Editor’s Note:Sam wrote this eulogy after Jasper Koehler, LRNow’s original Scoop the Poop pup, passed on more than a decade ago. Sam rode on Jasper’s coat tails for several year as LRNow’s Scoop the Poop pup until he passed on too. Now Coco Gorman is our Scoop the Poop pup and also LRNow’s beloved office dog.
Arf! Arf! I’m calling on all my dog friends to be like Jasper and tell their owners to scoop the poop!
Jasper—RIP—was the first dog volunteer to help Lynnhaven River Now with this campaign.
Over a decade ago (before my time), Jasper sat and stayed for this zany photograph, created by his owner John Koehler. Arf! Arf!
Jasper has been a role model for good dogs ever since. He urged folks to scoop the poop everywhere, whether in their yard, in someone else’s yard, in the park or on the beach. Three bones for Jasper!
Jasper knew that when Lynnhaven River Now first started its campaign to clean up the river, up to a third of the pollution in the river could be from dog waste! Grrrrr!
He also learned that bacteria from dog poop flows into the river not only from riverfront property but also from storm drains all over the northern part of the city! Grrrrrr!
Jasper would tell you that every new dog owner has to be educated about the importance of scooping the poop to keep the river clean. Arf! Arf!
That means dogs, like me, though we will never be as famous as Jasper, have to step up to the plate. Arf! Arf!
Help me keep Jasper’s legacy alive! Scoop the poop and keep the river clean. Arf! Arf!
Barked by Sam to his person, Mary Reid Barrow.
Seed for Thought…
Bruce Julian, star volunteer at False Cape State Park, wrote to say that he learned from Vickie Shufer that a persimmon seed can forecast the winter. Split it open and if the design looks like a fork shape, the winter will be mild. A spoon shape means snow and a knife shape forecasts bitter cold.
“At False Cape we have a few persimmons and each year, I show this to some of our visitors that hike with me,” Bruce said.
Tony Arnold’s email was about the strength of persimmon wood. “Back in the day I used to hit a persimmon driver off the tee, long before metal woods (oxymoron) were introduced to the game of golf,” he wrote.
And more about another tree: Laura Bayer remembers that she saw a “sweet longleaf (pine) newcomer” at the end of the Marlin Bay Dr median as you turned right from Shore Dr. “Maybe this little guy is related!” she wrote. “Fun to think so!”
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