Just a reminder. The mobile office of the Secretary of State in is in the parking lot next to the police station in Morenci.

Thursday: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Friday: 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

It sure beats taking a number and waiting in Adrian.

Beer and cigarettes? That’s the lead headline on the front of this week’s print edition. I couldn’t resist. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And what’s the story about? City council voted against issuing alcohol permits for softball tournaments - a change from the past - and gave its support for a statewide ban on smoking in public work places.

In other news:

Could Bill Kohn go for long without standing on the sidelines of a football field in the fall? Probably not. It’s his life.

Now if I could only remember who I was talking with a few weeks ago about Lenawee Christian School’s new football program starting this year. Whoever it was knew right away: Their coach would be Bill Kohn.

Sure enough, he was hired to run the school’s new JV program for two years. After that, LCS will begin competing on a varsity level. Enrollment is down and this was seen as one way to attract new students. All the other small schools in the area know that routine. They watch as some of their best athletes leave the home district to play at LCS. choose LCS over their local school.

This should be a great job for Bill. How often does a coach have the opportunity to build a program completely from scratch, with nothing but some leftover soccer kickers?

He better get out the semi-serious letter I sent him a couple of years ago listing allowable sideline language. Goll-darn. Gee-whillikers. Dagnabbit. Oh holy hellfire. He needed a little coaching and I was glad to give it.

This is the week to go out spotting redbuds. I noticed some spectacular specimens in Adrian front lawns yesterday and I saw quite a few more this morning in Fayette. Before long, they’ll be somewhat nondescript until the seedpods are hanging after the leaves fall.

The photo here is from along the creek behind the cemetery. Redbuds - that’s why it was named Bean Creek.

Have you had enough of Tyree Guyton’s name in the Observer? If so, relax. This is the last week. We have one final report of his visit last Thursday. Anyone driving down Main Street Thursday afternoon would have noticed the parade of shoes on the sidewalk leading to the library door. I think it was one of the many ideas my wife and I came up with while walking around the track one afternoon. We never got to most of them.

Also in this week’s print edition:

OK, there’s your sample of what’s inside the print edition. Of course there’s a lot more.

From the LISD’s election roundup:

Carrie Dillon* 271
Gary Ries* 263

Refinance bond that was approved in ’02 Yes 271 No 51
Operating Millage Renewal Yes 281 No 36

And I was worried that it might not pass.

I don’t know maple trees well to know for sure, but I think I was looking for red maple trees yesterday. It’s the maple with the seeds out now, as opposed to the sugar maple with the flowers out now. I was searching in the cemetery and soon learned that if the ground is yellow, veer off somewhere else because those are flowers covering the ground.

There’s a vast smell of skunk cabbage in the area where the cemetery meets Riverside Park on the northeast. Quite an interesting odor.

And if you’re interested, the state champion dogwood is in full bloom in the cemetery. There are a pair of dogwoods in the cemetery, but one is exceptionally large for a dogwood.

When you leave the cemetery and drive into town, look to the southeast for another huge dogwood. The Doc Sutton home at North and Locust has another smaller one, along with Joe and Kris Farquhar on North Street.

Jody P wrote yesterday wondering if I’ve noticed the vultures that gather at sunset out on the west edge of town. Once she mentioned it, I remembered that had seen them recently when heading back into town from Fayette, although I wasn’t sure at the time if they were buzzards or crows.

They’re in the trees by the house where Esther Hill used to live. Actually, they perch in the back yard of the York Hills senior citizen apartments. Just a coincidence, I’m sure.

This morning I was out looking for a grass waterway to photograph and when I came back into town, I saw perhaps a dozen vultures in the field nearby. I also noticed a large nest in one of those perching trees, but there was a car behind me and I couldn’t slow down for a close look.

I don’t even know what vultures do about nesting needs. I have the perhaps unfair opinion that they must be filthy, messy things.

Morning rain report: 0.49 inches

We’ve added a link in our Links file to Jim Snapes’s Wauseon.com website. He’s providing a variety of Wauseon and Fulton news, including public documents.

We have a page of photos from the Earth Day event at Riverside Park, in addition to this one of Megan Cox.

The print edition also includes news about:

And, once again, there’s a lot more to read in the print edition.

Ralph writes from Oregon about what’s known as the 10 Most Appropriate Weatherperson Names. The link from Ralph leads to The Morning News:

1. Flip Spiceland, NBC WXIA, Atlanta, Ga.
If Flip Spiceland is a made-up name, then the Atlanta area’s leading weatherman deserves a Nobel. Had Faulkner invented a character named Flip Spiceland, he would have put down his pen, lit a cigarette, and said, “There, I’m done. All my genius exists in that single name.” But he didn’t, and so we have Flem Snopes instead. Fortunately, we also have Flip Spiceland, bearer of the best weatherman name ever.

That’s a weather-appropriate name? He has others: Storm Field. Ray Ban. Dallas Raines. OK, so they aren’t so weatherish, but the post is quite humorous since writer Clay Risen gives a phony story behind each name.

Anyway, Ralph wonders why the Observer’s George Isobar wasn’t listed.

It’s a bonus week for print edition readers. Nothing new for PDF viewers, but we have premium newsprint on the color pages this week for some reason so the images are sharper and more colorful. You can see the insulation falling in the front photo of the demolition in Fayette.

In other news:

As I say every week, there’s a lot more than this. Go get a paper.

A year ago there were complaints about road destruction due to the hauling of manure from Vreba-Hoff dairies to a new lagoon built because the existing lagoons were about to overflow. Later in the summer, manure was hauled from Vreba-Hoff into Ohio to the Chesterfield Dairy to prevent an overflow.

Now the complaints are coming from east of Morenci due to manure moving north from the Chesterfield Dairy. Clement Highway, I was told, is not wearing well.

The question some people are asking is whether this is Ohio manure being imported into Michigan or whether it’s the Michigan manure from Vreba-Hoff being hauled back home.

Late spring, perhaps. The first mosquito of the season just buzzed past, while sitting at the dining room table at the computer. I don’t know how it works with those guys - is really the first or is a survivor from the past?

We generally have a mosquito or two in the Observer office that we see now and then all winter. I never swat a winter survivor.