Thousands of Bananas

Photo: Helmut, cellphone

I used to have a copy of Joni Mitchell's lp tribute to Charles Mingus titled Mingus. I recall in the liner notes, interpreting loosely from faulty memory, that Joni says that the day Mingus died in 1979 a thousand whales washed up on the beaches of Mexico (he died in Cuernavaca). But Mingus was a genius - we can allow the mysticism.

Helmut, however, on his birthday has thousands of bananas wash ashore in the Dutch North Sea.

"I think everybody on the island has a bunch now," said Gossen Buren, a shipping official at the local lighthouse...

Plenty of beachcombers came early Wednesday for a look, said Buren, "but not as many as when we had the sneakers."