Author Archive for M. Toole

Colorow’s Ghost

Part I Act 2

(READER SYNOPSIS: In our last episode we met Salli Radar, a former nuclear physicist who walked off her job at a Nevada Test Site, dropped out of high society and moved back to Western Colorado to find herself. Spending an idyllic summer cultivating hybrid snapdragons and tending the family’s burgeoning marmot flock on her grandfather’s Dallas Divide ranchette, Salli knew bigger and better things were in store for her just down the next dirt road. The first act crash landed as Salli bursts forth with a Western rendition of “The Sound of Music”, waking the majority of marmots from a lengthy siesta and setting local heifers on a collision course with E minor. We pick up the action as Salli prepares to bed down for the night.)

Although a comfortable house beckoned, a rough and ready herdsman often took to sleeping on the ground. It was no less than a show of solidarity with the livestock. Salli was no different. As she tried to fall asleep gazing at Jupiter and the headlights from the tourists down on Highway 62 she thought long and hard about her recent work in the nuclear industry and back in Los Alamos, New Mexico where she had designed and assembled weapons capable of destroying Las Vegas or  Grand Junction.

The wind kicked up sending an eerie message that winter would be making a house call in about October.

“This is already July,” whispered Salli to herself amid cricket chirps and coyote calls, “I’d better get my nuts in.”

As Salli lay in her goose down sleeping bag, purchased from from a designer outdoor boutique while she still had a fat check coming in, she thought of her fly boy, Mango, who had only last month run off with a bowl of wax fruit leaving her with little roughage and a broken heart.

“That bastard,” she thought, remembering feverish nights in the moonlight on Paiute Mesa and sizzling days with her security clearance and the man she loved in the radiant yet hazy Nevada sunshine. “I miss him so.”

As Salli drifted off to sleep to the rhythm of the vigilant whistle pigs and the swayback skunk cabbage she felt the strange sensation that her camp was being observed from above. Each time she popped her eyes open she saw nothing, but a heavy odor filled the air. It was then that she heard the chanting and the sound of distant tom-toms. The drums got louder as the moon came up for another rousing Charleston with a lingering wallflower star.

“What can this be?” she thought, now frightened by all the recalcitrant racket and the rancorous, pervasive musty smell in the air. “I must be losing my marbles. I shouldn’t be surprised. It happens to a lot of us retired atom splitters.”

Rolling over in an attempt to find a soft spot on the planet, Salli fell back to sleep. The random snoring that had driven poor Mango away now attracted something more wild than Paiute Mesa, something more intoxicating than league night at the Pahrump Bowl. What was out there hovering over the marmot herd anyway?

It was then that Salli awoke, sitting straight up in her sleeping bag. A dark, misty figure meandered its way toward her expired campfire. His glorious war bonnet and taut hunting bow seemed in conflict with his preposterous tie-dyed headband and a badly faded synthetic “Indian” blanket, the kind sold in every border town showroom from Tijuana to Ushuaia. He spoke in quiet, drifting tones as if not to needlessly alarm the snoozing snapdragons.

“I am the great chief Colorow, leader of the proud Utes!” said the spooky warrior. “I have returned to the land of my ancestors!”

“Whoa!” gulped Salli. “How did this guy get in here!”

“I am the great Chief Colorow!” the specter now bellowed. “I come for horses with which to hunt the buffalo!”

Salli sat anxiously as the warrior searched the horizon for the spoils of his intended coup. She had digested all the data on UFOs while working for the government but even the classified variety had never alluded to anything like this Colorow character. This was a completely new ball game.

Had this Pale Horse chief returned to his previous haunt to communicate an eternal message to humanity? Would she share the agonizing particulars of the demise of his people? Why did he choose Salli when there were millions of other more suitable humans crammed onto the planet? Would the Dodgers win the pennant?

George Radar, Salli’s grandfather had mentioned a sacred Indian burial ground somewhere to the west of the family dump on Cottonwood Creek. Had someone left the gate open or had this chubby apparition wrapped in a blanket returned from the ages set on some callous revenge? Had he really chosen her as his medium to communicate sacred and primitive thought to the 21st Century? This was almost Biblical!

“I’ve always had a warm place in my heart for the Utes even though my ancestors stole their land, drove them out of the country and used them for target practice,” mewled Salli. “I just love Hopi pottery and trips to Mesa Verde.”

Salli quickly determined that if this Colorow had intended her harm he would have already drawn his tomahawk and taken her hair. She further surmised that he was here on a holy mission and would communicate his feelings to her when the time was right. In the interim, she would just sit tight and wait for his astounding revelation. What an impact this would have on the humanity! Would humankind rethink his calamitous rendezvous with ultimate destruction? What new philosophies would emerge? Could this elusive chief snatch 21st Century Homo Sapiens from the jaws of ecological extinction?

Of course, her newfound celebrity status would not emerge without some sacrifices. There would be the loss of privacy, as government heads all over the world would place incredible demands on her time. There would be the endless interviews by reporters and of course the abrasive talk show circuit. She would need a new wardrobe. Would Mango see her on TV? Salli whirled out of her trance as Colorow cleared his throat as if to speak.

“Here it is,” ducked Salli expecting the infinite truth from the happy hunting ground to fill the nearby canyons. “I am all ears, oh great warrior!”

“What’s for dinner, toots?” asked Colorow.

TO BE CONTINUED

DOW Out of Fish

(Denver) The Colorado Division of Wildlife has admitted this morning that the agency is fresh out of fish. The shortage, which includes all varieties of trout, salmon, perch, bass and northern pike, is reportedly the result of a failure to reorder a sufficient supply to last through the winter months.

“There are no rainbow, native, brown or cutthroat,” said a DOW release, “ and the next fish delivery day isn’t until next March.”

Normally around 2500 fish are kept in reserve and, as ponds and steams are stocked, the supply is adjusted and sent to the areas most in need. Fish counters expressed surprise at the news since they say there were plenty of cold-blooded clients as recently as December. Even with the popularity of catch-and-release the impact is overwhelming when one considers the milllions of tourists that fish Rocky Mountain waters through the summer and fall.

“We do have some nice catfish today,” smiled Lacey Ditchwater, a recognized fish head for the agency. “We’ll even filet them for you. Tomorrow at 4 am we are sending a crack fly team over the frontier into Wyoming to poach a breeder or two. While in those badlands we hope to secure enough fish to last for the week.”

Summer is the busiest time for vacationing fish and fishermen and DOW sources say that with the economic times more people are fishing to eat and not just fishing for sport. They add that license violations are way up since June. Fishermen have been complaining of chronic bad luck syndrome since early May, which is said to have prompted the embarrassing DOW admission.

This is the first documented client/ward shortage since 1989, when the same agency had run out of elk. As I turned out, rogue agents had lost many of the animals in a poker game with the Department of Energy. Others, it was said, had been in New Mexico for a long weekend “Comete Tus Astas” competition which negatively affected the statistics.

“I don’t want to cast doubts here. This is nothing,” said Ditchwater. “We all realize that it is far easier to catch a mess of trout than a mess of elk. We’ll have everything back to normal before long,” she promised from her desk in the abandoned town of Chivington in fish-challenged Kiowa County.

– Rocky Flats

Making fun of lepers in bad taste

Editorial

THE RIGHT TOOL FOR THE RIGHT JOB

     Hey, I like a good laugh as well as the next guy but making sport of lepers goes too far. Just the other day we witnessed this kind of abuse with a rock throwing incident in one of our National Forests where lepers had camped for the night. Sure, you may not want to camp near them but there is no call for violence. This is ugly. What will these lepers tell their friends back home about their vacation in Colorado?

The refusal of one visitor to rent a jeep after it had been used by a leper is nothing short of  malicious and reprehensible. Name calling, metaphorical and otherwise, is inexcusable.

Granted, we do not have a sizable leper population but the ones we do have should be respected, if not whole-heartedly cherished.

Don’t these people have enough with which to contend without insult and injury hurled from fellow humans? Bigotry aimed at these unfortunates is ignorant and hateful. It is the offspring of misunderstandings and fears generated by parents, schools and society as a whole. Like it or not, lepers are just like you and I and deserve a break. After all they don’t generally create problems. Most hide out from the sunshine in black timber redoubts far away from the threats of the modern populace. Most love their dogs. Most pay taxes. Most are not to blame for their condition.

Now we’re not suggesting you sleep with one or share toothbrushes but at least allow them to breathe the air, smell the roses, wash their raggedy clothing in streams and rivers and live out their pathetic lives. A cure for leprosy, but not stupidity, is right around the corner.

– Kashmir Horseshoe

For a related news piece see “Kennedy bans leper vaccine then rescinds then bans it again” on Oval Jovial

Feedlot Hobnobbers

Cow #1: Damn this wind. It’s driving me nuts.

Cow #2: Yeah, and our water ration has been cut back

Cow #3: And the hay is too crisp. I can hardly chew it.

Cow #2: And the smell…

Cow #1: I wonder where they’re sending us. All this corn and alfalfa sure is nice but I’m starting to put on a lot of weight.

Cow #2: Yeah, I could use a bit of exercise. We’ll be heading to summer pasture before long to rejoin our moms.

Cow #3: Not to change the subject but I saw the boss man talking to the packing house agent yesterday.

Cow #1: Probably planning a fishing trip. They’re great friends, you know.

Cow #2: How do you know that?

Cow #1: They always go elk hunting together and throw barbecues all summer.

Cow #3: Oh, that’s nice. What do they do with the elk?

Cow #2: They eat it, stupid.

Cow #3: Savages. Why can’t they just eat grass and hay?

Cow #1: Something to do with their digestive systems.

Cow #2: Damn this wind.

Cow #1: Hey, stop complaining. At least we don’t have hoof and mouth.

Cow #2: Not yet anyway. I saw where thousands of cattle in Europe had to be destroyed so as to prevent the spread of mad cow disease.

Cow #1: Probably just a ploy to jack up the price of beef.

Cow #3: It works for the oil companies.

Cow #2: Look, here comes our ride now. How are they going to fit us all in that trailer?

Cow #1: At least it’s not windy.

Cow #2: Well, we might as well get on with it.

Cow #3: Let’s try to get a seat together. Ready?

All cows: Mooooo…

FRONT RANGE CITIES DISCOVER SIMO-FLUSH

(Denver UPS) In an attempt to conserve water, several Front Range cities have begun conducting tests with a new nuclear-driven technology called Sumo-Flush it was disclosed today. The up-till-now secret experiments involve a synchronized flushing of toilets in strategic neighborhoods where residents have volunteered to participate. It is hoped that the simultaneous flushing will cut water usage up to 50 percent since the present plumbing fixtures can only handle so much water at a time. The system is expected to be taxed to capacity.

     A schedule for your once-a-day neighborhood flush will be published in the Rocky Mountain Snooze on Sunday. Dubbed Operation Desert Flush by someone over at Fitzsimmons Hospital, the program has had a great deal of success so far, with mounds of paperwork being produced and relatively few structures being damaged. Retired locomotive engineers playing miniature golf on South Colorado Boulevard say that 1-25 appears to have sank about 40 feet, but that it may not be related to the massive flush. When asked what possible affect this sinking may have on the future of the experiments, they said they “didn’t really care.” Road crews will look into it Monday or Tuesday and motorists are asked to find alternate routes to work in the morning.

     For you history buffs, the largest coordinated flush ever on the Front Range occurred at Mile High Stadium in Denver on January 5, 1978, during halftime of a play-off match between the then Oakland Raiders and the Denver Broncos. Some 224,980 board feet of water was involved.

-H.L.Menoken

Child-Proof Condoms Approved by Feds

Doctors at St Roscoe’s Community Clinic say that a host of federal agencies have given final approval to a new breed of child-proof condoms that are set for release this week. The breakthrough product is expected to revolutionize irresponsible sex and could be a major bone of contention with population peacocks and reproduction power brokers.

The OK came despite the rantings of consumer groups which say the condoms are still often too difficult to negotiate in the dark. One proponent of the commodity praised “the progressive nature of these developments” adding that it was about time we did something to protect our children from potentially dangerous technology.

These safer condoms are expected to be available in drugstores and groceries soon. They will be packaged in discreet brown paper so as to not cause suspicion. Buyers should expect to show appropriate identification upon purchase.