Posted on 01/23/2002 12:21:35 PM PST by Jay W
Sewage Pump Named for Dave Barry
GRAND FORKS, N.D. (AP) - Shivering in subzero temperatures, columnist Dave Barry looked up at the newly christened Dave Barry Lift Station No. 16 and offered this advice:
``If anything ever goes wrong with this station, call the mayor.''
Grand Forks officials dedicated the sewage pump station Wednesday to Barry, who had poked fun at the city and its Minnesota neighbor, East Grand Forks, for referring to themselves as the ``Grand Cities.''
The column prompted a letter-writing campaign, capped by an offer from Grand Forks Mayor Mike Brown to name a lift station after the Pulitzer-prize winning columnist if he came for a visit.
``Lift Station No. 16 faithfully serves us and makes us proud, with its ability to go with the flow and keep the bowels of our city in constant movement,'' Brown told a crowd of about 75 people gathered around the lift station.
Barry arrived in a white limousine, with the temperature around 5 below zero. He seemed bemused at the size of the crowd and asked, ``So all you good people don't have anything to do?''
He startled some officials when he jokingly made a move toward the controls of the lift station, saying, ``I'll just throw some of these switches here, since it's mine.''
AP-NY-01-23-02 1534EST
Dave has a wonderful sense of humor ... and apparently his comedic timing is right on too.
I lived in ND for three years... pretty much all of Barry's ribbing of the state is quite justified. It's a bleak, cold, flat place. So cold there that folks escape for the weekends down the warmer climes of Minneapolis.
Dave is so proud of his sewage pump :-))
Oh, gagarooni!
The Green Bay Municipal Boat Ramp (right next to the Green Bay Yacht Club) is next to the muni sewage plant. When the wind's right....
Hmmm... how about a sewage-pump naming ceremony at Clintoon's next speech? It would be a nice surprise....
No, the sewage itself should be named for Clinton.
When tourists, visitors, or kids ask, "What's all that smelly brown stuff over there in that pond?" the answer would be, "Well, that's your basic Clinton."
The ceremony, it seems, lacked one finishing touch:
They should have invited New York Times "journalist" Adam Clymer to present the award. That would have completed the picture.
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