You Know They're Dead, Right Wilberforce?

May 14, 1974

Ha ha! Too much water! He's a fish! I'm guessing this fish was on a diet but that's meeting this comic more than halfway.

I was hoping beyond hope that I wouldn't have to talk about Memorial Day but here we are. Anyway, since we're in a cemetery and today's Google Doodle is boring, I'm going to bring up my idea for a Memorial Day Google Doodle. You control different people wandering around a sprawling national cemetery using clues to find your loved ones. Sure, you have section numbers and the cemetery claims plots are in alphabetical order but there's no rhyme or reason to anything. Good luck!

Brutus Had Wilberforce Do It

April 8, 1974

While Norman and, I'm going to call him George, stare at what they claim is a large aircraft, the fish to the right, who I will call Walter, is wondering why his friends are staring at a dead human. (Brutus' belly, arms, and legs will sink soon causing the body to rotate face down.)

Who knows how that happened? Older people are always hitting random buttons and messing up things on phones. It's, sadly, their lot in life.

Who Cares About Feelings? It's Just Rude

August 8, 1973

With all those fish heading toward that lure, you can be sure it's not Brutus at the other end of that fishing pole.

I try hard not to body-shame. Body-shaming, mocking people's looks are easy and it shows that you can't be creative and that should really be the road that Gladys tries to lead Hattie down but whatever. I guess she tried, maybe? I mean, not very hard but still.

Market Price

Wow! Those are some fresh scallops!

I've discussed this before here. Do I really want to eat something that was pulled out of Lake Erie? Thing is, I found a list of best places to eat scallops in Ohio and a lot of those places looked really good so maybe I do want to eat something that was pulled out of Lake Erie.

Tauy Creek Digest #9: Fish Sticks

"What is that smell?" Becky said as she walked into the house.

"I assume you're smelling my fish sticks," Nick answered from the kitchen.

"Ugh, it must be. Why do they smell so bad?"

"They smell amazing and you're just jealous."

"You must have a different definition of 'jealous'," she said. "And 'amazing'."

"I like fish sticks and I haven't had them in so long," Nick explained. "It's a little treat to myself."

"Greasy, baked skunk-smelling poisoned ocean-dwellers is a treat? You're just getting all the words wrong today," she said as she went upstairs.

The oven timer went off with a beep and Nick took the hot pad and pulled the fish sticks out. Nick let them sit a couple minutes then scooped them onto a plate and sat down to eat. Nick baked half of the box of fish sticks so he had roughly thirty fish sticks on his plate.

"They don't smell that bad," he said to himself. "Just like every other fish thing."

He began eating, one at time, finishing each stick with two bites. When Nick was a kid, he loved tartar sauce but since he's grown older, tartar sauce didn't taste good anymore and prefered to have his fish--whether fillet or stick--sans any type of sauce. He also used to like Golden Grahams, that cereal with cinnamon coated graham crackers, but for some reason he didn't like those anymore either.

Nick finished the fish sticks and rinsed the plate off in the sink and put it in the dishwasher. Becky came downstairs, in more comfortable clothes. "That smell just lingers doesn't?" she asked.

"If you don't get why I like fish sticks, then you don't get me. You don't get me," Nick said.

"Okay," Becky made a face. "I'm not a fan of fish. I can eat shrimp or lobster but I don't like fish."

"Well, I don't like shrimp or most shellfish so I guess that's why we are so compatible. We can eat the foods the other person doesn't want to."

"That is the stupidest reason for people to be together."

"You are very negative this afternoon," Nick said.

"It's probably the smell of the fish sticks. It's clouding any positive neuron receptors."

"Or you're just a bitch," Nick shrugged.

"That, too. What do you want for dinner?"

"Well, I still have half a box of fish sticks..."

"You need to stop."

Diversity of Riffle Community Fishes in Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas

Note: The following was written by James Hartman in 1995-96 as his Masters in Biology thesis at Emporia State University. Used with permission.

Pottawatomie Creek is a tributary of the Marais des Cygnes River. [It flows from about ten miles east of the Wolf Creek Nuclear Plant to the Marais des Cygnes just east of Osawatomie.] The study sites include eight riffle sites located on three tributaries and in the main channel. [The] Pottawatomie Creek watershed drains approximately 142, 074 ha (Pottawatomie Creek Watershed Joint District Number 90, 1972, General Plan, Anderson Co., Kansas, 38pp., unpublished) in Coffey, Anderson, Linn, Franklin, and Miami counties, Kansas. The area in which this study was conducted makes up more than half of the drainage of this watershed and was restricted to only Franklin and Anderson counties.

Map of study areas. Locations are approximate. For bigger image, click here.

The eight sampling sites were located in three topographically distinct regions of the Pottawatomie Creek watershed. Two sampling sites (SF1 and SF2) were located on South Fork Pottawatomie Creek (SF). The SF sub-watershed is characterized as predominantly hilly terrain draining woodland, pastureland, and some cropland. [The SF creek flows from about a mile and a half west of Selma to the main branch of Pottawatomie Creek just west of Greeley.] The Cedar Creek (CC) sub-watershed, also had two sampling sites (CC3 and CC4), was represented as somewhat hilly with relatively intermediate topographic relief in comparison with the SF sub-watershed, and drained woodland, pastureland, and a relatively substantial amount of cropland. [Cedar Creek flows from about a mile and a half southeast of Westphalia to the main branch of Pottawatomie Creek three miles north of Garnett. The Cedar Valley Reservoir was built in 1983 just south of Kansas Highway 31.]

Two additional sampling sites (NF5 and NF6) were located on the North Fork Pottawatomie Creek (NF), above the confluences of SF and CC. The NF sub-watershed is characterized as mostly flatland terrain, draining cropland and pastureland. [The North Fork Pottawatomie Creek flows from Osage County until joining with the main branch near the confluence with Cedar Creek.] The last two sampling sites (PC7 and PC8) were located downstream on Pottawatomie Creek (PC) before its confluence with the Marais des Cygne River. The PC sub-watershed is characterized as a broad floodplain containing predominantly cropland, with adjacent hills draining woodland and pastureland. Site PC7 is located between the confluences of CC and SF on the main channel of Pottawatomie Creek, and PC8 is located below the confluence of SF.

[The PC8 sample is located near Lane and is at the site of Dutch Henry's Crossing. In 1856, after hearing about the sack of Lawrence, John Brown selected a party to go on a private expedition. Late in the evening of May 24th, the party--consisting of Brown's sons Frederick, Owen, Salmon and Oliver, Thomas Weiner and James Townsley--called at the house of James P. Doyle and ordered him and his two adult sons, William and Drury to go with them as prisoners. Doyle's 16-year-old son, John, was spared after his mother, Mahalia pleaded for his life. The three men were escorted by their captors out into the darkness, where Owen Brown and one of his brothers killed them with broadswords. John Brown did not participate in the stabbing but fired a shot into the head of the fallen James Doyle to ensure he was dead.

Brown and his band then went to the house of Allen Wilkinson and ordered him out. He was killed by Henry Thompson and Theodore Winer. They then crossed the Pottawatomie and forced their way into the cabin of James Harris. Harris had John S. Wightman, Jerome Glanville, and William Sherman, the brother of Henry "Dutch Henry" Sherman, a militant pro-slavery activist. Glanville and Harris were taken outside and interrogated. Satisfied with their answers, Glanville and Harris were released while Sherman was taken to the creek and hacked to death. It was learned that "Dutch Henry" was the main target during this expedition but he was away. Brown and his party ended the expedition and returned to Osawatomie.]

Dutch Henry's Crossing, near Lane, Franklin County, Kansas.