You may have read the terrible story about the domesticated chimp that recently went berserk and severely mauled a woman in Stamford, Conn. It made me think about the chimp that was part of an entertainment show at the Blue Hen Mall a little more than a quarter century ago.
That’s when the Blue Hen, which opened in 1968, was Kent County’s prime place for shopping.
The chimp’s name was Zippy. He was a favorite of the lady who was the general manager of the Philadelphia company that owned the mall. For a while the chimp made frequent appearances. Regular shows of various kinds were part of the mall management’s publicity program.
Not only that, but when at the mall the chimp ate lunch with this visiting general manager, Rita Rodriguez, in the restaurant that was part of the Woolworth store. And because I was representing the Dover Post in handling advertising from the mall, I was invited to have lunch right along with the two of them.
We took a booth next to the restaurant’s big window, which meant shoppers strolling the mall’s concourse could look at us with some astonishment. Zippy was the only chimp in the restaurant, you see. It did tend to stop mall traffic for a few minutes.
Nothing ever happened to make much of a problem, although Zippy was sometimes a fussy eater. And he was small enough so that he didn’t pose a danger, although there was no doubt that he was very strong.
Can’t say that I wasn’t a little nervous for the duration of the lunch, though.
*****
A neighbor of ours near the St. Jones River in Dover has been bothered in recent years by deer prancing (they do prance, don’t they?) near her home. The bother is a real one. Donna Strimel has contracted Lyme disease several times and the deer ticks that fall off the animals get the blame for her illnesses.
So she has done something about it. Now when a deer, or anything else of some size, comes near her house, that presence turns on a motion-activated radio. The intent is to scare off the deer.
Besides that, she has had erected a seven-and-a-half foot tall, large-mesh fence along her driveway and connected to the regular fence behind her house which separates her property from the state’s Department of Transportation campus.
Has it worked? I asked her the other day and she gladly told me that in the past when it snowed her property was full of deer tracks. But not with this recent storm. No tracks. There were a couple of tears in the fence, however, likely because a deer or deer had tried unsuccessfully to break through.
When I go out before dawn to pick up my delivered newspaper, though, it is still a little strange to hear music suddenly bursting forth from the radio when I get within about 60 feet of it.
*****
In connection to the two items mentioned above, it is interesting that there are conflicting reports that the berserk chimp in Connecticut, and the man who this week shot and killed the pastor in Illinois, may have been suffering from Lyme disease.
*****
Gov. Jack Markell continues to tour the state with his message about the tall fiscal mountain that Delaware has to climb, as well reported by Doug Denison in last week’s Dover Post.
The governor’s appearance in the Kent County Levy Court chamber to outline the breadth and depth of the budget problem was his 37th frank money talk on his tour. He said then he still had 25 sessions to go.
When he is done and the state legislators consider the tough choices that have to be made there is going to be no opportunity for any of them to say: “Why didn’t someone tell us it was this bad?”
There is no ducking the cost cutting and revenue-raising issues and the new governor deserves credit for making that perfectly clear. Along with the legislators, citizens will have to recognize that definite steps have to be taken. Some of them undoubtedly will make many people unhappy.
The three Democratic members of the legislature who invited the governor to speak — Reps. E. Bradford Bennett and Darryl Scott, along with Sen. Brian J. Bushweller — also deserve credit for appearing with Markell.
*****
Talking about tax money, it should come as no surprise the federal stimulus money Delaware is getting has strings attached. It really wouldn’t be very responsible for Washington not to impose some directions about how the money is to be spent. Taking the money means giving up some freedom on a state’s part. How could it reasonably be otherwise?
The flap about all the “earmarks” in the multi-billion dollar bill now being debated in Congress also is understandable, given their highly political nature. After all, an earmark is a piece of legislation that slips through without going through the regular legislative process.
And it isn’t that all earmarks are bad. Many of them involve good and needed projects. What they mean, though, is that the member of Congress personally responsible for sponsoring such expenditures then can take individual political credit for making the projects happen.
You might say that an earmark is a down payment of a member’s candidacy in the next election.
*****
And then there was the pianist who finished his solo recital and when it was over a woman in the front row stood up and shouted: “Play in again! Play it again!”
Beaming, the pianist stepped forward and bowed to the lady.
Then she yelled: “Play it again until you get it right!”
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You may have read the terrible story about the domesticated chimp that recently went berserk and severely mauled a woman in Stamford, Conn. It made me think about the chimp that was part of an entertainment show at the Blue Hen Mall a little more than a quarter century ago.
That’s when the Blue Hen, which opened in 1968, was Kent County’s prime place for shopping.
The chimp’s name was Zippy. He was a favorite of the lady who was the general manager of the Philadelphia company that owned the mall. For a while the chimp made frequent appearances. Regular shows of various kinds were part of the mall management’s publicity program.
Not only that, but when at the mall the chimp ate lunch with this visiting general manager, Rita Rodriguez, in the restaurant that was part of the Woolworth store. And because I was representing the Dover Post in handling advertising from the mall, I was invited to have lunch right along with the two of them.
We took a booth next to the restaurant’s big window, which meant shoppers strolling the mall’s concourse could look at us with some astonishment. Zippy was the only chimp in the restaurant, you see. It did tend to stop mall traffic for a few minutes.
Nothing ever happened to make much of a problem, although Zippy was sometimes a fussy eater. And he was small enough so that he didn’t pose a danger, although there was no doubt that he was very strong.
Can’t say that I wasn’t a little nervous for the duration of the lunch, though.
*****
A neighbor of ours near the St. Jones River in Dover has been bothered in recent years by deer prancing (they do prance, don’t they?) near her home. The bother is a real one. Donna Strimel has contracted Lyme disease several times and the deer ticks that fall off the animals get the blame for her illnesses.
So she has done something about it. Now when a deer, or anything else of some size, comes near her house, that presence turns on a motion-activated radio. The intent is to scare off the deer.
Besides that, she has had erected a seven-and-a-half foot tall, large-mesh fence along her driveway and connected to the regular fence behind her house which separates her property from the state’s Department of Transportation campus.
Has it worked? I asked her the other day and she gladly told me that in the past when it snowed her property was full of deer tracks. But not with this recent storm. No tracks. There were a couple of tears in the fence, however, likely because a deer or deer had tried unsuccessfully to break through.
When I go out before dawn to pick up my delivered newspaper, though, it is still a little strange to hear music suddenly bursting forth from the radio when I get within about 60 feet of it.
*****
In connection to the two items mentioned above, it is interesting that there are conflicting reports that the berserk chimp in Connecticut, and the man who this week shot and killed the pastor in Illinois, may have been suffering from Lyme disease.
*****
Gov. Jack Markell continues to tour the state with his message about the tall fiscal mountain that Delaware has to climb, as well reported by Doug Denison in last week’s Dover Post.
The governor’s appearance in the Kent County Levy Court chamber to outline the breadth and depth of the budget problem was his 37th frank money talk on his tour. He said then he still had 25 sessions to go.
When he is done and the state legislators consider the tough choices that have to be made there is going to be no opportunity for any of them to say: “Why didn’t someone tell us it was this bad?”
There is no ducking the cost cutting and revenue-raising issues and the new governor deserves credit for making that perfectly clear. Along with the legislators, citizens will have to recognize that definite steps have to be taken. Some of them undoubtedly will make many people unhappy.
The three Democratic members of the legislature who invited the governor to speak — Reps. E. Bradford Bennett and Darryl Scott, along with Sen. Brian J. Bushweller — also deserve credit for appearing with Markell.
*****
Talking about tax money, it should come as no surprise the federal stimulus money Delaware is getting has strings attached. It really wouldn’t be very responsible for Washington not to impose some directions about how the money is to be spent. Taking the money means giving up some freedom on a state’s part. How could it reasonably be otherwise?
The flap about all the “earmarks” in the multi-billion dollar bill now being debated in Congress also is understandable, given their highly political nature. After all, an earmark is a piece of legislation that slips through without going through the regular legislative process.
And it isn’t that all earmarks are bad. Many of them involve good and needed projects. What they mean, though, is that the member of Congress personally responsible for sponsoring such expenditures then can take individual political credit for making the projects happen.
You might say that an earmark is a down payment of a member’s candidacy in the next election.
*****
And then there was the pianist who finished his solo recital and when it was over a woman in the front row stood up and shouted: “Play in again! Play it again!”
Beaming, the pianist stepped forward and bowed to the lady.
Then she yelled: “Play it again until you get it right!”
