jpj stories

Houses and Stinkfish, Number 1

This is the first of what I hope will be a series of posts about my walking career.

I live in Lansing's Westside Neighborhood. It is filled with big trees and older homes. It is really a lovely neighborhood. I have decided I should walk in my neighborhood more. I bought a fitness watch/thing to track my steps. Because, here in the 21st century, unless it is digitally tracked and recorded and charted, it doesn't really exist does it? This space is another area where such activities can be digitally tracked and recorded and charted. That is what this is about.

My goal is to post a picture of an interesting house in my neighborhood and an interesting stinkfish. What is stinkfish? I'll tell you in a minute. First, a house: stinkfish2

Here's the house. Not only am I a below-average photographer, but I also know nothing about architecture. So, I can't tell you anything about this house except I think it is "kinda cool looking." I especially like the "Wherefore art thou, Romeo?" balcony on the side. If you become a regular reader of these entries, you can look forward to insightful commentary on my neighborhood just like that.

Now the stinkfish. You've all seen the stamps the contractor puts in a sidewalk square telling you the company that installed the sidewalk. They are called "sidewalk contractor stamps." This is the kind of creative thinking we can expect from dedicated city employees.

When I was a wee child, we had a better name for them: "stinkfish." And stinkfish were to be avoided at all costs for it was well known that stepping on the sidewalk square with a stinkfish was to face serious consequences. Now, this all happened 50+ years ago and I no longer remember the penalty for stepping on a stinkfish square. Breaking your mother's back ala stepping on a crack? A punch on the arm? Being called "Stinky" until someone else stepped on a stinkfish and took on the burden of that epithet? The penalty, alas, is lost in the mists of time. I asked my sister, nearly the same age as me and grew up in the same neighborhood but she had no memory of "stinkfish" at all. She and her friends obviously ignored the many, many perils found on the sidewalks of our neighborhood.

Now as a more-than-mature adult I no longer fear the sinkfish, obviously. I step on them with what we once called gay abandon! And I smell fine, thank you! But sinkfish sidewalk contractor stamps have a special place in my heart. For example: stinkfish1

There are a lot of 1979 stamps. The rip-roaring Jimmy Carter economy must have meant the city was flush with cash. 1979 is best remembered, of course, as the year I graduated high school. Other, less important events include:

The name of the bald actress in ST: TMP was Persis Khambatta. That I will remember until my dying day. The penalty for treading on a stinkfish? Not so much.