MH – Wish I’d Written That…

Approaching Inglenook’s period shopping mall – cobblestones, gas lights, board signs – Family Grocer & Fruiterer, Apothecary, Ironmonger, and so on – Joe noticed that the weather ball, from which the mall took its name, Ball Mall, and for which a color code too often appeared in Hub’s Column (Hub being Brad’s nom de plume) in the Inglenook Universe –

When weather ball’s red as fire,
Temperature’s going higher;
When weather ball’s white as snow,
Down temperature will go;
When weather ball’s royal blue,
Forecast says no change is due;
When weather ball blinks in agitation,
Watch out, folks, for precipitation –

was grey, not working.

J.F. Powers, Wheat That Springeth Green

You really have to be a native Minnesotan from a few years back to appreciate how funny that ditty is.