Ballard Street by Jerry Van Amerongen for January 17, 2017

I hope that’s a 10 percent grade over the length, not on a lateral basis!

Swanning around on a seniors discount.

Wait until he gets on a good long hill and extends those wings….

There’s that red wagon, underneath the swan, again…

10% or better? What about an upper limit. Lowell?

Gosh…. I hope he doesn’t try to sell one to Marcus and Edna McCauley.

Their driveway is a 47% grade…. and that fool Marcus is the type to try it.

Gathering speed down the driveway…. zooming into Cherry Street like a bullet…..

and across it…. and right down the slope behind the Hansen’s.

It would be his swan song for sure.

Rose… I lost my internet connection last night…

then had to be out all day today.

Came home to another very intermittent connection… hoping to get it fixed soon.

So I didn’t get a chance to come back on yesterday’s strip, and say I hope you were having a great day…..

And Dry has asked me to say “Happy Birthday” from her, as well, if she didn’t make it there… which it doesn’t look like she did.

Since Ling was buying you drinks last night, I’ll stand you a few next time you’re in, OK?

Looks like the swan is missing a part (or two).

Cool Hand Lowell….

♫♪♫Doin’ 90 I ain’t scary,

‘Cause I got the Virgin Mary,

Assuring me that I won’t go to hell……

Lowell is just a little bit loopy.

Lowell is a Boston transplant to Ballard. He’s retired, ( isn’t practically everyone in Ballard ? ), and of course needs a hobby to occupy his time.

The preoccupation with building swans comes from his previous occupation as a Boston Duck Boat Driver.

So far, he’s mastered gradient drive for his motorless creations but…unfortunately… they don’t float ! Past experiments have resulted in many a sunken Cygnus.

He is in the process of building one, ( at my suggestion ) that will be waterproof, floats, and have a peddle drive.

If it works, he’ll build more to use on Ballard Lake and around Ballard Bay. If it doesn’t, Lowell will consider it his swan song !

{ Insert image of Swan-Boat here. }

The boss has penciled me on for a job taking a client over to Salem to see a specialist on the first of next month.

I get to use the van!

Woo Hoo!

It was at the construction site that Lowell did a beautiful swan dive when he encountered that 90° grade…

That’s a law suit waiting to happen.

I need to order one of those with skates on the bottom, we’re getting a major ice storm today…………that’s on top of the 10 inches of snow we got last week.

BUT, we made it to the grocery store this morning, so we’re good for….oh….2 weeks.

We were almost down to drinking canned chicken broth for dinner.