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Bonsai Bonkers!
We had no idea that there are two neighbors on the West Shore who are interested in Bonsai trees. The PIB Garden Club met on Wednesday, August 9th, at the home of Jim and Susan Hildebrandt, where Jim gave a presentation about Bonsai trees. The meeting and presentation were in the driveway where Jim and the group of lady garden club members were within steps of about a dozen and a half Bonsai, some in the garden, some displayed in pots on a table set up for the occasion. Jim’s knowledge about the little plants was impressive and his garden club member audience listened intently to what he was saying.
Meanwhile, across the street sitting on Bill and Alice Boag’s screened-in porch, were Bill, Jim French, Listen to Larry Schrader and Ann Marie Drake. Bill, binoculars gripped tightly in his hands, surveyed Jim’s presentation from afar commenting to the others about what he thought he was seeing, for he, too, is an avid Bonsai enthusiast who could only dream about sharing his knowledge of the subject with a group of interested women.
Bill’s group heard him, but weren’t listening, obviously more interested in their beers than anything Bill had to say.
Bill eventually realized his guests weren’t paying the slightest attention to what he was saying. He grabbed the gavel he always keeps on the table next to his seat and pounded it with gusto until he got his beer-sipping friends’ attention.
“I just want you to know, Jim may have many more and better Bonsai trees than I do, but the one I have is bigger than all his put together,” Bill told them in a voice reminiscent of a bonsai charge by Japanese soldiers in World War II.
Sensing they were puzzled by what he was telling them, he pointed dramatically to the nine-foot-tall bush/tree in the middle of his front yard that is trimmed in the shape of a fish.
“JIM HAS NOTHING
ON ME!”
The previous piece is published in this month’s Put-in-Bay Gazette. The Gazette has been producing incredible independent Put-in-Bay island news for over 40 years. If you have any interest at all in what is happening on South Bass Island, we urge you strongly to subscribe to the Put-in-Bay Gazette. One-year online subscriptions are only $15, and print subscriptions are available as well. To subscribe please click here.
