All Entries in the "Fractured Opinion" Category
ROCKY MOUNTAIN MAMMORIES
First Pair of Levis Were Quite a Prize
It was early in the morning when one of the Spritzer boys arrived at the Forest Queen Mine wearing those beautiful store-bought dungarees that were to cause such a sensation. They were crisp and new and smelled it. Most of the other coal miners wore baggy trousers fashioned from course wool or recycles cotton and some even from disguised drapes and tablecloths, though they’d never admit it.
Fashion was never a major priority underground. Those were the days when the old timers spent their leisure time walking around picking up gold nuggets the size of basketballs right off the ground. They worked the coalmines for the fun of it.
As boredom is a part of any occupation, and young Spritzer was often a fitting target, several of the older miners got onto the lad about his newest acquisition.
“Did your momma spend her butter and egg money on your fancy denim bloomers?” teased Mr. Mecini at lunch break. “Aren’t you scared you’ll get ’em dirty?” asked the redheaded Terence O’Neill. “Momma won’t like that!”
“Not as much as he works!” plugged Emil Roucek, a new arrival from Croatia who was not one to miss a chance at gnawing at a fellow miner.
Well, as one might well imagine, young Spritzer’s attempts to ignore the taunts were getting him in deeper and deeper until he was forced into the squabble.
“Take a good look, boys, because you won’t see me wearin’ these trousers down in this hole no more. This is the last of it,” he spouted. “From now on these pants are for special occasions only. I just wore them today to expose you hillbillies to a little of the finer things of life!”
“Hell, you wouldn’t know the finer things of life if they snuck up and bit you on the butt!” chided Mecini.
“Ain’t he something?” sighed O’Neill.
“Now boys, let’s not take to arguments. We’re all friends here,” barked Roucek.
“Let’s leave the boy be. He’s proud of his new meetin’ duds. They’ll work great when he’s out looking for a new job!” he laughed.
“You’ll be the one hunting a new face if you keep it up!” said an angry Spritzer.
“Now hold on, son,” offered Mecini. “We’re just kidding you. Don’t get all riled.”
“Well, I want it to stop, once and for all,” scowled Spritzer. I”ll take you all on one at a time…”
“Now I don’t think we need go that far,” shrugged O’Neill. “Maybe just we could have a little fun betting on the britches. I always enjoy a wager.
“Back in my native village of Idrija we always settled these matters with a polka,” said Roucek.
“With a polka?” asked Mecini. “Mr. Roucek, you had better be getting a little more sun!”
“A polka contest,” scowled Roucek. “A knock down, drag out dancing marathon that separates the men from the boys! Are you up to the challenge young Spritzer?”
“Against your old bones?” he shot back seeing his chance to escape all their abuse.
“You choose the place!” countered Roucek, now becoming put off by the younger miner’s insolence. “And I”ll bet you a week’s wages against those new pants!”
“The Bucket of Blood Friday night!” snapped Spritzer, since it was his favorite saloon and one that featured an outstanding combo from Irwin. It was the local favorite where miners drank all night and bragged about mining. (They bragged about drinking and woman all day while underground.)
When Friday came around there was no more talk in the mine. Both Roucek and Spritzer were saving their strength and the other miners were saving their comments for later that evening.
Spritzer was the first to arrive at the Bucket of Blood and he quickly became the center of attention in the saloon since many of the other patrons had yet to view the object of this recent discord, the new Levis. He rejected all drink offers, intent on the competition.
Suddenly Roucek vaulted through the swinging doors, in full polka regalia, already dancing. His arrival even caught the attention of several drunks sitting against the wall who had totally missed the coming and goings of the Spanish-American War! Without words, the two grabbed what would be the first of many partners and glaring defiantly through the smoke and ash began to lay down some serious steps.
They danced the Beer Barrel Polka. They danced the She’s Too Fat Polka, changing partners whenever necessary, still glacier-lipped and glaring at each other across a sea of immigrant faces. At one point in the evening after the band began it’s last set most of the ladies did their best to hide from Spritzer and Roucek.
The entire competition threatened to terminate itself for want of eligible partners, but for the late arrival of a wagonload of ladies from Gothic. Nobody quit dancing, and the band, feeling no pain by midnight, and encouraged by the generous amount of money inhabiting a passed hat, agreed to play on.
They played the Grain Elevator Polka. They played the Casmir Pulaski Polka. They played the Get Up You’re Late For Work Polka! After several hours passed, when most of the decent folk might have headed homeward, the contestants took to dancing with other miners. They danced until dawn, often with just one accordion bellowing through the frosty night.
When morning came the two dancers, now looking rather haggard took a break.
“You ready to give up?” taunted Roucek.
“Not on your life!” jabbed Spritzer. “I’ll be touring the dance floor fantastic when you’re passed out in the corner,” he added. “Why I’m not even tired!”
“Tired?” winged Roucek. “Who said anything about tired? Why I’m just getting’ my joints loosened up!”
Well, the polka marathon went on all afternoon on Saturday as the two were hard at it, dancing to the sounds of makeshift polka bands from as far away as Gunnison. Many of these had just heard about the commotion and had wandered in to catch the show. As a matter of fact my great grandfather Winston Tinkleholland, a newly arrived part owner of the Revenue Mine near Ouray was in town on business and happened into the saloon on Saturday night. I got a good bit of the story from him.
“The place was full of miners, gamblers, whores and downtown merchants,” said uncle Winston. “It was said to be a far larger crowd than the one assembled on the previous night. I’ve never seen two people so exhausted and yet still in motion since the pilot fell asleep on the night watch when I was a boy in her majesty’s Navy.”
When the sun came up Sunday morning neither Spritzer nor Roucek would yield right of way. They danced the Three-legged Polka, the Gold-digger Polka and the Sherman’s March to the Sea Polka. At noon they broke for lunch.
“Hey Spritzer,” yelled a man in the crowd. “You’re loosing your pants!”
And sure enough, when the tired young dancer took inventory he found that his beautiful new Levis, that had fit him like a glove, now fit him more like a flour sack.
“Looks like you’re done for,” wailed Roucek. “Nobody can do a genuine, authentic by-the-book polka while holding up their pants!”
He declared himself the winner.
“The hell with that,” countered Spritzer, looking around the room for a friendly face. Soon he caught the glimpse of his teenage brother, who folks regarded as just a little slow and, retreating to the privy, he requisitioned his trousers.
“These fit a lot better,” said Spritzer to himself as he peered into the outhouse mirror. It was a class place with the mirror and all. It was then that it hit him.
“My God! I’m dying!” he shouted. “All this dancing has done me in. I’m nothing but skin and bones!”
Returning to his senses the young man went back into the Bucket of Blood and found his adversary passed out at a table. The competition was declared a draw. Spritzer was too tired to argue. He turned to his younger brother who was standing there adorned in nothing but his skivvies.
“And where are my beautiful denim trousers?” he asked, finding it difficult to force the words out of his mouth.
“Why, still in the crapper, I guess,” cried his brother.
“Oh no!” cried Spritzer, as he careened and stumbled toward the back door of the Bucket of Blood Saloon. When he opened the privy door there was nothing to see but old Mr. Weizer, the postmaster doing his duty.
“Where are my pants?” shouted Spritzer.
“How should I know?” roared Weizer. “Now get on out of here!”
It was then that Spritzer realized his prize possession was now destined for someone else’s hips. His spirits sank. There were so many strangers in town that it could have been anyone who helped themselves to his britches. They were gone for good.
As the two brothers wandered back home to get some sleep the older one didn’t really have the energy to lecture the younger so he just shut up.
As it turns out the pants were never to be found. Spritzer lost 13 pounds that weekend and Roucek looked a little thinner, too. But you know they both made shift the next day at the Forest Queen. Folks were tough back then.
– Sissy Tinkleholland
Proof: Vietnamese are really Coon Asses too
Political comment in Hoi An?
Chubby Bunnies Support Group Sets Agenda
Montrose will be the hub for a new non-profit community support group aiming to serve the needs of an at risk community that has only recently discovered their at-riskness.
The group, calling themselves Chubby Bunnies, has formed in response to the notable rise in numbers of noticeably rotund vegetarians rolling through western slope farmers’ markets and organic grocery stores. The highest numbers of these porky veggers have been found in small, trendy mountain towns locally and, not surprisingly, throughout the infamously enlightened North Fork area.
Chubby Bunnies’ Executive Director Hope N. Goodwill offered the following background:
“Chubby Bunnies came together because many of us, like me, thoroughly enlightened, self-sacrificing, community oriented people who have chosen to save the planet by shunning meat at meal-time, have also faced the terrifying reality of waking up one day as a pre-menopausal vegetarian who has exploded to four times her pre-vegetarian dress size. Believe me, all you can think of at that horrific moment when you finally look in the mirror and come to terms with an unfamiliar super-sized no-meat you, is, ‘how could it be? I’m a vegetarian!'”
The trend from enlightenment to too-much-of-a-good-thing is not confined to Montrose, as many do-gooders across the nation are suffering the image busting truth of too many taters. A member of the Chubby Bunnies support group who has desperately begged to remain anonymous, put the pain of her journey this way:
“I basically ate every single food item known to man that was not meat. And usually six times more of it than I used to in order to take my mind off of steak. While I became a vegetarian out of a desire to do good in the world, once I realized that most of my favorite comfort foods had nothing to do with meat, I became a monster. I just kept telling myself, ‘Go ahead, grab another three helpings of mashed potatoes and gravy. Eat mac n cheese for breakfast, lunch and dinner every Thursday. Baklava? Ha! Bring it on! I am a vegetarian. I am immune to fat.’ Those of us who have joined Chubby Bunnies are beginning to deal with the stark truth that vegetarians are, actually, not immune to fat.”
Without being asked for comment, local Cattlemen’s Association president Louis L’Amour remarked to a group of old men at the truck stop diner that “there’s not one good reason to be a vegetarian if you’re going to be fat. All them Chubby Bunnies ought to just go back to eating ribs and bacon again and forget about this business once and for all.”
More information about Chubby Bunnie support services, including the Grants-for-Granola project, can be found by visiting the Chubbie Bunnies main office, located conveniently above the Stone Cold Creamery in Montrose, or by calling 1-800-NoMoreCheese, or by visiting online at www.peelonelesspotatoe.org.
Lina Baqure
Lizard Petroglyphs Suggest Mesa Verde a Hoax
(Cortez, CO — Conquistador Caves — January 14, 2017)
The famous Ancient Cliff Dwellings and the presence of humans in a communal city built into the mountain, is pure fantasy according to crude petroglyphs carved into the dark cave walls in these mountains. The roughly hewn etchings that predate man give crude proof that the Anasazi may have been out of town from 700 – 1100 AD and not the residents of cliff colonies.
What’s even more amazing is that scientists believe the drawings are the work of dinosaurs!
Detailed scale model murals clearly show the same location in 500 AD and there was nothing there. Again in 1000 AD teams swarmed about the area detecting nothing. Photos show nothing was there, not even a fry bread booth, not even a gas station.
Individual dinosaurs themselves echo the same sad refrain:
“The Ancient Ones are said
to have used this place for bed
but if we’d know for certain
we would have pulled the curtain.
If those little Anasazi
were out there running ‘round
we’d have eaten them fo’ dinner
No damn artifacts be found.”
(Apologies, but dinosaurs and lizards in general are known for their foul mouths and we are dedicated to being as historically authentic as the laws allow. The dinosaur drawings in caves near Serpent Mound in the Miami Valley of Ohio are quite definitive in recognizing Buckeye Anasazi sons-of-bitches that lived there in 1000 AD, which sheds negative light as to the validity, and the surmised existence of the Western branch of the family. )
In a related piece he first annual Contest to Rename Cortez has two semi-finalists: Hagert and Billy Holiday Village. Now instead of a murderer we can have a singer. The final ballot is slated for early August. Only Montezuma and Dolores County residents may vote.
“In a flood it pays to be tall.” – Philosopher Ming Linh Sang, to Melvin Toolulu , Quang Nam Province, January 12, 2017
TEN COMMANDMENTS SEQUEL DUE IN FEBRUARY
(Montrose) The long awaited sequel to the popular Ten Commandments will be shot in the Uncompais expected to hit local theaters in 2017. The follow-up film will continue with the same theme with the good guys, played by Israeli army regulars stationed in Lebanon, throwing off the chains of oppression (the Egyptians) and waltzing into the promised land, played by the Town of Olathe.
The late Charlton Heston, of recent NRA fame, will not play Moses. That role will be played by Willie Nelson. Special effects for the Red Sea parting scene will be computer-generated, unlike the initial scene in the first film. All daangerous snakes and water pirates will be imported from the Front Range.
In one particularly moving segment, Moses descends from Mount Sinai (Horsefly Peak) to find his people worshipping idols. He angrily breaks the tablets of stone. He is subsequently arrested for destroying public property, littering and encouraging a riot. Later all the charges, with the exception of parading without a permit, are dropped by the Philistine authorities.
“With all the laws and regulations passed since, say 1970, Moses would never have been able to carry modern tablets down the mountain,” said Heston, his pistol at his side. “He would have had to hire pack mules or maybe even a fleet of cattle trucks.”
Another stirring episode involves the baby Moses floating down the Nile (the Uncompahgre) in a basket provided by a local rafting company.
“Today social services would be all over the people who put Moses in the river,” said Heston. “Yes, they would have had to put the baby in an Egyptian foster home despite the policies of the Pharaoh.”
Heston went on to say that the tedious burning bush scene would be included in the film despite the protests of the Department of the Interior. The feds are worried about forest fires.
“If we can part the Red Sea, build golden calves out of adobe and wander around the Stinking Desert for 40 years we can surely contain a small fire,” said Heston.
