Mugwump Towers at Slimy Slough - Owner Update

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Welcome back, Kurt. We've missed you.

 

[Mimi39]

I wish TUG had a "like" button to push like Facebook!

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Stopped in at Daisy's over the hollee-daze for pecan sticky roll while I was headin' thru town and ran into one of the Mugwump directors who was enjoying a bowl of Daisy's special of the day - gumbo chili. Got a bit of an update on the goins on down at dear Mugwump, where the changes continue as the Board tries to increase the Are-See-Eye rating for the resort. Can’t say the current board isn’t looking out for members, and with RoseAnn in charge there’s a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on.

After the nature trail worked out so good, the Board decided to really get into the eek-o-tourism side of the business. They figgered, rightly I imagine, that the good old folks of Slimey Slough prolly knew more about living close to the land, if you get my drift, than most anybody else. And they started thinkin’ they had been plum' fools fer not seein’ it sooner and getting’ in on the eek-o-turism thing earlier.

So, they had one of them brainstormin’ meetins with the resort staff to come up with more idees like the naychur trail. Well Zeb had been quiet during most of the meeting, ‘cause he was still a bit embarrassed ‘bout the mixup with the recipes on the nature trail signs. But then he piped up and said, “well, how about makin’ one o’ them ‘Naychur Pree-serves’ back of the resort, where the trail comes out of swamp. ‘Tain’t hardly enybody knows more about how to preserve nature than us, and I figger I can do it up proper with some of the scrap materials that are layin’ behind Sharlene’s trailers, if she’ll just let me pick through it all. Mah boy Leroy can hep me out. And mah cuzzin Annie and I kin do classes on Toos-days for the guests, so they kin lirn themselves about the proper ways tah pree-serv naychur.”

Well they all thought that was a great idea, and they gave Zeb the go-ahead to gator up and git ‘er dun And I’m pleased to report the “Mugwump Nachur Pree-serve” is now complete and officially in the list of amen-ah-tees.

******

Sad to say, tho, it don’t seem to be doin’ as well as planned. Seems that most of the guests arrivin’ and goin’ to the Naychur Pree-serv had something else in mind. Guess the board didn’t reckon that fer city folk learnin’ how to pree-serve nature didn’t mean knowin’ proper how to skin, salt, and larder ‘possum, squirrel, gator, and such to store it fer the winter. Hear there was a bit of a ruckus one day when Zeb skooled a little girl on dressin' and fixin' that squirrel she’d been feedin’ and friendin’ all week. Didn’t settle her down a lick either when Zeb offered her a bowl of stew made from her very own squirrel. Fact is, she got even more upset and her parents seemed mad as well.

Zeb’s still scratchin’ his head on that one.

*****

Anyway, the board continues to work on upgrades and amenities, and I’ll report back when thah's stuff worth reportin'.

 

[easyrider]

Pretty funny stuff Steve.

 

[M. Henley]

Yeah!!

Brings back a lot of memories. Like when my life seemed a bit more simple (not, as Kurt might suggest, simpleton).

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

New crystal wine glasses arrived at Daisy's Coffee Shop last month. Staff were instructed to call them goblets on Sundays, especially when the Baptist women gather after the services. Several of the ladies have mentioned to Daisy how much they like the new goblets because these goblets hold more of Daisy's special "Sunday white cranberry juice" than the old ones did.

 

[susieq]

I would imagine the Sunday white cranberry juice would go very well with Venison........... Maybe you could link these two up!! :rofl:

 

[MULTIZ321]

Thanks for the stroll down Tug Memory Lane!


Richard

 

[DaveNV]

My brain hurts.

Dave

 

[Dori]

So much fun taking this trip down memory lane!

Dori

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

It’s been a spell since I’ve been able to get back to Slimy Slough. Life got busy, then all the goings-on with pan-dem-eeks and COVIDs. Folks started doing these kinda-sorta meetings with computers. Some folks said it was just the same as a regular old get together in person. Beyond me how some people convince themselves that a computer screen with some picture background is somehow the same as a good face-to-face. I think it’s important to actually spend time seeing people and being together. Really missed that.

In my company, Penny’s a native cheeser whose territory covers Wisconsin, the Mesabi, and the UP. After one waste-o-time Zoom meeting, she sent me an article about imagining that below the webcam, the other people on the screen are in their skivvies. Not too bad an idea - humorous with the guys and “interesting” with women. Maybe for her it was the other way around. But then I learnt that I was supposed to allow for some people being both, while others might be neither, and I didn’t like what that conjured up for me when I imagined them in their skivvies. So now I'm more choosy about when I use that trick.

With all of that, I realized that when you see folk face-to-face, it’s easier to see them for who they are and not what they are or might be or are supposed to be or are becoming. None of that really matters; it’s just who they are.

I guess all of that is all a slow way of saying I realized how much I missed Slimy Slough, and how much life there is based on people knowing and seeing each other on the street, in the store, at the Post Office, smiling and laughing and enjoying little jokes and life’s humor and staying in touch with the goings in households and in the towns up and down the slough.

So it was good times to be able to get back to old Slimy Slough. And glad to say, in the midst of all of the swirls and hubbub and ados of the world, Slimy Slough carries on, showing what normal can be.

************

First thing in town, I stopped by Daisy’s. It was lunchtime, and I ordered the pasta lunch special. And when Daisy served it up, I noticed that it didn’t come with the usual green cylinder of cheese that normally comes with the pasta lunch special. Instead, there was a hunk of cheese and a small grinder. When I asked what was going on, Daisy laughed and give me a wink, as she said she eliminated the green cylinders several years ago, when she decided she should do her part to make America grate again. Good to see Daisy hasn’t lost a step.

After Daisy’s, I stopped by Mugwump to see RoseAnne. Mugwump is still solid under RoseAnn’s care. Lord knows what will happen when RoseAnn isn’t around.

Even before the Pan-dem-eek, RoseAnne was working on clearing up delinquent and defaulted accounts. She had gotten tired of the steady process of foreclosing and reselling, while more units went into default, and it just went on and on. She concluded that there were just more timeshares than there were people who wanted them, and the best thing to do was to get some of the property into something other than timeshare.

And she figured that if they consolidated the foreclosed and delinquent accounts, they could convert some of the units close to the lobby to private offices. The check-in staff in the Mugwump lobby could serve as receptionists for the office space. Mugwump already had fax and internet, and phone service., and a copy machine, and cleaning services. It was easy to install locked mailboxes. When she cranked the numbers, she figured they could rent office space for about 50% of what folks were paying in town.

The Board of Directors was hemmin’ and hawin’, prolly cause nobody ever thought of such a thing before. And they may have been 'barrassed cause it was so logical and cause RoseAnne, a gal, thought of it instead of one of them guys. But they do admit that RoseAnne is the best manager Mugwump has ever had. And when the arrears got more serious during the Pan-demic, that give them the boot in the butt they needed to approve the changes.

So now there isn’t just Mugwump Towers at Slimy Slough. There’s also the Executive Suites at Mugwump Towers.

***********

And it’s working out. The first success story is LeighRoy, Sharlene’s oldest daughter. The first name is easy, but I can’t keep the last names straight.

LeighRoy’s a pretty sharp gal, takes after her Momma, and she was able to get a scholarship to “Bayou U”, the state school about 60 miles away. But LeighRoy wasn’t sure what she wanted to study. Then she learned about Dr. Meier, a psycho‑ologist from Bayou U, who had an office, doing counseling and psycho-ologist stuff in the greater Bayou area. LeighRoy found out he was charging $80 an hour just to sit and listen to people. That’s more than a mechanic costs at Corky’s Exxon next to the McCumber Boy’s operation at the end of the slough, or more than Mackley and Sons charge for fixing plumbing leaks. But as a psycho-ologist you don’t need tools, and you don’t smash knuckles doing repairs, and you don’t get oil squirted on your clothes, eyes, ears, and other orificees, and you don’t show off your butt crack while you’re bent over working if you forget to wear a long-tail shirt that day.

So LeighRoy figured that was a sweet gig, and she picked up a degree in counseling and psych. Not much family enthusiasm for her; not exactly any kind of family history of doing that kind of job in their clan, or most any place else in their world. Trade school was about the only post-high school training any one ever did. Reckon that they thought Bayou U psychology was going to turn her into some kind of an elite uppity-up. But Sharlene raised her kids better than that, and LeighRoy kept her feet on the ground.

Anyway LeighRoy got her degree and set up in one of the new office suites at Mugwump Towers. With Sharlene’s work at the resort, the relations with RoseAnne, and the fact that the office suites were just opening and RoseAnne and the resort wanted to attract tenants, LeighRoy got a particularly good deal. And because she was just getting started she was offering bargain starter rates.

Her first client was Tommie, a boy from town, about 20 years old, who had always been a little bit weird. Kind of twitchy and always nervous. And always seemed like he wasn’t always there, like he was half-asleep, more than half the time. He was double shifting, doing the real dirty cleanup at the McCumbers after they closed for the day, and helping out at Corky’s. Seemed like he was always working when not sleeping. When he wasn’t working or at home, there was a spot on the Mugwump Nay-chur Trail where he would sit by hisself and drop a line in the water. Don’t know if he ever caught anything, but people who saw him would say he would sit there, talking to himself, and hardly even look at anyone.

Frankly, a pretty lonely and friendless lad, overall. One of those kid who never fit in. Kind of depressed, too, and people worried about him, ‘cause you never could know what might be cooking inside the head of someone like that. With some encouragement and financial support from his Momma, Tommie had been seeing Dr. Meier for about a year. Spendin’ a lot money and not making much progress.

So, when LeighRoy opened her shop, Tommie decided to see her. Helped that he knew her some as well, since both of them were local.

Well, as LeighRoy listened to him, she realized his insides was all knotted up with fears. And the big one was that ever since he was a lad, he was afraid that there were monsters under his bed. For whatever reason, he had never been able to shake it. Plumb took over his life. Tommie said it was like being caught in bayou mud, when no matter what you did you couldn’t get loose, and it was always there, wrapping itself around you, and you couldn’t shake it. And there was the fear that the tide would come in, and there you would be, trapped in the mud. Tommie could only sleep in fits, and when he did sleep had nightmares that left him shaking and sweating.

Tommie knew he was too old to be afraid of monsters under the bed, and the fact that as a nearly grown man he was still frightened just added to the anxiety. Dr. Meier had tried all kinds to things to help him work through the fears, but nothing helped.

After his second visit with LeighRoy she had a thought. She asked him why not just saw the legs off the bed, so there would be no room for monsters under the bed. Tommie gave a startled face and suddenly sat upright, looking at her dead on. He blinked a couple of times, cocked his head, and said “Yeah? Bet that might work.”

He left the session, and sawed the legs off of his bed that very day. And that was his last counseling session. Solved the problem, and now everyone says Tommie’s a different guy, for the better. And people have started talking about LeighRoy and are proud for what she did for Tommie. Even Pastor Fridley at the Baptist Church took notice. LeighRoy and the Pastor are solid, and I hear that after seeing what LeighRoy did for Tommy he's started using her to help with some of his more difficult pastoral care situations. That's all very discreet, though, because that's the kind of stuff that only gets whispered in the Slough.

And that’s the Mugwump Towers update for now, though I admit there’s really not a whole lot of Mugwump Towners in this here update. The Mugwump Executive Suites, though, is new and it’s good stuff. Sorry that I can’t talk about Mugwump without talking about Slimy Slough, cause to me the two just go together.

 

[susieq]

Thanks for that entertaining story. Always love reading your posts. You do have a way with words!!

 

[Ralph Sir Edward]

T.R., I was at Bayou U, making a contribution to the literacy fund, when I ran across Cletus. He said that Mugwump Towers were workin' on a deal with some big Hollywood types to film a movie there at Mugwumps. It was gonna be called "Lunch With Gators", or something like that. (With Cletus you're never quite certain.) He said there was gonna be a lot of work for extras, and he was told they'd be unforgettable jobs.

I wasn't interested, as work is the last thing from my mind on a vacation. Thought you'd might have heard something. . .

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

T.R., I was at Bayou U, making a contribution to the literacy fund, when I ran across Cletus. He said that Mugwump Towers were workin' on a deal with some big Hollywood types to film a movie there at Mugwumps. It was gonna be called "Lunch With Gators", or something like that. (With Cletus you're never quite certain.) He said there was gonna be a lot of work for extras, and he was told they'd be unforgettable jobs.

I wasn't interested, as work is the last thing from my mind on a vacation. Thought you'd might have heard something. . .

Haven't heard anything about that.

Makes me worried, because the Hollywood types are never interested in showing things as they are. As much as they talk about being open and inclusive, in the end all they want is something that will get people to see what they produce. One of the beauties of Slimey Slough is that it's filled with people who are basically decent, normal people who live their lives below the radar. But Hollywood will do something to make them seem like weirdos.

 

[tonyg]

I'm still looking for that last recipe for boiled pizza. Been awhile and cauldrons are very hard to find nowadays. But I do remember the last one cooked where toothpicks saved the toppings.