NowTime Newsletter: Mar. 6th, 2026
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Vol. I: Issue 011 March 6th, 2026
Morning arrives in Oilseed Springs. As the rising sun climbs over the rocky hills and weathered buildings, a sharp sparkle flashes off an otherwise rusted framework: a long-lost roadside guardian.
Cluck-a-Luck, as the local’s call it, was once a proud fiberglass statue billed as the largest chicken in the world. It stood as one of many reliable beacons along Historic Route 06, the old highway that ran from the East Coast to the West Coast and helped connect the entire continent.
Cluck-a-Luck was built to pull passersby off the road, get them out of their cars to stretch their feet, and, if Oilseed Springs was lucky, spend a little money in town. For a long time, it worked. It put Oilseed Springs on the map.
But that was many years ago.
Today, Cluck-a-Luck is barely recognizable, reduced to a rusted skeleton of what it used to be. In a way, it matches the fate of Route 06 itself, a highway falling into disrepair, with some sections cracked, patched, and fading, and other sections simply lost to time.
To understand what we are losing, you have to talk to someone who watched it happen.
Oakie Deloke is old enough to remember when Powder Point was still wide-open fields, and a small but thriving town along Route 06. Back then, Oakie’s Corral and Curios was an anticipated stop on the trek. Kids would pile out of the car, eager to stretch their feet and grab a souvenir that proved they had been there.
When I asked Oakie what sold the most, he did not hesitate.
“The Powder Point Wooly,” he said.
A fleece baseball cap with plush sheep ears, felt eyes, and a Route 06 emblem stitched on the back.
Then Oakie told me about a day that still sits in his mind like it happened yesterday.
“Well now,” Oakie said, “I was runnin’ sodajerk duty at the corral for my pappy when none other than Old Man Cornelius Powder come hobblin’ into the shop. Now, we didn’t see hide nor hair of that old codger much in those days, since his kids did most of the shoppin’ and work for him. I’m in no place to throw around names like ‘codger,’ though. Old Oakie’s probably older now than Corny was then, heh heh heh.”
Oakie smiled, then shook his head as if the memory still surprised him.
“I whipped up an Egglime Fizz and he drank it down lickety-split. He took a look around, didn’t say much of nothin’, and left without a word. But what he did do was leave me a fourteen-dollar tip. Fourteen dollars! Why, that was more money than that there eleven-year-old ever saw in one sittin’. More than my pappy would have paid me for a whole year workin’ that soda fountain. Oh, my yes.”
Oakie paused, and his voice softened.
“It was shortly after that my dad come back in, blank-faced, and told me Old Man Cornelius had just gone and sold the town and headed off to Tastyville. Things… they were never the same after that.”
When you stand beneath Cluck-a-Luck now, you can still feel what it was built to do. You can still see the shape of the old promise in the rust. The road was saying: come on in. Stay a minute. Look around.
And yet here we are. Route 06, once the lifeblood of the continent, now sits in disrepair. In a time of planes and quickskip tunnels, where does an old highway like this fit? Does it still have a place out there in the world, or has it been reduced to history books and Peekapedia pages?
This is Duke Gotcha with a special report, signing off.
Hiya friends!
Duke, I’m so glad last week’s little hack scare didn’t slow down your big story. I know you’ve been building that one for a long time, and I love where it’s headed. And speaking of things that survive a little chaos, I spent the weekend helping my mom move and stumbled across my grandmother’s old recipe book. Wouldn’t you know it, there was a recipe tucked inside for Powder Point lambchops. Funny how that happens.
Now, about last week, even though all the text got scrambled, the pictures held strong, so for anyone keeping track at home, that was Frostfield’s seven day forecast. This week we’re sliding over to Oniontown to see what the weather has planned for the days ahead.
The Mumph here, and whew, last week was a mess. I learned my lesson the hard way on email safety. Just because something looks official does not mean it is. Check the URLs, and if you are even a little unsure, do not click. Go straight to the real source and handle it from there.
Now, back to games, because that is the good kind of stress. I caught this one from the cushy loge of wrestling great Kruisin’ Kit Brewis, and boy did Tacodale handled business. Final score, Supremes 3, Tridents 1. Winner, Tacodale. MVP, Comino.
And the period line tells the story clean. Tacodale up 1 to 0 after one, up 2 to 1 after two, then they shut it down and finish it 3 to 1. Comino backstopped it with poise, steering rebounds to safe ice and never letting Portallini turn a look into a scramble. Up front, Masden and Corvan stacked zone time with those below-the-goal-line cycles that make a defense hate life. On the back end, Piconi’s gap control kept Portallini to the outside, and Carnett did the thankless work clearing the front of the net.
Portallini did get a few moments, Molinaro can still threaten off the rush, but Tacodale’s structure held, and once the Supremes got that lead, they never gave it back. My two cents, this was a tidy win built on details, and Comino was the anchor.
Now back to the topic at hand… Lambchops! Zepha, I sure hope your planning on trying out that recipe, and when you do, don’t forget to think of your old pal The Mumph, and how much he loves leftovers!
Hello out there!
I do not know about everyone else, but last week’s hack left a terrible taste in my mouth. I do not take kindly to having my words swapped out, and I certainly do not take kindly to being turned into a mouthpiece for a service that must not be named.
So I did what I do when something feels wrong. I went looking for the source.
I took my questions straight to that company’s headquarters and demanded an explanation. Their response was polished and practiced. They claimed they were not responsible for the hack, and suggested it could have been the work of an overzealous, misguided advertising agency. They said they work with several, and that each one subcontracts to another group of subcontractors, and those subcontractors subcontract again. A chain of hands, a chain of excuses, and suddenly nobody is holding the rope even though everyone is being paid to pull it.
If that sounds messy, it is. If that sounds convenient, it is. And if that sounds like the kind of system where accountability disappears on purpose, well, now you are thinking like me.
Next week, I will be interviewing an expert in the field of hacking to see if we can figure out where this really leads, because the truth rarely stops at the first door you knock on.
And that’s The Scoop.
