Rates: 25¢ a word, three-dollar minimum, cash or a plate of bars. Drop them at the Pilot-Independent office or the slot at Tim’s. We do not edit your spelling; we edit your enthusiasm.

Real Estate & Rentals

FOR SALE. Three-season cabin, Whitefish Lake, original knotty pine, screen porch, and a dock that has watched four generations of one family learn to swim. Sold furnished, down to the loon clock. By owner, reluctantly.

FOR RENT. Upstairs apartment, Main Street, one bedroom, heat included. Quiet, except on bingo nights, when it is not, and during the Fourth, when nothing in town is. Available July.

FOR SALE. Building lot, half acre, lake access — on Mud Lake. We are telling you up front it is Mud Lake. Dorothy says the bluegills are a secret worth keeping and the price reflects a lake nobody’s heard of, which is the entire appeal.

For Sale

BOAT. 16-ft Lund, 1998, 25-horse Merc, livewell, fishes better than I do, which is not a high bar, but the boat clears it daily. Trailer included.

PONTOON. 24-ft, Bimini top, recently carried a large plywood fish in a parade and is now entirely fish-free, scout’s honor, you’d never know. Two of four speakers operational.

FREEZER. Chest, runs cold, currently holds the season’s walleye and a rhubarb situation I am not prepared to discuss. Empty on pickup. We will both pretend the freezer was always empty.

PLYWOOD & PAINT, leftover from a recent and well-attended civic art project — you know the one, you waved at it Saturday. Several sheets, some rainbow, all good. Cheap, to a creative home. See Walt.

CANNING JARS, quarts and pints, three boxes, sterilized, lids checked twice. From my mother’s cellar. You know whose mother. You know they’re good.

RIDING MOWER, runs, needs a belt and a kind word. $150 or trade for an afternoon’s help putting in a dock before the Fourth.

GARDEN PRODUCE, early lettuce, radishes, and the first of the peas, honor stand at the end of the Aas driveway. Coffee can for the money. We trust you. Mostly.

Wanted

WANTED. A fourth for Tuesday cards. Must be reliable, must not gloat, must hold opinions but keep the bulk of them indoors. Inquire, with care, at the Daybreak.

WANTED. Someone, anyone, to take some rhubarb before it takes the yard. Bags ready by the back step. No questions asked, none answered. — E. Dahlquist.

WANTED. Honest intelligence on the Sportsmen’s Club crappie cribs. I know that you know. I will tell no one. I only wish to fish before the summer ends and I am old. Cash considered.

WANTED. A flatbed and two strong backs for the Fourth, to move a twelve-foot fish a short distance from a pole barn to a parade. Bars provided, glory shared. See Walt at the hardware.

Services

DOCK INSTALLATION & REMOVAL. I already own the waders and the regret, so I might as well be useful. Reasonable rates, faster in warm water, and the water, this week, is finally warm.

LAWN MOWING by the Solberg girls. Brynn will read your situation and Greta will count your loons, and the grass, somehow, will also get cut. Cheap, reliable, bonded by their mother.

STARS READ FROM THE DOCK, Loon Lake, by appointment, weather permitting, longest evenings preferred. I do not tell the future. I tell you what the sky is doing, and you decide what it means for you. — S. Pelto.

HAULING & ODD JOBS, truck and trailer, brush, scrap, dump runs, that pile you’ve been meaning to deal with since spring. Before-the-Fourth bookings filling up. Reasonable.

Help Wanted

CO-OP needs an evening stock clerk through the summer. Lifting involved, hours flexible, Walt fair, discount modest but real. See Walt.

LOON RIDGE seeks seasonal help — grounds, dock, and pro shop — through Labor Day. Must be pleasant to summer people, which is, management notes, “a skill, and we will train for it.” Inquire at the resort.

DAYBREAK CAFÉ needs a weekend morning hand. Early hours, free coffee, and a front-row seat to most of the town’s news before it’s news. See Pat.

LIFEGUARD, Loon Lake landing, weekday mornings through August. Must be certified, calm, and willing to post the day’s sign as SWIM or, when the dumpster’s been visited, BEAR. See Lori at rec.

Free

FREE. Rhubarb. See Wanted. See the back step. See, frankly, everywhere from here to the lake. It will find you whether or not you answer this ad.

FREE. Kittens, barn-raised, good mousers, indifferent to people, which several folks around here consider a virtue in a cat. Six weeks, eating solid. The Vekved farm.

FREE. Garden starts, tomato and squash, a few weeks late but determined, like the rest of us. Take what you’ll tend. Honor system, Birch Street.

FREE. Firewood, split and seasoned, by the Hwy curve. If you haul it you can have it, and you’ll be doing me the favor of clearing the yard before the Fourth.

Lost & Found

LOST. One trolling motor, off the dock at the Loon Lake landing. If found alongside last year’s, kindly return both, and we will speak no more of it. Reward unchanged.

FOUND. One cooler, blue, left along the parade route Saturday, containing nothing but ice and good intentions. Claim at the Co-op. It is a good cooler and someone is sad.

LOST. A pair of prescription sunglasses, somewhere between the landing and the ninth green. “I cannot read a scorecard or a lake without them.” Reward, and gratitude.

FOUND. A friendly brown dog, no collar, turned up at the Daybreak Saturday and stayed for the parade. Well-behaved, partial to bars. Being fed at the fire hall pending its people.

Card of Thanks

The Rainbow Walleye committee thanks everyone who built, painted, marched, baked, or simply stood along Main on Saturday and waved. It looked exactly like us, which was the whole and only goal. “We made a fish. You came. Thank you.”

The family of Lorraine Vekved will receive friends this week and thanks the community, in advance, for the kindness it already knows is coming, because it always comes. Details under Public Notices.

Notices & Personals

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Harold Aas, who turns 81 this week and would like it known he is “not interested in a fuss,” which the Ladies’ Aid has correctly interpreted as a request for cake.

TO WHOEVER keeps relocating the bumper on the public dock: it has a place. The place is where it was. We are asking nicely. This is the nice ad.

LADIES’ AID meets Tuesday, 7 p.m., First Lutheran. New members always welcome. Bring a bar and an open mind, in that order, and we will find you a job before you’ve sat down.