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Standin' On a Corner in Winslow, Arizona Park Another amazing Box O' Items arrived today from Jean H. of Petaluma, California. I knew something from that box would be this week's item. Many items qualified, but the winner was this pamphlet and the project it represents. It seems that the city of Winslow, Arizona, perhaps bitter at having been left out of Bobby Troupe's song "Route 66" (though the barely-existent Winona rates a place in the song -- probably only because Winona rhymes with Arizona), has built a park in honor of one line from a tepid 70s song written by Jackson Browne and made famous by the Ughles Eagles. I am speaking -- reluctantly -- of the following line from "Take It Easy": Well, I'm-a standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona Heard it? At the risk of getting this abomination stuck in your head for the rest of the day, here is the line in context: Well, I'm-a standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona / Such a fine sight to see / It's a girl, my lord / In a flatbed Ford / Slowin' down to take a look at me.
Comments Jean: A mural of the girl my lord in the flatbed Ford. I thought they should have the song playing from speakers outside to really milk it but that would probably drive the nearby business owners nuts and they would be singing, "I'm blowin' up the corner in Winslow, Arizona / Such a fine sight to see / It was the song, my lord / I couldn't stand another chord / Slowly driving me to insanity." Since you mention insanity, Jean, I'll mention that the Standin' on a Corner in Winslow, Arizona Park sells commemorative bricks that they'll inscribe with a message of your choice and install as part of the park sidewalk. A $50 donation buys you a 4"x8" brick with 3 lines of text. For $100, you get an 8" x 8" brick and 6 lines, and $250 gets you a 12" x 12" brick with 10 lines. I wondered whether, for the requisite $50 donation, they might allow me a three-line brick with a haiku expressing an alternate viewpoint: Bricks The Eagles sucked bad Dumb idea for a park deuceofclubs.com What the hell, maybe I'd get some angry e-mails out of it. Sadly, however, Winslow is not haiku-friendly: they allow only fifteen characters per line -- including punctuation! How am I supposed to get seven syllables out of fifteen characters and still make a comment about the park? And so my haiku became: EAGLES WERE SUCKY DUMB IDEA 4 A PARK DEUCEOFCLUBS COM (All the letters on the bricks are upper-case. And I'll have to add the dot [in .com] in person. But this is assuming that they accept my donation. Results will be posted here in due course.) Got a message for the Standin' On a Corner in Winslow, Arizona Park? Buy your own message on a brick. So, when do we get the Hotel California Park? And where would it be? And could we send the Eagles there, never to leave -- or reunite -- again?
(From Jean H.)