The First Choir Practice, A Prequel

Unidentified Choir Practice Brothers on Assignment for The Rose City Bugle, circa 1975

- photo by Tall Hound Cracker, Rose City Bugle

Zoners: Keep Out The Trailer Parks

By Andy Thibault

Editor’s Note: Some of Thibault’s imaginary friends and events recalled at The River City Bugle are real. We are not sure which ones are which. When we last left The Choir Practice Diaries, our front-page editor The Snake had broken up a fight between two eager suitors of a page designer with a diversion employing unique massage maneuvers and oils.

Heroic Snake Flashback

The original statement by the zoning official quoted in this column was a racial epithet. Sometimes at The Bugle it was easier than it is today to report what people actually said and did.

RIVER CITY – The dude, 6-1, 180, reddish brown hair, freckles and a well-rounded beak, pounded his way through the glass door. Luckily or not, the knob was turned and the door didn’t break.

He wore a gray trench coat and it flapped in the wind off a polluted river treated with chemicals that smelled like gas.

It was a spring night in 1970s suburbia and I was stuck in this breadbox of an outlying office of the River City Bugle, filling in for the regular guy on vacation. This was back in the days when medium size daily newspapers had regional offices serving many communities with staff dedicated to their information needs.

“How’s the Scanatron working? I’ve got something hot,” the dude said. His name was Harry. He had just run from a zoning meeting at the Town Hall. Who wouldn’t run from a zoning meeting? That’s like taking the gaspipe ...

Complete column at Litchfield County Times
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First Three Installments, Choir Practice Diaries

THE SNAKE AND THE WATERMELON

THE LEGEND OF THE SNAKE AND HIS GIFT TO HUMANITY

THE SNAKE AS PEACEMAKER IN A VIOLENT NEWSROOM

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