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Summit Up

Summit Up
Special to the Daily It's Mike Schmitt's birthday! We want to wish a happy birthday to you from your sweetheart, Joules and daughter Natalie too!
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Good morning and welcome to Summit Up, the world’s only daily column organizing a tailgate party on I-70.Not often do parties begin with automobile crashes, but this one did. We were minding our own business, driving down the interstate, when a truck carrying avocados crashed on the side of road. True story. Instantly, green, luscious guacamole came oozing into the road. This created a hazard. As we pulled over and pondered the taste-value of the guacamole, a truck carrying garlic slid on the avocado pudding and dumped its contents on top.We had to admit. This was turning out to be a sweeter-than-average multi-car pileup.Then, our tailgate began to really take shape. A semi carrying Tostitos landed on its side and spewed its contents. Moments later, Furniture Warehouse dumped a Laz-E-Boy and a couch on the side. Then, Best Buy became involved in the fracas and dumped a large-screen television.

So, we had chips, dip, furniture and a TV. The only think that could have made it sweeter was if one of those semis caught on fire. Then, we break out the brats and have a feast …Oh yeah. Anybody seen a Coors Light truck?***Wednesday’s ranting about America’s obesity and the National Institutes of Health plan to fight it (which mentions everything except exercise and eating less) struck a chord with Christine. She e-mailed us saying, “Did you also happen to notice (in your wonderful paper earlier this week) that the ‘new and improved’ food pyramid is actually adding sweets and chocolates? And they even put it as ‘a reward’ to people who have eaten well that day! With all of the (God help us) obese children out there today, let’s encourage rewarding with sweets, shall we? #!@($^}*!”Don’t even get me started on Steven Seagal! Thank you. I feel better now.”We do, too. Alli Lindman sent us an e-mail, too, incredulous that we would expect responsible science and an honest effort at fighting the fat fracas:

“Are you really that naive? Don’t you realize that there is a gazillion dollar (junk) food industry out there that will effectively prevent any meaningful public education campaign about obesity? If you don’t believe me, look at how the infant formula industry diluted the CDC’s breast feeding campaign until it became basically meaningless …”So in a free market society, we will never solve this problem, but here is my solution anyway: Don’t allow people to make clothes bigger than size 10 for women and (fill in reasonable) size for men. You’d be damn sure to drop a few pounds as soon as your jeans started to get a little tight if you knew the alternative was to have to go around naked.”Thank you for letting me rant.” ***We’re out planting a trap for anybody with dessert.



Lynn, in Kansas, liked Wednesday’s column, too, and was racking his brains trying to come up with a witty rejoinder so that we’d print a quote from him (everybody wants to be famous, you know). Instead, he went for pure flattery: “You need to know that I think your column is wonderful.”A spoonful of sugar always goes further …***It’s softball Saturday, dear friends. Send your picks for the rec softball tournament today to summitup@summitdaily.com, fax them in to (970) 668-0755 or describe the negative aspects of “Belly itchers” on the voicemail at (970) 668-3998, ext. 237.We’re out planting a trap for anybody with dessert.


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