Summer on a Shoestring

By Eric MacPherson

When someone thinks of forest ecology the logical next thought is puzzles. While thinking about puzzles two names come to mind, the guy who invented the jigsaw, and Christian Riese Lassen.

Adam picked up a box of 12 puzzles from a yard sale for 25 cents, a price that I’m sure Tony would have said is too much. One particular rainy weekend that box was opened and what resulted was a love affair with the spectacular work of Christian “The Dolphin Whisperer” Reise Lassen.

The resulting 12 puzzles created a sort of competition as to who can do the puzzles the fastest, and also how fast all of them can get done. Needless to say the end of the weekend resulted in the completion of all 12, ranging from easy 100 piece ones to hard 500 piece ones.  Our entire tabletop became a shrine to Christian Riese Lassen.  At dinnertime I would look down at my plate of “Tony’s famous chicken legs” and see the head of a sea turtle peaking out from underneath my plate.

After a few weeks of a colorful tabletop, we realized they had to go. The puzzles thought otherwise and some were stuck to the table. After loosening all the pieces we knew we couldn’t destroy them. There’s only one logical thing that can be done. Preserve the puzzles with glue and duct tape for all future Shoe stringers to enjoy. And where does one construct a Christian Riese Lassen shrine? Well in the boring white bathroom of course, because nothing says “good morning, hope that was a good shower” like a unicorn gracefully aside a lake, or a giant tiger head.

Hopefully the shower has a Christian Riese Lassen shower curtain soon, which he makes, or a CRL soap dispenser, or even CRL soap, which I’m almost positive he makes.   The guy has his designs on everything. 

(Notice the man himself, in the black and white photo in the lower right corner. Yep he is riding a white horse, no biggie)

Now one might expect the Christian Riese Lassen fad to die out with the last of the 12 puzzles was hung on the wall. However, you’d be wrong. Megan could not contain herself and so before long we had a 1000 piece 3 ft wide masterpiece. I only use that word because I can think of a word better than masterpiece. With some help form Hongzhang’s son who is 3 by the way, I finished that puppy in no time.

Nothing says Northern Hardwood Forest like a 3 foot ocean panorama.