Some thoughts for pondering

Jim Fall

I was driving down South Main Street the other day, headed south in the through-traffic lane from the infamous South Avenue intersection, when a couple of thoughts popped into my head.

In defense of my thought process not being totally disjointed, there is some relation between my wandering wonderings.

First, I was wondering why Maryville still has that tangled overhead mass of utility lines, somewhat like I have seen spew from my bait-casting reel on more than one occasion, when much of the civilized world has taken all that mess and planted it underground.

When that is done, it seems to sprout several good results, like less damage and fewer power outages during ice storms.

There are fewer power poles to be hit by drivers.

Another reason — certainly not last, and far from being least — esthetics.

Just try to imagine how much more pleasant it would be to drive through Maryville, from Kawasaki to Doc Powell’s veterinary clinic, from the Highway 71 Bypass to Country Club/Icon Road, without all that overhead antagonism.

Such an improvement would come at some expense to KCPL, but I submit there are ways to work through that circumstance as well.

Without going into how much the utility receives from this community in electrical rates, look at the cooperative efforts exhibited by the City of Maryville and Northwest Missouri State University in financing the greatly appreciated Fourth Street Corridor.

What a shame those overhead lines could not have been put underground when the street was torn up to replace much of the area’s utility infrastructure

Just something to ponder, I suppose.

What jump-started that thought process was seeing several pedestrians tentatively making their way along South Main.

That, and the old Stephen Wright (I think) one-liner — “There are two kinds of pedestrians: the quick and the dead.” (Think about it.)

Which, for some reason, got me to considering how I’ve tried to change my eating habits. After mulling that, though, I have decided I am not going to eat as many natural foods as I have been recently.

I just read that most people die of natural causes.

Some other considerations when you have nothing better to do, try to wrap your head around some of these ponderances:

How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a blowtorch to start a campfire?

Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, ‘I think I’ll squeeze these dangly things and drink whatever comes out?’

If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, what is baby oil made from?

Does pushing the elevator button more than once make it arrive faster?

In case you never thought about it in exactly this context, “The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.”

A word to the wise: “Whenever you feel blue, start breathing again.”

Most of us could take a lesson from the weather, “It pays no attention to criticism.”

In case you are wondering, several of those quotes are from Wright, the originator of many such sayings.

I have never laughed so hard as I did seeing him perform at Northwest during an earlier life in Maryville. The master of deadpan.

“Why doesn’t glue stick to the inside of the bottle,” he would ask, without the slightest show of emotion.

Some other Wright-isms I remember:

“OK, so what’s the speed of dark?

“How do you tell when you’re out of invisible ink?

“Everyone has a photographic memory. Some just don’t have film.

“I intend to live forever — so far, so good.

“Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?

“If at first you don’t succeed, then skydiving definitely isn’t for you.

“A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.”

“Borrow money from pessimists — they don’t expect it back.”

Other of my personal favorites:

“Half the people you know are below average.”

“42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.”

“99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.”

And his classic, “What do you add to powdered water?”