OUR REGION

with Melvin Toole

Much of Colorado Now Wyoming

(Cowdrey) High winds are blamed for the forced transfer of about 500 acres from Colorado to Wyoming according to meteorologists here. The land, mostly topsoil and road dust, is now in the custody of Wyoming serfs who intend to raise cattle on it.

“At approximately four o’clock Colona time an estimated 498 acres of Colorado crossed over the sovereign border of the State of Wyoming, effectively joining the Commonwealth of Wyoming” said a spokesman for the U.S. Weather Service. “At this time we do not expect topographic maps to be altered or a military response of any kind. We will not know the appropriate action to take until the surveyors have completed a primary charting of the area in question.”

Angry Coloradans from Crook to Cortez are demanding action. Already militia units, backed up by the Air Force Academy marching band, are operating along the border. Carpet bombing has been ruled out since the area in question is covered with thousands of tiny throw rugs.

“There may be a lot of threats and some saber rattling in the Colorado House,” flinched the weather service source, “but we don’t foresee landing troops or arranging a naval blockade at least this morning.”

Calmer heads in the legislature suggest that since the land was not taken by force, the intelligent approach is simply to sit back and wait for a good north wind.

ANARCHISTS CONTINUE TO HOLD LAUNDROMAT

(Lake City) The Lost Sock Laundromat remains in the hands of desperate anarchists who seek to redefine political and social stability in this once peaceful town. The squatting troops, numbering at least four, aided by subversive elements on Henson Creek, insist they can hold out until summer.

The situation has gained national attention as former US District Attorney, Janet Reno and 25,000 FBI agents are currently surrounding the site. The feds, embarrassed by violent overreaction in places like Waco and Ruby Ridge, have yet to make contact with the anarchists. They have, however, created a shortage of bologna, snap peas and ammunition in Hinsdale County.

“We’re pretty sure these rascals are mixing colors and whites and leaving laundry in the dryers longer than what is acceptable in modern society,” said one Dalhart tourist as she washed the family laundry on cold, autumn rocks near Lake San Cristobal. “Some of them aren’t even using fabric softener.”

At press time there is “a lot of dirty laundry” in Lake City.

“Thank goodness for the T-shirt shops or we’d all have to go around naked,” continued the Texas woman, “and nobody wants to see that. This sorry episode has been on the rinse cycle far too long.”

Consumer Group Claims Shock Electric Company

(Ouray) San Miguel Power Company has been accused of using “old electricity” in its wires and of illegal recycling of power by enchanted wind instruments. According to a story in The Pea Green Peeper San Miguel Power has misrepresented its product, selling used electric current as if it were brand new.

“There is no truth to these cruel accusations,” said Oral Waters, legal council for the power company. “They are only the work of angry men who have invested thousands of dollars in generators only to realize that Y2K and Doomsday are just crocks of bird paste. We ferment all of our own electricity right here below Box Canyon Falls. We can prove it. We have the receipts.”

November 31 Competition Canceled

(Gunnison) The annual bloodletting involving the Class A Woodstock Geezers and the Extreme Barbecue Gladiators has been called off since it could rain. The match will be moved to Parlin and played as part of a doubleheader on December 4. Persons who have purchased admission slips for the games will be shuttled to Parlin from evacuation points all along Tomichi Creek. Others unable to attend the event are encouraged to sell tickets at designated shoulders along Highway 50. Scalping will not be tolerated without note from one’s barber.

ASYLUM TO CLOSE FOR REPAIRS

(Delta) The Pea Green Psychiatric Hospital will close for repairs from November 21 to January 31. Inmates, patients and staff will be released on the morning of November 20 so crews can prepare for the long needed overhaul of facilities there. Most seriously ill clients of the asylum will be placed in local government positions since many of the regular employees have taken winter vacations. The remaining patients will be driven to Ouray and Telluride where they will roam the streets until the work has been completed.

Smoke Jumpers Save Burning VW

(Ridgway) 700 battle-hardened smoke jumpers dropped into town the other night just in time to avert what might have been an undetected disaster. The jumpers landed on North Cora Street just as a Volkswagon micro-bus caught fire. The blaze was quickly brought under control prior to the arrival of 400 more fire fighters from the region.

“It’s a good thing those smoke jumpers showed up or we might have lost the entire town,” said fireman David Houtz who reportedly made over $10,000 selling gin and tonics to the crowd.

Three more reasons to visit Stockholm soon

Three reasons to visit Stockholm soon

GATHERERS ARRIVING DAILY

(Montrose) The local airport is jammed hunters today. But this year the annual migration of rifle totters is accentuated by the presence of more than 100,000 gatherers. The gatherers, the secondary component to the ancient order of humankind, have long been linked to hunters, making up a precedent to agrarian sects, Sumerian brew masters and the more sophisticated Puritan-Abolitionist-Yankee Insurance Linkage Conspiracy.

The gatherers, a rough, hungry looking pack of beggars, wasted no time in their struggle to feed themselves and their shabby offspring. Roots, berries, small trees and shrubs fell before the mighty onslaught. Later in the afternoon the barbaric hordes confiscated parking bunkers, lights, road signs, county commissioners and even bits of asphalt before moving on to high country redoubts along the Uncompahgre Plateau, rainy Dry Creek and the painfully crooked Straights of Colona (oerthodontisima reconoitera).

“Frankly we’re happy to have these folks around this time of the year,” quipped Melvin Toolini, executive director of the Chief Colorow Soil Conservation District. “Not only do they haul out a lot of debris but they keep the hunters in check.”

Gatherers, associated with hunters since before anthropology carved its name on the wall, are quieter and usually far more sober than the average orange-clad meat seeker. They travel in small bands (often without a decent bass player), shadowed by teeming ox carts crammed full of everything from discolored banana peels to rusty snuff cans to impartial elk droppings to soggy balls of string to curious Spam tins to discarded passages of the United States Constitution.

“We observed one hunched-over gatherer attempting to digest the Bill of Rights just the other afternoon on Simms Mesa,” said Toolini, “but the federals happened by, and with the aid of complacency, succeeded, in driving the madman off into the dark Forest of Illiteracy.

For the uninitiated, the Constitution and Bill of Rights are very dangerous documents that, falling into the wrong hands, could threaten our way of life.

The gatherers are expected to remain in the region until everything is gathered. Then they will move to the Confront Range where their massive warehouses are located.

– Kashmir Horseshoe

UTAH ACCUSED OF STEALING ELK

(Moab) The state of Utah has once again been accused of stealing Colorado elk. A formal complaint was filed in district quart here this morning calling for the return of the animals and undisclosed reparations that would be paid to Colorado from its neighbor to the west. The document alleges that diabolical and covert factions representing the powers that be in Salt Lake City have been kidnapping elk from the Uncompahgre Plateau and smuggling them past elite border patrol divisions at Mack, Dove Creek and LaSal Junction.

“These evil connivers have been disguising the elk as jumbo holiday fruit baskets in order to slip past the guards,” said Melvin Toole, a recognized expert in cattle rustling who spent ten to twenty at Canon City working toward advanced degrees on the subject. “They’re obviously trying to beef up their own pathetic herds in order to compete for out-of-state hunters.”

Utah is already doing a bang-up job of competing with Colorado in the arenas of skiing and summer tourism.

“This is a sensitive issue due to fiscal overtones,” said Toole who remains true to his warped contention that since there is no longer a state tourism tax there is, in turn, no longer a reason to be nice to tourists.

Meanwhile sources in Utah insist that they have never stolen so much as a Columbine from Colorado.

“We won them elk fair and square in a poker game in Rangely last month,” said one Utah wildlife officer. “Yeah I know Mormons ain’t supposed to gamble but we got carried away with the all them pretty chips and all.”

According to the latest count some 350 elk and a few hundred deer are currently missing and that represents grand theft, punishable by fines and penal servitude.

“They can’t prove a darn thing,” added the Utah suspect, “since the elk cross the borders whenever they like and nobody holds wapiti branding sessions anymore.”

 St. Roscoe Appears to Arkansas Hunters

(Cimarron) In a rare mid-week appearance Saint Roscoe, the patron saint of RV enthusiasts, visited three different hunting camps on Wednesday evening warning inmates as to the dangers of camp beans. Showing up at dinnertime at a large encampment on the West Fork of the Cimarron St. Roscoe encouraged hunters to eat more greens while out in the woods.

“Believe you me,” began Roscoe, “if you see the forest as your ally it is imperative to embrace some form of the vegetarian experience.”

The occupants of the camp, all from Arkansas, smiled and offered Roscoe biscuits and gravy. All agreed that the saint was quite inebriated and repeatedly yielded to a small pint bottle that he had in his coat pocket.

“I’ve never seen a polyester leisure suit in that shade of blaze orange,” said one hunter.

Hopefully he won’t be back,” quipped another. “He was scaring the daylights out of the horses.”

Saint Roscoe stopped by for a few minutes at two other camps in the vicinity but according to everyone involved he had already forgotten his message and was content to exchange hunting tales with the assemblage.

KBUT TO BROADCAST HUNTING SEASON

(Crested Butte) Once again KBUT-FM will broadcast the current hunting season in its entirety. The program, expanded this year to include Grand Mesa and the Quartz Creek Valley, will run from October 14 through November 22. It will most likely cover all special seasons as well as farmer’s season. Peasant season will not be featured in that the directors of the station feel that it is inappropriate.

Interested parties are reminded that there will be no televised coverage of the event.

“The mounting dog problem is not a subject that is suitable for the barber shop, the poker table or the common bar room. Questions of morality like this belong in the Town Council chambers.”             -Kashmir Horseshoe

Charm School Enrollments Skyrocket

(Montrose) The number of persons registering for local charm schools has tripled since last year according to educational wizards here. Prospective students now number in the hundreds catching administrators by surprise and calling for more instructors/counselors for the fall semester.

The schools, which specialize in personality polishing, hygiene and the adoption of specified etiquette have struggled of late due to the economy. Many had faced closure and bankruptcies have been common.

The desire to better oneself and the opportunity to improve social standing are seen as major developments in the educational phenomenon. The extension of a lifelong military draft deferment for students has played well too according to a spokesman for the glamour industry.

“The demand is clear enough,” said the source, but there is only so much we can do.”

STATE MAY OUTLAW GRAVY

(Denver) There was white gravy on the floor of the state senate this afternoon as lawmakers discussed a controversial bill that would limit and, in extreme cases, even criminalize the consumption of gravy in Colorado.

Saying that the inclusion of gravy on such decadent foods as mashed potatoes and noodles is “too much fun for the Coloradans to handle” Senator Oral Noise (Unitarian-Aurora) called for a straw vote. This primitive approach to ballot bouncing seemed to confuse the gallery and sent most legislators into a tail spin. Noise called the move expeditious which, colloquially speaking, could mean the hand is quicker than the eye, according to his critics.

The governing body placed the bill on the summer docket due to a long held belief that “if the state can’t tax it the people don’t need it”. Other more conservative elements in both the house and senate fear foreign influence in the kitchen.

“Just when does gravy become sauce?” asked Noise.

The senate is expected to vote on the measure as soon as they’ve had lunch, a tough, dry salisbury steak served on white bread.

Gravy, a mainstay on the Western Slope has fallen into disfavor of late due to cholesterol-conscious helpers and tofu pirates who say the stuff is not good for you. Proponents of gravy say these people are under the assumption that the government has some sacred right to decide what we should pour over our food.

Gravy is currently legal in Utah and parts of Wyoming.