Shoe by Gary Brookins and Susie MacNelly for August 15, 2009

What a bunch of Bill-oney.

A rather bill-ous jest.

I gues the rest were just small bills? Or were they BIG bills?

Small ones. The big ones are too hard to carry.

In riding my bike 7 miles each way to work over the last 5 years, I’ve collected an average of of 1¢ every 3 miles from the streets and sidewalks. That’s 5¢ a day. The biggest denomination so far was a $1 bill. Hey, a positive cash flow, however tiny, is better than a negative one.

Stuart - people wonder why I’m ALWAYS looking down … I’ve found $5 several times, and $100 once… the $100 was ripped in half, but I took it to a bank, and changed the mighty Brown Bill for 5 Green Bills.

Stuart – I’d say you are getting payed for exercising , that’s way cool .

I lived in an interior Alaskan hamlet of 400 souls . 200 Indian mostly Athabaskan & 200 every body else mostly Caucasian . 3 parking lots of snow 6 months a year . The one country story , US Post office & the local watering hole . That snow is pushed to the bounders of the lots all winter . Come the melt a 3 fold BONANZA for the kids smart enough to get there first . One year 2 of my children picked up over $40.00 from one & it had been high graded the day before .

The Social Security income creeps up; and the bills due leap up.

a story about King Clancy when he refereed in the NHL (back in the 1940’s) had him walking out of Chicago Stadium with a league exec after a game, and suddenly bending down to pull a $10 bill from a mud puddle. the exec’s comment was, “16000 people had the nerve to call you blind?!”

yyyguy

I am convinced that sports officials are not blind - they see what they want to see - it’s like selective hearing.

A

J A D very true. my Dad’s pension has not increased his buying power one bit. fortunately, it is large enough, and his needs simple enough, that he’s able to live comfortably on what he gets in pension income.

BC13 it isn’t exactly selective seeing. they call it “game management” and tell players, coaches, and others not to confuse “not calling” with “not seeing” what happened. there are times when an infraction should be (and is) ignored. we were always taught that the rule book was bound in paperback because it was supposed to be flexible. (as EMET knows, i spent 32 years officiating amateur hockey - and did it quite well, if i say so myself.)

yyyguy

Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve watched a hockey game, but I certainly wasn’t a fan of Kerry Frazer and I doubt he made many friends in the old Forum. He was/is the worst. He managed f-up almost every Canadiens game he ever officiated.

Certainly, there have been enough NFL officials that have landed in hot water so much of late. Frazer probably would not have lasted long in the NFL with today’s scrutiny.

In case you haven’t figured it out already I’m not only an armchair quarterback, I’m an armchair critic of the zebras (that goes for umpires as well).

A

My brother, during his high school years, had a part-time job cleaning up a movie theater after closing. He had more income from the money that people dropped on the floor while sitting down than he made in wages. He loved that job - being the only one there late at night, it was all his (the owner was a family friend and told him he could keep whatever he found, which of course he did).

I also pick up all change on the ground. It goes into a special piggy bank and at the end of the year to the local SPCA. Can be as much as $20.

Aw heck, all birds have bills.

I’M ALWAYS looking down, Watch out for “Gifts” of dogs or… if I go it the park. I Find ¢¢ mostly look at it as another bit of bending and stretching, I also pick up discarded batteries and dispose of them properly…