When I stopped at Bud’s Harold was sitting in his usual place at the bar, nursing a beer. Bud’s Geauga Corners is that old white clapboard tavern at a crossroads out at the eastern edge of Geauga County.
Harold looked up and said, “Dave, have I got a story to tell you.”
I sat down on the barstool next to Harold and he started right in.
“Dave, the other day I was over on the west side of the county. I had a doctor’s appointment all the way over at that hospital.” Just about that time Bud came out of the back room with a case of beer to put into the cooler. Bud didn’t miss a beat. He said, “Going to see your psychiatrist again eh?” Harold ignored him and continued his story. “When I got done with the doctor I started heading home, but I was kind of hungry so I stopped at a little restaurant. It was still early enough so I decided to have breakfast. I sat down at a booth and the waitress came over and put a placemat and some silverware down in front of me. It was one of those paper placemats that have advertising all over it.”
“Dave, you’re not gonna believe it, but there was a picture of that judge right there in the top corner of that placemat. It was right next to an ad for trash hauling and above a guy advertising a septic sucking service.”
“That probably wasn’t the best ad placement,” I opined.”
“Dave, those ads cost money, right,” Harold asked?
“Yes, they do,” I said.
“Taxpayers have to pay for his ads, right?”
“Yes” I replied.
Harold said “Boy, if people knew that they were paying for these ads they would be pretty mad at him for wasting money.”
Harold was getting pretty wound up so I decided to change the subject a bit.
“Well Harold, did you get some breakfast?”
“Yes, I did. I had my favorite, fried eggs sunny side up.”
“Dave, as I was eating my breakfast the strangest thing kept happening. I kept hearing a paper tearing sound. I looked around me and saw that people all over the restaurant were tearing that judge’s picture off the corner of the placemat. Then they were wadding it up.”
“When the waitress came back I asked her about tearing the corner off the placements. She said that people had been doing that for weeks now.”
Then Harold reached into his shirt pocket. He took out a folded-up paper placemat that he had saved from the restaurant. He carefully unfolded it and laid it flat on the bar. Sure enough, there was a picture of that judge.
Now Harold wasn’t the tidiest eater you’ve ever met. Some of those sunny side up eggs had dribbled onto the placemat. In fact, they had dribbled right onto that judge’s face. Harold said, “I’m sorry Dave. I’m just a little sloppy when I eat.” I looked at the picture for a few moments then said “Harold I wouldn’t really worry about it, he’s had a lot of egg on his face lately.”
The opinions expressed are solely those of Dave Partington and of course Bud, Randy, Harold, Larry and the rest of the guys sitting at the bar at Bud’s. Bud’s Geauga Corners is a work of fiction. Bud’s Geauga Corners is paid for solely by Dave Partington.
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