BURKARD'S BLOG

I searched on the Internet, and found no one keeping a blog about events in Columbus, Georgia. (Well, other than a 15-year-old high school student, and who knows how much he pays attention to the news?) So being the hip web-savvy guy that I am, I decided to start a blog of my own - chronicling happenings in the town I've called home for almost six years, as well as my experiences in it.

But be warned.... I used to have a humor service called LaughLine.com, so my views may be a bit amusing. And the views are my own -- no one has paid me to present theirs. Not yet.

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20 APR 03: LA BOMB-A

Many people are marking Easter Sunday today - but I have a question for them. Why doesn't some TV channel mark the day by showing the forgotten Dustin Hoffman movie "Ishtar?" That IS where the word Easter came from....

Speaking of (ahem) bombs: as I took a late-afternoon walk this weekend along Front Avenue, I saw a car filled with prom-goers. Only instead of a limousine, they rode in a LONG red finned convertible that looked like it was from 1960. Before "the bomb" meant something good, that car was a bomb.

As some of you may know, the church denomination I attend does NOT keep Easter. My Pastor suggested over the weekend people who wear "Easter bonnets" are guilty of pride, when they should show godly humility. I may never buy Blue Bonnet margarine again.

(We're SO STRICT about this in my congregation that we're even against winter storms -- those "Nor'Easters.")

I met some women over the weekend, though, who might have benefited from bonnets. They were in line ahead of me at a
Taco Bell - and one of a grandmotherly age had a FULL moustache! It was so obvious that Wayne Bennett would have asked her to shave it off.

No, I did NOT say anything to these two women with moustaches. I only looked long enough to confirm what I thought I saw - but stopped short of suggesting they get jobs on the Riverfest midway next weekend.

17 APR 03: A TIME OF THANKSGIVING

Thank you, Pizza Hut, for sending a flyer with 18 different coupons to my mailbox Wednesday. But after noticing all 18 coupons have an expiration date of March 31 - thank you at least for keeping the Postal Service afloat. [True!]

Thank you, Shoney's, for your helpful motel discount bulletins just inside the front door of your restaurant. But when your Phenix City, Alabama restaurant has bulletins for Kentucky, a one-day drive and two states away - well, who's trying to work himself through school filling those racks?

Thank you, Bludau's, for a lovely and elegant Wednesday night dinner with church friends. And since you're a French restaurant, special thanks for appealing to local patriots by putting New York strip steak on your menu....

(Given Bludau's prices, the last thing I expected to find on this fine French menu was "freedom fries.")

Thank you, Mrs. M, (full name available on request) for revealing a new phrase to me at that Bludau's dinner. You're truly a Southern native -- to call squash, broccoli, artichokes, and similar things "Yankee vegetables."

Thank you, Al Fleming, for your Wednesday TV commentary taking WRBL and WTVM to task for their failures in local news coverage. But considering your station WLTZ doesn't even have a news department - why don't you criticize them even more?

(By the way, why didn't Al Fleming complain a bit more about WRBL when he did commentaries there? He was upset about the New Year's baby born to an unwed mother, but besides that....)

Thank you, WRBL, for reporting the eagle's cage will not be outside Auburn University's football stadium next fall. But how could you call it "Beard-Eaves Stadium" when the video clearly had a "Jordan-Hare Stadium" sign on it - and how did the news anchors who have lived in this area for years never even notice it?

Thank you, Atlanta Falcons Youth Foundation, for your $75,000 grant to Girls Inc. of Phenix City-Russell County to build a new athletic complex. But considering the project will have softball fields, a soccer field and a walking trail, but NO field for U.S.-style football [True/WTVM] - what sort of message are you really sending?

(And when your giant-sized check at a news conference spells Russell County with only one L - shouldn't you be donating money to education programs instead?)

Thank you, Columbus historic preservationists, for the fund-raisers you've done to renovate the Fifth Avenue home of blues legend Ma Rainey. But when I drove by that house Wednesday, paint was peeling badly from the front wall - so how much money did the singers at those benefit concerts REALLY get?

Are you a reader of this blog? If you are, please e-mail me. It gets lonely doing this by myself.