Hardly anything exciting in year’s news
By Tom Snooze
Of the Times staff
On a recent afternoon in the household of the Menningen family of Stevens Point, a reporter asked the question, “What was the most significant event of 2007 in your family?” The answers were a monotonous “I don’t know,” “Who knows?”, or “I have no idea.” It seems as if 2007 were an astonishingly uneventful year in the life of a family noted for its ability to generate exciting news stories. “Well, there were the two incidents where Laura unwittingly touched a bat, one alive and one dead,” commented Ken. “Why, just the other day she reached into a child’s shoe that had been in storage and pulled out a dead bat—“ “Don’t tell the reporter that,” interrupted Laura, “We are NOT including that in this year’s letter!” But there seems to be no choice but to include the bat incidents for lack of any other story. Nobody in the family learned to skydive, or led police on a high speed chase, or built a working space shuttle out of tongue depressors. No one painted themselves green and introduced
Jungle Jamie As you can see, family life at the Menningens is boring. Would you like to know why Jamie’s hair is so short? Or why he’s wearing a girls leopard swimsuit? So would we. Well, actually, we know about the hair. He gave himself a haircut in the spring, and Laura had no choice but to shave the rest of his head. But we're a bit mystified by the swimsuit, except to say he has a thirst for adventure of any kind. Jamie says he was trying to be George of the Jungle. He's the kind of boy that always manages to make you smile!
