Don’t ask me why I know this. But I do. The state fish of Hawai’i is the humuhumunukunukuapua`a.

I think it comes from a Reader’s Digest in my dentists office when I was about twelve. One of the sure signs of aging is the phenomenon of events, even exceptionally small, even minor ones from sixty years ago, being recollected far better than what I came to the pharmacy to pick up this afternoon. And so, the humuhumunukunukuapua`a popped into my head this morning and made me wonder about what all those this states and municipalities claim as representative of themselves.

Since northwest Iowa is deprived of triggerfish, the Bowmen of Agincourt is still our best bet.

STUFF

There’s one hell of a lot of stuff remaining to get done in Agincourt before all the sand runs out of my hourglass. More people than I ever expected have come to play in the sandbox of history with me and may even have had more fun that I’m having: making stained glass windows or wrought iron wreathes, writing sesqui-centennial fanfares and setting Shakespeare to song; crafting the sesqui-centennial quilt; imagining an Orthodox religious icon of Saint Ahab, patron of obsessive-compulsives; writing the corporate history of the Northwest Iowa Traction Co.; or a dollhouse for what might have been a little girl’s last Christmas. Well, you get the picture.

Just as a reminder — and a temptation to anyone paying attention — here is what will be a growing list of “wants”, in no particular order.

• “Agincourt, the Board Game”.
• A play for the local theatre company.
• The Agincourt Archers double-A baseball team (uniforms, roster and stats, season poster, etc.)
• Infrastructure: the story of the city’s water, sewer, and telecommunication — lines in chronological order, no less.
• The Pandemic. Enough said.
• A National Register Nomination for one of Agincourt’s buildings, possible Christ the King or St Joseph-the-Carpenter.
• A model of Asbury Methodist Church, but just the front elevation.
• The FitzGerald Flynn mausoleum at The Shades.
• The Square and all its testosterone-laden war memorials.
• A whole bunch of other graphic designs for posters, certificates, membership cards, etc.

Others will be appended here as they come to mind. Oh, and if none of this gets done, that’s O.K., too. I just won’t die with a smirk of satisfaction on my face.

Thanks for watching this space.

kefiyyeh or  كُوفِيَّة‎

A few years ago I picked up a cheap book (at B&N, of all places) to learn Arabic script — not that I got terribly far. The problem was how many characters took a different form at the end of a word. Then, of course, there’s always that problem, as with Hebrew, of no vowels. But who am I to criticize.

Anyway, in the spirit of the pandemic and international good will and even brotherhood, I went on-line this afternoon and bought a keffiyeh or Arabic head scarf “commonly found in arid regions, as it provides protection from sunburn, dust and sand”, so as to protect others from my sputum, rather than me from theirs. Of course, the next thought to enter my imagination is what this might mean in Agincourt: Can you get one cheap at the H.E.B. or the TG&Y or its counterpart locally? I’ll ask around. Sounds like a special order.

Oh, BTW, look for me in one in a few days, as soon as it’s arrived from god-knows-where.