Banana Peel Sticker War (my old picture, circa 2005)

Now that I get to be an occasional columnist in the newspaper, it’s remarkable how much of the work that seems appropriate in that new (for me) form builds off of something that started here, as a simple riff. To the extent that I’m getting my legs beneath myself as a columnist, it’s pretty clear that the voice and approach has its roots in Inkstain’s founding principle:

We put the stuff on here we can’t figure out a way to get paid for.

This week’s case in point is The Great Banana Peel Sticker War:

I suppose that — the fact that it’s the only shade to be found — is what makes the log bench such contested space between the banana-peel affixer and his or her adversary.

I confess I’ve had my suspicions who’s responsible — a bike trail regular I’ve seen sitting in the shade eating a banana on many occasions. I won’t reveal any identifying details (is there a statute of limitations on banana peel stickery?), but I even once pointed to the stickers in amusement and asked if s/he was responsible. The answer was “no,” and who am I to question?

Recently, a tagger hit the bench, which seems like bad karma. But the lines of spray paint are now cheerily decorated with banana peel stickers. For now, no one seems to be scraping them off.

Roots here, but all buffed up with some actual reading reports and calling people and gathering the history of my beloved bike trail – riff turned journalism. Oddly, now I sometimes get paid for this sort of thing. How did that happen?