Apologies

[excerpted from original kolumn - date approximate]

Some of you may recall (though I doubt it) that I spent most of my last missive whining on about how much I hated the designation “Fall for Orleans” and how whoever had the idea should be strung up immediately and on and on as usual. Of course I offered not a single constructive alternative suggestion (though I have since -well after the fact, of course- come up with the almost equally brilliant “Ottumn On Orleans”); I was much more interested in victimizing whatever hapless, civic-minded individual had gone to the trouble of inventing the original term.

Gosh, was I surprised to discover that the originator of said catchy slogan was none other than my wife’s (the exceptionally hard-working, dependable, always right there when you need her Mrs. Kelp’s) boss down at the plastics factory. On further review I have decided that I actually liked the whole gist of the campaign quite a bit, once I truly understood it and had time to appreciate all of the many subtleties and nuances involved therein. I don’t know what made me fly off the handle like that. Any person who could come up with an excellent idea like that is clearly more than qualified to own his own plastics company, and probably manufactures really excellent plastic items.

While we’re on the subject of personal catastrophes, I’d like to say that Kelp Manor has never been cleaner, shinier, and less fragrant than it is this week following the visit of my parents, the highly regarded Buddy “Hey Rah” Kelp Sr. and wife Froony. The elder Kelps may be getting on in years, but they seem only to have sharpened Froony’s cobra-like sense of smell, a capacity which strikes terror in the hearts of all good pet bearing families like ourselves. It was wonderful to see them, but it’s probably lucky that we only schedule these collisions once every five years or so as they are particularly hard on my lovely bride, who so dislikes having to hide (not to mention tranquilize) most of the cats and some of the larger, more unruly canines in the basement during these family frolics.

Fall for Orleans

[excerpted from original kolumn - date approximate]

There I was, gracefully not writing my column, not even really all that annoyed at anything, when I discovered the existence of the (then-impending, now thankfully just another bitter regret) “Fall For Orleans” weekend.

I’ll come right to the point: it’s a dumb name for a weekend.

The whole idea of naming weekends is dumb, but even if it was a really good idea, “Fall For Orleans” would still stand out as a particularly dumb name for one.

It just doesn’t have the zip of any of the great local names for brief periods of time from the past, such as Eastham’s “Windmill Weekend” or Harwich’s “Cranberry whatever-it-was”, and I feel strongly that the person that named it that should be sent to labor camp over the bridge somewhere or should at least not be allowed to name things any more. They should hear a discouraging word and soon.