Author Archive for M. Toole
POP QUIZ
Take out your notebooks and number 2 pencils. It’s time for your monthly mental checkup. Answer the questions to the breast of your ability.
1. Why is it that one can’t trust the average house cat with a 3-pound tuna while it is quite appropriate to leave the same cat in the care of the tuna for up to 12 hours without incident?
2. The Exxon Corporation contributes to Save the Tigers yet there are none of the species within a 200 mile radius of Prince William Sound. Elaborate.
3. Name all the cities mentioned in James Brown’s version of Night Train.
4. Sub-commander Marcos is a member of what political party? In what state does he reside? Doesn’t it bother you that your government is training the military to smother valid peasant revolts south of the border down Mexico way?
5. Since coming to power the Vatican Popery has designated over 280 new saints. Name them.
Get started. You have only until 2016 to complete this section.
Comic Pages Good For Mental Health
(Gotham City) According to a new federal study the daily digestion of the comix leads to a happier, better adjusted human being. Of over 6,000 daily newspaper readers surveyed 45% said they read the comic pages daily. 28% said they read them first. Of that group, only three people complained of depression or said they felt displaced or disenfranchised from society.
“After digesting the front page and the editorials many people need to lighten up,” said one researcher, “and that’s where the comics page comes in. Completing the crossword puzzle, reading the horoscope, even consuming the sports pages don’t seem to offer the inner peace found in the comic strips.”
For decades the feds have tried to manipulate the comics by sneaking propaganda and government agendas onto these pages. The attempt has failed however since federal agencies often lack a basic sense of humor. The embrace of the internet news has lessened the number of people reading the traditional comic pages but these same control groups seek out humor and comics elsewhere on the web according to the results collected here.
“Veteran comic page readers see through all the hype,” said the source. “They’re looking for simplicity and escape. The diversity of humor found in the strips offers something for every interest and mental capacity.”
Experts liken reading the comics to soaking one’s bunions in a hot pail of water or day dreaming. Some even consider the behavior to have therapeutic value since it is not intellectually threatening. They compare the practice to meditation or prayer.
“The comics offer a secure format with familiar characters who are usually predictable,” according to a 34,000-page report released this week. “Regular readers relate to the characters and their predicaments, often resolved in a few frames. Perusers of the funny pages gain tranquil entertainment value without the noise and control of television or the demands of more serious reading.”
The study also implied that many people can’t tell the difference between the comics and the regular news, especially TV news which is not generally meant to be comedy or even amusing.
“Television is already so stupid that it doesn’t need comic relief,” continued the report which adds that boob tube addicts are one of the most pathetic groups on the planet.
The cost of the study was just over $6.5 million.
– Kashmir Horseshoe
Rock Soup
Counterfeit cow licenses, eagle feathers, Havana cigars, Columbine bouquets, marijuana seeds, removed mattress tags, banned assault rifles, bogus hunter safety cards, over-the-counter whiskey on Sunday. Illegal Segal, Guano Boulevard.
Low-income deer and elk can talk to professional taxidermists on Tuesdays through November. Call the DOW.
Need a place to hibernate for a night or two. The Ouray Victorian Inn is now offering deluxe accommodations TWO FOR THE PRICE OF JUAN through November. Call them or just sleep outside.
Desperately seeking ride to Mexico or Canada on Saturday, October 12. Will return in mid-November. Call Lawrence Elk or John Doe at the Uncompahgre Plateau Sinclair. Leave message.
The 90th Annual Psorophaora Mosquito Family Reunion/Swarm will be held at Dengue Town Park on November 28 despite reports of high water. Bring covered fish. Pupae OK. No flies.
Need: Person to weed and mow Rolling Rock Acres Cemetery every Friday through the winter season. Applicant must have good driving record and current driver’s license. No mystics. Simple vision test will be administered to some successful candidates. Demonstrated ability to get along well with the long-term clientele will be considered a plus. Stop by in person and ask for Mr. Curtains.
Hunters: Did you happen to notice a mature marijuana crop out in the National Forest recently? Well, for crying out loud, man, keep it to yourself! We may not be paying taxes on the sale of the stuff but at least we ain’t on the welfare rolls. Western Slope Organic Hemp Coop, Surface Creek Exchange.
College-educated potato peeler needed to give stimulating lectures and prepare truck stop food at local hunting camp. Heavy drinker preferred but will train. Mother’s Guide and Outfitting, 23 Dead End Place, Hardwood Sprangs.
Jake Brake Cologne – The right scent for the over-the-road warrior who hopes to make it down to Ouray before dark. Available at Red’s Mountain Pass, Otto’s and other fine eateries with large parking lots. Bottled under the strict supervision of her majesty, Mother Cline.
Found: Pair of full-figure panty hose near Ophir Loop. To claim please leave description at post office.
Tex-change operations daily at our secret clinic in Taylor Canyon. Guaranteed semi-painless or your deposit cheerfully refunded. References not an obstacle. Millions of delighted customers. Ask for Dr. Snorte.
Public Notice: The circus act “Jungle Jim’s African Lions” will now be doing business as “The African Lions”. Furthermore, the remaining entertainment principals will no longer be responsible for the past exploitations, manipulations and private debts of the late James “Jungle Jim” Tamer (11/5/13).
Goose fertilizer $25 per ton firm. Guaranteed to grow, healthy, strong birds. Tom Collins Farms.
Get paid for not mowing your lawn. Contact a federal government near you.
Afraid to fly? Hey, with all the terrorism, trigger-happy pilots and bad food who wouldn’t be? Now there’s help. We’ll fly for you. Any destination. Any schedule. Hell, we’ll even haul luggage given to us by people we don’t know. Bonus: Sign up today and we will arrange to have people meet you outside the airport or drive you to the nearest bus station. Big Bird Ltd., Antelope Hills.
For sale: Military surplus from much-maligned War on Drugs. Perfect for second home or military bunker system. Federal subsidy available for starter militias. See Mr. Winn at the Sandinista Gun and Tool Show at Jingo Auditorium. Three years ago we couldn’t even spell camouflage and now we are invisible.
Devious drunkard seeks small, beat up trailer for use during the colder months. Will be constantly late on rent and leave the whole shooting match a mess when spring arrives and I go back out to sleep in the woods. References on request. Will also consider caretaker position unless I decide to go to Mexico for the holidays. Warren of Wexley at Apocalypse Liquors, Wimpton Circle.
BUY DEER AND ELK DIRECTLY FROM JAPANESE MARKETS. Contact Jane Honda at the newly remodeled Super Fund Complex.
Will wash your car all winter in return for long distance telephone privileges in your home. Got any sisters? Whitewater Walt. Watch for me in the ditch along Highway 50.
Hunters: Is your blood alcohol higher than your IQ? For complimentary consultation contact the Colorado Highway Patrol before it contacts you.
I retired at six-years-old. So can/should you. Send $25 for kit to Melvin Toole c/o this rattle sheet.
Loose 200 pounds of basic body fat just by watching daytime television. Send $10 to Voodoo Electronics, c/o Toole Belts, Box 615, Gunnison, CO 81230.
Gelded love seat for sale cheap. It didn’t wok out and I’m giving up on men. Wanda Wanna, Placerville. Also for lease: Some dog hair. Sal Dalmatian, General Delivery, Crested Butte.
Want to shoot real big deer and elk right off your porch in a few years? Desperate! Need place to dump 145,000 cubic yards of radioactive waste quickly. All offers considered. No real estate agents please. Send sealed bids to Director of Mutations, Umetco Animals and Minerals, Uravan, CO 81436
Tommyknocker Tales
The following could be the first in a series of four or may be the last in a series of one.
It was 1975. I was camped up Marshall Basin near the Bullion Tunnel in the heart and bones of what was once one of the richest, silver producing mines in North America, the Smuggler-Union. Even upon my arrival, which occurred at pale light on an angelic summer evening, I felt that I had company. When darkness fell I attempted to start a campfire but the damn thing kept going out due to a persistent breeze that only seemed to come up when I lit the scant pieces of quakey that I had hauled up the hill in my pack.
It was getting colder as I reached for my ax which I had leaned against a volunteer ponderosa which, at this snarled elevation, looked like it missed the last ore cart off the mountain a long time ago. The ax was gone, moved rather, across a tiny gulch, propped up against a pile of rocks that led to the dilapidated tunnel. I went to retrieve the tool and get on with dinner.
Grabbing the implement I shot a glance in the direction of the old boarding house. It was then that I heard voices, laughter, but it wasn’t coming from the skeleton of lumber and rock. It was coming from behind me. I turned quickly and was amazed to see a small man with a mule standing next to my once insolent fire which was now blazing away like hell’s own combustion furnace. The small figure beckoned me to join them at the hearth and I’d swear to this day on a stack of mining claims that the mule winked at me.
As I pendulously meandered in the direction of what had been the core of my evening’s festivities I heard the little man talking to the mule. This was not their virgin conversation and she jadedly hung on every word.
“Looks like we got a dinner invite,” said the man clanking along, searching through a conglomeration of rusty gear piled high atop the back of his four-legged companion. “Oh, put your ears down, Becky, I’m just looking for that caste iron fry pan. What did you do with it, you stringy beast?”
The mule responded, much like her fellows do, with as grunt. She stomped her feet and eyeballed the familiar intruder, her blinkers set way back in her fickle noggin.
“There it is,” whispered to the sky. Then he shot a glance in my direction.
“You’re on my land, boy. I filed on this piece in 1889 a few years before the Smuggler-Union started producing. What are you doing up here anyway, and at night to boot.”
His voice seemed distant. Both he and his mule patiently waited for my reply.
“Just camping, sir,” I spouted, quickly aware that I may have been too formal. It was my parochial education coming back to bite me on the posterior once again.
“Camping? What kind of nonsense is camping? Hell, son, when you live in these mountains the only camping worth a toot is in the bath tub at the Brown Palace over across the hill. You nuts kid?”
He then surgically extracted my entire life in a matter of moments and, after listening intently, told me point blank that none of my kind had any respect for what our forerunners had done to tame these mountains.
“Bunch of damn tinhorns in funny shoes,” he said peering down at my Italian hiking boots that cost even more than a light lunch in Picadilly Circus.
“Now just a minute, sir,” I started. “First you tell me I’m trespassing, then you ask me a lot of personal questions, now you tell me I don’t have any respect. If I was one of those people you’re gabbing about I’d still be back in Denver married to some perfume clerk, selling BMWs. Sure, I’m a bit green but I’ll bet you were too when you first crossed the Divide.”
The man stared at me and said, “What’s for dinner, sonny?”
I said “Stew. I made it last night, then froze it in these zip-lock bags…”
“Kind of like an old bear burying his dinner for a few days before eating.”
Despite his initial hesitancy with the packaging methods he scarfed down the stew. It was like he hadn’t eaten in years. Even the mule had a go at the stuff, eagerly licking the pan at the end of the meal.
“So, what do you intend to do for work in these parts?” he shot out of nowhere. “The mines are all but closed and there’s never been any money in ranching, unless you got cows full of gold.
“Of course, come to think of it most of the miners were working for $2.50 a day back at the turn-of-the-century, and that was 10 hours, boy, with no coffee breaks in a dark, dangerous hole in the ground. We always said it was like digging your way to hell, an hour at a time. But from some of the things I’ve seen hell could be no worse. If not for the union it would have been impossible. Did I mention that I was a union man?”
It was then that he embarked on the epic, though unsolicited history lesson of the day. He talked of snow slides that wiped out mining camps in minutes and rousing dance hall interludes. He told me about William Jennings Bryan and his Cross of Gold “conspiracy” as he called it. I heard about Jack Dempsey and Lillian Gish then more about Buckley Wells and Sarah Bernhardt. His attention to detail was quite impressive considering his years. He acted as if he had known them all.
“On a Saturday night you could drink with miners from all over the world. Finns, Cornish, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Serbs and even a few Chinese thrown in for spice,” he smiled. “Then there were the Irish, like me. Most were in the union.”
“Were you born in Ireland?”
“Of course, boy. Where else? Came over on a clipper.
I asked him his name.
“Patrick McGinty…and yours?”
We talked all night. Becky seemed to be taking shorthand in the lichen. I invited him to share my fire till dawn and was soundly scolded since, after all I was trespassing in the first place.
“No, we’ve got to be going. Tomorrow I’ve got to go down to Ames and visit the doctor. Mercury poisoning you know. But if you’ll come back here next Friday night we’ll meet up with you,” he said. “There’s a mound of history that we need to drill into your head.”
I promised to return, feeling rather flattered that he sought the company of newcomer like me.
Patrick McGinty. Now there’s a name with character. When I landed back in Telluride on Monday I stopped by the courthouse to check on his stimulating credentials. After about a half hour of searching farther and farther back into the dusty records I found a McGinty, a bachelor named Patrick who had come to Telluride in 1884 from County Clare. It read: Patrick McGinty: Born March 20,1865, died July 3, 1901, during the labor trouble at the Smuggler-Union. A union man.
Next time: “A Visit With a Dead Man at 12,000 Feet”
