The 2nd smallest town in the State woke up on Sunday, June 20th, (now known forever in these parts as 'the day after!') desperately grappling for a municipal direction and focus now that their 100-year festival is behind them and the park is all cleaned up. The festival, an event that was by all accounts a huge success (although the parade was somewhat of a confused mess given that we could not manage to get an announcer to call out the 6-10 vehicles that we did have - although this was not the fault of the parade organizer - just the typical Lamont! How do you think we managed to become the 2nd smallest town in the State, anyway? It's not by chance, let me assure you!) - and factoring in that we had a quite large (for us!) and seemingly happy crowd, the food was very good and the band was in fact excellent - even with all of that, when you are a town so small that nothing ever really happens - it can be hard to wake up to yourself sometimes if there isn't some future goal to focus upon and devote one's energies towards. "Oh crud... What in tarnation do we do now?" said the spiritless mayor with his now seemingly permanent 'hound dog' expression. "I mean, for the last 6 months we had a goal, a dream, a focus - yes, even a reason for existence - but now what in the heck are we supposed to do? Sure, we have to build a library and all of that - oh yeah, and we always have sabotaging (or at least severely undermining) that doggone Long Beach to fall back upon, but somehow it just seems that the cattle manure scented wind has been removed from our sails and we are left adrift in a seemingly endless sea of our own insignificance!" he whined annoyingly. (Editorial Note: Oh, you should have seen the outrageous 'birthday card' that that doggone Long Beach sent Lamont! Oh, it was so awesome... (it really was great! Gayle Borchard is worth her planning weight in GOLD! We need someone like her!) It was about 30 feet long (on butcher paper!) and filled with great drawings and expressions and was just something special. We hung (or is the proper term 'hanged'?) it in the Community Center for our estimated 200 guests to gawk at and enjoy. (and there were pictures for the ones who cannot read!) Long Beach - a vacation wonderland that sports the longest beach in the world (and a nice one, too!) I guess sends out the world's longest birthday cards - and it sure was nice. Sadly, when we get off of our lazy duffs and actually send a card, Lamont tends to get nasty notes from the US Postal Service because our cards are just slightly bigger than a good sized postage stamp, given that we are the 2nd smallest town in the state and all... (why put on airs, for Pete's sake?) I guess our pampered postal employees can't read our necessarily small print or whatever! Two words: magnifying glass!!!! Hello!!! Darn governmental types!!!) Anyway...
Well, Lamont was treated to a large group of those rascals from over there in Rockford (you know, those fancy-pants people with their own fairgrounds and all!) and Micki Harnois even belted out a few tunes with the band! What a voice! Sadly, when people realized a real mayor was in town everyone flocked to her for guidance, common sense, and basic justice - so our 'so-called' mayor had plenty of time to mingle with the locals who don't like him very much! (Yes, Darlene LaShaw, the renowned Rockford Clerk/Treasurer was in attendance, too - although she declined to work a couple of 'pro-bono' hours in the office for some darn reason! Oh yeah, and we got a really cool pin and a coffee cup from some very nice people from Selah and two of the nicest folks from Electric City (Jackie Perman, the Clerk/Treasurer, and her quite excellent and funny husband!) drove all the way down to Lamont just to see if it was really as forlorn, isolated and painfully backward as advertised!!! Fortunately for us, we didn't send them home disappointed! We even had horse droppings in the road from the parade - but just acted like that was an everyday thing! (And did you know that Electric City is actually a city and not a town? They are the City of Electric City! Lamont is barely a town - more like some ill-conceived hamlet or whatever and Electric City gets the designation 'City' in their name twice? Oh yeah, life is fair!! What show-offs! How unfair is that!!! Like one special kid that the parents actually love gets a double scoop of ice cream for dessert and the other 'dysfunctional, population-challenged, unloved kid' gets Brussels sprouts! Oh, like we as a town aren't used to that sort of thing by now!) So yes, it was the best birthday celebration Lamont ever had and we are thankful for everyone who came. Of course we are saddened by some people who could not come but wanted to - but that blow is softened by the thought of some people who could have easily come but didn't! (The Good Lord does indeed love and watch out for Lamont!!) So all in all, it was the best of all possible days - at least for us, that is. But don't ask me - ask someone who came to the dern thing like those fine folks from that fancy-pants Electric City! They seemed like straight shooting, honest folks!!! I wonder if there is any way to bribe them into moving to Lamont?? Oh, nicer people you will never find! We loved them!!!)
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