✿ NOW ENTERING APRICOT BEND STATE PARK ✿ KIOSK NO. 4 ✿ BULLETIN BOARD BOARDWALK ✿ PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE CLASSIFIEDS ✿ TRAIL CONDITIONS: SOFT, AGREEABLE ✿ NOW ENTERING APRICOT BEND STATE PARK ✿ KIOSK NO. 4 ✿
Lottie Truesdale
a self-guided field tour of one woman's classifieds, posted on this board over the past several seasons
Howdy, hikers! Ranger Cass here, and welcome to one of my favorite little corners of the park — Kiosk Number Four. Some folks blow right past it on their way to the trout pond, and I have to say, it just about breaks my heart. Because every other Tuesday, somebody by the name of Lottie Truesdale walks up from her place on the east side of Apricot Bend and pins fresh classifieds to this board.
Now, the kicker — none of us at headquarters has ever actually met her. Honest! She's an early riser. By the time we unlock the visitor center, she's already three miles gone. But over the years we've gotten real good at reading her handwriting. Come on, I'll show you around. Take your time. Touch the laminated ones if you like.
THIS WEEK'S POSTINGS
FOR SALE
1986 Whirlpool dehumidifier. Runs like a tractor. Quieter than my second husband. Yellow casing has a small crack near the handle — purely cosmetic. $40 OBO. Call after 7pm so the dog has time to settle.
— L.T., RR 2, Apricot Bend · cash or trout, no checks please
"Runs like a tractor" is, in Lottie's vocabulary, the highest possible compliment. I have personally heard her use it for a sourdough starter, a 1978 Buick, and the postmaster's youngest son. She is a genuine fan of mechanical things that just keep going.
FREE
Three bushels of unripe quinces. Hard as billiard balls right now — needs a month in a paper sack with a banana, then it'll bake up into the prettiest pink jelly you've ever seen in your life. Bring your own basket. Bring two if you can spare them. The tree out by the mailbox has been generous this year and I cannot keep up.
Now THAT'S a tree. The quince by Lottie's mailbox is, no exaggeration, the senior member of the Apricot Bend flora club. Older than the road. Older than the road's name. Goes pink-and-white in April. You'll know it when you see it — you'll smell it first.
WANTED
Reading companion for Middlemarch, George Eliot, beginning October 1st. We will go slow. No skimming. No "I get the gist." Twice a week at the library, or at my kitchen table if you don't mind the dog watching us with great judgment. Tea provided. Snacks reciprocal.
Folks, can I just say — she does this every fall. Last year it was Bleak House. Year before, Daniel Deronda. She's never short of takers. If you join her, please eat first; her snacks are mostly digestive biscuits she splits with the basset hound.
LOST
Brass thimble. Engraved with the initials E.M.T. on the inside band — that was my mother. Last seen in the side pocket of my green canvas tote, or possibly the parking lot of the IGA on the 14th. No reward, but I will bake you bread for a month.
a real month. four loaves. she means it.
If anyone on this tour finds a brass thimble out there on the trail today, you bring it on up to the visitor center, hear? I will hand-walk it to her porch myself. Four of Lottie's loaves is the going rate of a small kingdom.
FOUND
Set of car keys behind the recycling bins at the IGA. Wooden frog on the keychain. Frog is missing one googly eye. If they're yours, describe the other items on the ring (there are three, and one is unusual) and meet me at the courthouse steps Saturday at noon.
She found these the very same week she lost the thimble. I have my own theories about that, but a ranger keeps his theories to himself.
SERVICES
Bread lessons for any grandchild who wants one. No charge, ever. We'll start with the no-knead method first because it builds confidence, and then we'll do a braided challah so they have something to show off at school. Bring an apron or borrow one of mine — I have plenty.
This is the one I want every visitor to see. There is a generation of children growing up in Apricot Bend who can produce a perfect loaf of bread by age nine because Lottie Truesdale decided that should be true. That is a quiet kind of legend right there, and I will not stop pointing it out.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Periwinkle is fine. Thank you, sincerely, to everyone who called or knocked. The vet says her hip will heal up by Thanksgiving. She is presently asleep on my good quilt and demanding more attention than the situation strictly requires. We are both grateful.
Periwinkle is a 12-year-old basset hound the color of an old penny. She rode shotgun in Lottie's station wagon for years, till the hip caught up with her. If you see them on the back roads now, the dog's got her own little harnessed bench in the cargo area, with the window cracked just enough for her ears to flap.
✿ Trail Register ✿
Sign in below so we know you visited the kiosk today. Lottie reads this herself sometimes — she says it's how she keeps track of who's been by.
≪ ✿ The Apricot Bend Web Ring ✿ ≫
also along the ring: Mary Lou's Pressed Flower Diary ✿ WJKT-FM Quiet Storm Memorial Page ✿ Bingo Hall Historical Society ✿ The Stearns County Pen Pal Project ✿ Birdhouse Showcase '01 ✿ Glenda's Geocities Refuge ✿ The Quince Belongs To Everyone