am SOOO gonna stay away from this one.

Mr. C is always with the Finknatters, which is awkward in the….more….uh… personal aspects of their marriage.

Mist Hosted a party last night for some of the more prominent citizens of Ballard, A good time was had…..

Mr. Horsey thinks he is still on the Midway at the Ballard County Fair. The Sheriff has warned them about shenanigans more than once.

“Horsey” is a funny name for a dog….. but then, this is Ballard St.

Liverlips… I was just going to say that he must have started his working puppet life as a carny..one of those guys who keeps pushing you to drop another dollar on the ring toss….

C’mon… c’mon… you can do it…OOOH!! So close… so close…

One more try… tell ya what, tell ya what…Just for you… five rings this time…ring a small prize and I’ll give you a bear…OK… one… Ow! So close!Two, three…. you almost had it… four… five…So sorry… so sorry…One more try…

Ends up $25 for a 3" bear they couldn’t sell at the dollar store….

One day he met a sucker on the Midway….

“What’s your name again…. oh, right….hey, you look like a nice guy, Pieter…”Tell ya what…. take me home with you.."

I could say that it was more like this guy.But everyone would know that i was lying.

The poor fella remembers his childhood at the carnival.He tried and tried to knock down those three bottles with one toss. The barker kept say the same thing over and over and over……..he lost his childhood that day…..and a fortune.For all he ever won was this hand puppet…..but he could never get it to say anything other than So Close Try Again which now became the mantra of his life.Now approaching the end the puppet simply mocks him.

Flip Wilson was a VERY funny man. Part of a great tradition of comics in drag; Milton Berle, who may have been the ugliest “woman” ever seen, Jonathan Winters & Maude Frickert, Jamie Foxx & Juwanna Mann.

Well, I’m still not getting any action from the internet, or anyone from Facebook. Im sure that part of the problem is that the word is not getting spread very far or wide.I have a tiny number of followers on fb, and anyone that stumbles across it by surfing GoFundMe is seeing the child with cancer, the hero that saved a life, the family that had a house bun down.Its hard to compete with those kinds of tragedies. Not that it should be considered a competition. I did send an email to the lady that i talked to at the newspaper, asking if they were still thinking about doing a story for me. I said, "Last month we had a conversation about the paper possibly doing a story about the problems that people in wheelchairs have with transportation, hopefully mentioning my GoFundMe campaign to acquire funding to purchase a van.I was wondering if you had done such a story, or if you are still thinking about doing a story.I’m not trying to jog your elbow or be pushy in any way here, i just would like to know if its still possible that a story may be done. Thank you.” I hope that i get a reply soon. I suppose that i should have sent the mail earlier. if you want to try to contact her and help put a little bug in her ear, her email address is, dvance@newportnewstimes.com.Her name is Diane Vance. Speaking to her was easy, she seems to be a nice person. On a different note, I have been doing some research into some of the smaller vans.I discovered that the older Ford Transit Connect’s are just barely too short. At the door, two inches too small. The interior height is exactly what my taller client is in his chair. If it was two inches taller at the door and in the cargo space, it would have worked. The Chevy Astro van is a full ten inches too short inside. It looks as thou i am going to have to acquire a full sized van if i want to do this on the cheap. some full sized vans are low enough that i could get away with a homemade ramp. and I’m sure that there is a van i haven’t seen yet that is not quite full sized, not quite mini that would be perfect. I just haven’t noticed it yet.Does anyone know what the headroom for an old VW mini bus is?

Did i chase everyone away?

BevWhere did you find the card with my personal mantra?

When i reported that the Ford Transit Connect was just a tiny bit too short, i may have been wrong.I re measured my tallest client and found that if i remove his headrest the chair will fit through the door. He in the chair is two or three inches under the height of the headliner in the van i measured.The next thing to do is to ask the boss to have the other caregivers of the other clients in wheelchairs to measure those peoples heights.I could then get a better idea if the little Ford will work for them.BTW, the reason that i want that little van is its size. What i want is something that i could not only afford to get sooner rather than later, but it is a lot more parking lot friendly than a full sized van.

A puppet who talks? Uh-oh.

Happy, I hope you get the van you want.

@ Mist Paul and Dennis have death wishes? Tell Paul to stay away from MRI’s too.