Year End Humane Society Report.

Carthage Humane Society Director Tish Bentlage addressed the City Council last Tuesday evening during the regular Council meeting. She reported that the facility has seen many improvements over the last year, thanks in part from a grant of the Kent and Mary Steadley Memorial Foundation.

"Last year 1814 animals came through our doors," said Bentlage. "Dogs and puppies made up the majority of our population. Of the 1342 canines we received, 370 dogs and 257 puppies were given up by their owners. A total of 163 cats also became homeless when given up by owners for various reasons."

The City animal control officer took 450 dogs and 197 kittens to the shelter that were in violation of City animal control ordinances. Many had collars but had no ID tags according to Bentlage. Only 168 dogs and 10 cats were returned to their owners.

Bentlage reported that the Society found homes for a total of 746 pets in 2009 and another 95 going to rescue groups. The overall adoption rate was 39%.

NASCAR THIS WEEK

By Monte Dutton

Sponsored by Curry Automotive

Gee Whiz, I Know All These Guys

I’ve been around ("round, round, get around, I get around").

Officially.

On a recent Saturday night, the National Motorsports Press Association inducted four into its Hall of Fame, and I know every one of them. In the past, there were always the homages to antiquity, the long-overdue elections of heretofore overlooked icons. Now that Roger Penske, Jack Roush, Rusty Wallace and Robert Yates have joined the NMPA Hall, I guess it gives me some standing in the antiquity category, too.

I don’t have much in the way of outlandish anecdotes to pass along in regard to Penske. Alone of the four, my interaction with Roger has always been somewhat formal. I like him. I admire him. But that’s no fun.

Roush? When his name comes up, I often think of the Busch brothers, both of whom began racing within his vast domain and both of whom were "vocabularically affected" by the verbose Mr. Roush, who has seldom seen a word of more than three syllables that he didn’t adopt. The Busch brothers, particularly when they were younger, were so impressed by Roush’s "big words" that they tried to emulate him, or that’s always been my theory.

The difference, of course, is that Jack tends to know what those words mean, and neither Kurt nor Kyle generally does. Kurt’s linguistic offenses would rank him somewhere close to Norm Crosby or Bo Dietl, as he has been known to "circumference the track" and be proud of "how we’ve been able to solidify the solidity of our team." Kyle? Less so, but he has also contributed to mild unrest in the tomb of Noah Webster.

Rusty Wallace? The Emperor of Exaggeration. He’s always been a walking, talking racing story in need of fact checking. Rusty doesn’t intentionally stretch the truth; he just thinks optimistically. The press conference had barely started when Rusty matter-of-factly said he had been in Canada four hours earlier. Pretty fast plane. Possible -- but when one factors in all the time needed before and after one actually climbs into the plane, even a private plane -- unlikely. By the way, I’m fairly sure someone could’ve made a killing in Vegas betting on Rusty giving the evening’s shortest speech. That was a bigger upset than Appalachian State over Michigan.

The longest speech was Jeff Hammond’s name-dropping introduction of Roush, for whom he once worked for, oh, 10 minutes or so. I have no idea how that idea transpired.

Penske was all grace and humility. Roush and Yates rambled. Rusty was probably the MVP of the evening.

Saw the guy on PBS the other day who uses household stuff to keep the yard and garden in good health. He says that sprayin’ the yard with diluted dish washin’ liquid will give bugs the runs and they’ll go to the neighbors yard.

He says sprayin’ beer and soda pop will make the yard clippin’s dissolve easier and get the yard breathin’ better. He also says workin’ in the yard in golf shoes help to break the surface so the yard breathes easier.

Now I haven’t had the opportunity to try any a these little bits of wisdom as yet, and I don’t have any golf shoes. I do suspect that I have seen some around town utilizin’ beer in some fashion while doin’ lawn work however. I’ve often wondered how they kept those golf greens lookin’ so good.

This is some fact, but mostly,

Just Jake Talkin’.

---

Dear Tom and Ray:

I live in interior Alaska, and it gets cold. How cold, you ask? It’s been -40 F for the past week or so. My husband and I go back and forth as to whether to keep the car’s block heater plugged in all the time, or whether to use a time and run it only some of the time. I’ve heard that too much heat is bad for the oil. This morning I used the timer, and my car decided it was too cold for the transmission to engage. I was stuck. At - 45 F, I don’t have to go to work. At - 40F I do (administrative policy). I want to use this as leverage to get my husband to let me keep my car plugged in more of the time. What do you think? --Christie

Ray: I’d use the timer, Christie - a timer that turns the block heater on around Oct. 1 and turns it off around June 30.

Tom: In fact, you may want to buy a trailer with a diesel generator bolted onto it, so you can stay plugged in while you drive around too.

Ray: When it’s that cold out, just leave it plugged in all the time if that’s what the car needs. The only cost is electricity. You won’t do any harm to your oil.

Tom: Right. When people talk about heat being an enemy of motor oil, ther’re talking about oil that’s being overworked under hard driving conditions - like driving a car at high speeds for long distances in the heat of the summer, or pulling a trailer up the Rockies.

Ray: So for weeks like the one you just had, you can run the block heater as much as you need to. And when it gets so cold that the block heater needs its own block heater to get started, it’s time to move to San Juan, Puerto Rico, Christie.