Partly Nonsense

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN BY JOEL KLAASSEN
The Hillsboro Historical Society and Museum Board put on quite a show this past Thursday evening at their annual meeting and fund-raiser.



We saw the impressive new Hillsboro promotional video created by Orley Friesen. I sat just two feet away from Lonn and Bev Richards, who put on a great musical show.



I?ve always been amazed at Lonn?s talent with the clarinet. I didn?t know opera could be played on the clarinet, but he did.



Then he played a great rendition of ?Stardust? and ended with the ?disappearing clarinet? number. This little ditty starts with him playing a tune using the whole clarinet. As the song progresses, he removes pieces of the instrument. The song ends with him playing with just the mouthpiece?and he never misses a note in the process.



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With springtime here, it?s time to think of projects to do around the house, both inside and out. That?s why we?re bringing you our Spring Fix-up and Home Improvement Section this week. It?s full of places to go for the things you need.



About nine years ago, I added eight feet to the front of our garage and put on a real garage door. This meant tearing off the old hip roof and putting on a new gable-style model.



To me, the most remarkable feat of the whole project was that I built 15 truss rafters by myself. I first made a jig, then started cutting the pieces at 5 p.m. one Friday night and finished about 3 the next morning. I worked into the night so I could put up the new roof on Saturday before it rained on the stuff in the garage that was exposed to the weather once the old roof was gone.



You guessed it. It rained all day Saturday.



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What does ?go fly a kite? mean to you? I?ve always liked the idea of flying kites.



When I was an eighth grader, I got the idea that I would build a gigantic kite that would have enough lift to hang a flashlight on the tail. Then I thought I?d go out to the edge of town and fly it over the city at night to make people think it was a UFO.



I glued together a lot of grocery sacks, then put them on a hand-made kite frame that was about six feet tall. The excitement was really building at this point. When I got to the edge of town?actually, I was already on the edge of town since we lived there?everything was ready to go. I took off running to get the thing airborne. It went up about 30 feet and came crashing down, smashing the flashlight and Hillsboro?s first UFO.



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While I was in the barber chair Saturday, Randy Wiens and I began discussing things like we always do. We got on the subject of the Internet and came to the immediate conclusion that you?ll never be able to get a haircut on the Internet.



We also figured out recently that I?ve probably had about 180 haircuts since Randy came to town 18 years ago. And I?ve never had a haircut anywhere else since he got here!



While you?ll never get a haircut on the Internet, you may be making your appointment there someday.



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Have you ever seen a toad on a toadstool?



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One in six people get the long census form. I got one. It says it takes 38 minutes to fill it out. Did mine in 10!



I thought the most curious question was ?When do you go to work?? The answer for me could be just about any hour of the day, so I just picked one.

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