Editorial - Spring cleansing

Something diagonal caught the corner of my eye as I sat by the window at sundown on the first warm day of winter's end. Was it the tail of a deer? No. It was a large black crow performing elegant wing-overs before perching with its back to the sun on the bough of a spreading oak tree.

Moments later, it was joined by a second, large black crow, perched inches away, also with its back toward sundown. Heads bobbed as the pair inched closer until they were wing-on-wing. Settling into their familiarity, a minute passed before they began making out. It reminded me of "last call" at Chelsea's.

The male stunt bird had soared through a Travolting aerial disco routine and taken a seat at the bar, 30 feet above the forest dance floor, and the female corbie swooped onto the next stool. Or maybe it was the other-way-round.

After some preliminary mutual preening, they were getting down to the business of "heing-and-sheing" with some serious beak-locking when another stunt flyer zoomed by and caught last call for a round of sunlight on top of a tall black walnut tree to the west.

As sunlight slid to darkness off the tuxedoed backs of the two crows like water flowing under shadows off a lichen-covered stone, the male gave his new girlfriend a snooty nod and launched toward the northern ridgeline. She waited, perhaps weighing her options, then took flight south, immediately followed by the ebony interloper whose iridescent feathers still shimmered in the fading light.

This just in

Actual dialogue overheard in a downtown shop: "It's better than real hair!"

Radio news

Last Thursday, a KUAF newscaster announced "The city of Bentonville will test its storm-warning equipment tomorrow at noon, weather permitting."

Quidditch anyone?

After reading that a Hendrix College student paid $100 for a Hogwarts-style flying broom which she mounts in ground-bound collegiate matches, the whole proposition that "The new broom sweeps clean" has been cast in doubt. A lot of Eureka's charm and marketability seem to be yoked to the idea that "Old brooms sweep just fine also. Thank you."

Are you comfortable with Eureka Springs trying to become a 21st Century Victorian village?

In some ways, it might be nice. The look of the city is bound to change, here and there, over time, as it has since whenever most of us moved here. Although anchored by eye-popping architecture and breath-taking urban forestry cantilevered in cascades of rare detail on a panoramic scale, the little fiddly-bits of urban necessity like cell phone towers, utility poles, miles and miles of overhead phone, electric and cable TV connections spatter the cityscape's view like acne on the Mona Lisa.

City officials have deliberated the fate of historic limestone sidewalks ad nauseam. Some previous city officials campaigned for the burial of overhead utility wires and the removal of the pillars which elevate them.

According to National Public Radio, recent research in photovoltaics has created a durable paving material which absorbs sunlight and ejects dollars in the form of electricity sold to the grid. What if streets replaced gas or coal-fired power plants as our source of energy? What if streets were able to carry phone, electric and cable TV media?

Down would come the poles and wires, which would never fall to ice or snow again.

Plus, the new composite, electricity-generating pavement now in production has some nifty options. It can de-ice and illuminate itself.

New broom? Old broom?

Walking down the aisle in Walmart, when last visited two years ago, a glimpse of a sale sign stopped me cold. "Cordless Brooms On Sale."

-- Vernon Tucker