They have town bells that chime the time throughout each day. They have a siren that announces the change of shift at the town factory. It can be heard all over town at 6.30am, 12pm, 6pm and the 10.30pm one is for kids curfew. Any children unaccompanied on the streets after the siren are rounded up by the police and taken home and parents asked to explain.
The bells play tunes for about 5 - 10 minutes. As it's Sunday, no doubt this is a Christian church attempt to punish those who were up too late partying on Saturday night doubling as a call to worship.
At 9.00pm every night they play the Last Post and it can be heard all over the town (sorry City)
Rained this morning. Supposed to be golf at 12pm. Hmmm. We'll see. (p.m. update - it never happened)
Leroy has been taking to the electrocution collar quite well. Its a very effective device that has a coil buried under the ground circling around the pet boundary. When the dog goes near the boundary, a buzzer in his collar goes off. When he gets too close, he gets a shock. The result is quite spectacular - he now poops upstairs on the landing cause he's too scared to go outside.
Tim spent the day punishing the ride-on mower. It spent the day winning that fight.
I decided to go for another long walk in a different direction. Now, there aren't too many directions in Slater so I walked around a different way and passed some of the main attractions again.
The school - I realised that you didn't get the full scope in my last picture of that. The sign on road opposite denotes the end of the drug district. On the way, I noticed a small, defiant stand of colour waiting for the next attack from a low-flying ride-on.
Managed to get a picture of the post boxes. They have the little flag that the postie points up when there is mail delivered. Seeing as everybody has got a gun, I'm thinking that they might rename this lane to WILDCAT (memorial) ALLEY.
Just around the corner is a big park and pool area. Obviously, someone on the planning committee has seen Jaws one too many times. Maybe he's a big-game fisherman with a sick sense of humour. The park attached had squirrels frolicking around everywhere.
Next picture gives a perspective of how wide apart the houses are. They don't worries too much about fences unless they have a dog. Dogs need a licence. A loose dog will be caught by the local dog catcher and will be delivered home at a cost of $20 each time. Meanwhile, I think the tower says "SAVE FERRIS" on the reverse side - must have a look someday.
I think I went past Evel Knievel's parents home.
It's good to walk around the neighbourhood. Most of the folks around here engage in tracking inter-stellar spacecraft and hubble telescope signals. They can also pick up the Marx Brothers Film festival on Jupiter.
Finally, those who live on farms, farm. Those who live in the city - well, they farm too.Tonight, some friends of Clare's came over to meet us. The brought "brats" for dinner. Bratwurst sausages, a favourite german delicacy which could only be improved by adding cheese to the middle of it. (little aside: In America, no car is too big, no gossip is too personal and no food cannot be improved by simply adding cheese to it.) They just buy them like that.
Jenny is a typically nice lady - about mid 40s. Bob is the stereotypical hippy looking guy. Bald on top with whatever hair is felt asserting its independence. Straggly, shoulder-length hair and an unkempt beard. He looks and sounds like the slow-talking, drawling', motorcycle-riding, heavy-metal band loving' hippie. Nice guy. Tim and he hit it off talking about motorcycles and heavy metal bands all afternoon and evening. I went to my happy place.
Just after they left, I went outside and filmed the fire flies in the back yard.
Got to get up at 5am to join the traffic for Kansas City airport. Enjoy the fire flies.
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