All Entries in the "Hard News" Category

QUIET ARCHITECT OF ATOMIC BOMB PASSES

I just got the news the other day while I was in Denver. John had died. Had a heart attack and fell into the very grave he was digging for someone else. He didn’t come back out. He didn’t send invitations, announcements or lacy accessories full of regurgitated, dutiful sympathy.

All I really remember of John was lusty cigars on Sunday morning, his day off at the cemetery. My German Shepherd adored him but my relationship stopped with a smile and a hushed hello. He lived in the same house that I called home across from Bonfils Theater. In the Forties John had helped perfect the atomic bomb down in Los Alamos, New Mexico, the company town built by the Atomic Energy Commission.

A graduate of Harvard, he had probably approached bomb building with the same painstaking whole-hog intensity that earmarked his latter day trade. Each morning I heard his shovel and pick standing at attention before the sun came up. No alarm clock. No coffee pot. No morning news. He had had enough of the news.

Then he slipped off for the composed crypts of the 1970s.

Some people might be put of by the spectral nature of the work. However ghastly, it was steady. It seemed almost an ancient endeavor what with backhoes and the like employed at most other burial grounds. John came home dirty each night, took a bath, ate supper and disappeared into his wallpaper. Only on Sunday morning did he stretch out, read The Post and smoke his cigar. That’s when my tail-wagging dog visited.

As a much younger man John had gained admission into the secret fraternity of atomic scientists plotting to end the Second World War. He had moved to Los Alamos from Cambridge in 1943. The research laboratories had been set up to create a weapon that would silence Hitler and Tojo in one foul swoop.

At the time the Allies knew that the Nazis had experimented with the V1 and V2 guided rockets. There was also conjecture that German scientists were nearing the capacity to build weapons of mass destruction like the atomic and the hydrogen bomb. Hitler would use it to be sure. At a time where the war appeared to be won, men like Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi and Vannevar Bush found themselves in a race against a desperate German push that would make the Battle of the Bulge look like grandma’s birthday party.

Along with these infamous atomic scientists was my neighbor, John, who told me one time he “didn’t like Northern New Mexico because it was too damn windy”. That’s all he cared to say about his four year stint there.

As we all are aware the allies won the dreadful race which culminated in the torching of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Almost immediately it brought on the nuclear arms race.

In 1946 John left Los Alamos and attempted to blend back into an American society intoxicated with victory, on a treadmill to wealth and prosperity. During the Fifties he continued related research at Northwestern University and then spent a year back in Massachusetts at M.I.T. He even traveled on the lecture circuit telling his story to bomb shelter building cold war captives while they digested their salisbury steak. He even met Senator Joseph McCarthy. I think they were both from the same part of Wisconsin.

Then the walls caved in and John disappeared from view for decades, emerging in Denver with a pick on his shoulder. He dug graves all through the Seventies and into the Eighties retiring in 1986 at age 65. After about a year of leisure John returned to the necropolis as a sort of cadaverous consultant. He hung on until just the other day. – Kevin Haley

You Animal You

by Dr Ard Bark, DVM

Rover and Kitty Need a Break, Too

Many fellow travelers ask: “Dr. Ard, why do you insist on bringing three dogs and a cat on your vacation?” My eternal response remains: “Rover and Kitty need a vacation too!”

Pets need to see the world. Some have even become fond of the tiny cages that are their temporary abode on continental or oceanic flights. These are inconveniences to which the well-adapted toy poodle or ever Great Dane can adjust.

Why do our four-legged buddies need to travel? Often it is simply to break the monotonous routine of knocking over garbage cans or chasing rodents. These repetitive chores cause dangerous stress. Most of us, who are still around, have learned to deal with stress. We relax. We escape. We vacation…often while poor Rover and Kitty are left at home with the neighbor in the same drab surroundings. Don’t they deserve a better lot in life?

Do you think it’s easy to bark all night or sleep in the sun all day? Well, try it sometime.

Next time think before you act. Include your pet in your vacation plans. The result will be a more relaxed, directed animal.

Next month we’ll talk about “favorite four-legged vacation spots” in North America.

Oh, yes, and before I forget: If you’ve never contracted Manchurian Bubonic Plague, DON’T PLAY WITH THE LOCAL MARMOTS THIS YEAR. Pitifully, those cute, cuddly whistle pigs, as they are called in Manchuria, who come right up to your car to feed, are carriers of the dreaded disease. Luckily it is all they have to carry as they maneuver even higher across the rough San Juan terrain.

The affliction begins with paralysis and swelling of the legs, motion sickness, galloping consumption, and inevitable insanity.

If you, or one of your family members, exhibit these symptoms see a doctor immediately, if you can find one, what with the exorbitant malpractice insurance premiums and all.

See you next month

Remember: Dogs and cats need sunglasses too.

Utopia Mart Opening Saturday

(Montrose) A retail outlet promising eternal bliss is slated to open its doors this weekend. Offering consumers everything from dill pickles to breathing machines, Utopia Mart expects to control the consumer tide in just about a month.

“They even have people that will chew your food for you,” said one mad consumer who was camped out in the parking lot. “Wanna have a baby or fly to the moon?”

“Everything you could ever need to live a full life,” said another shopper, “and the pharmacy is nothing short of uplifting.

Snoring keeps man awake fifteen years

by Ripple Van Winkle. Night Desk

(Moline) When a man’s snoring keeps a herd of elk from a night’s sleep them’s some serious logs sawing.

Melvin Toole has not had a restful night’s sleep since 1998. That’s when he embraced the art of snoring. As he developed the oral/nasal exercise to precision rhythm and maximum audio application, he even kept himself up.

Snoring, in scientific terms, is defined as “snorting noises caused by vibrations of the soft palate. It is preceded in Webster’s by the word snooze and followed up by the word snorkel, for possible alliterative purposes. Or possibly some wordsmith conspiracy intent on leaving most of us in the dictionary dust.

Back to Toole: “I noticed than when I drank more than a quart of whiskey the snoring got louder and louder and the cadence grew less predictable,” said an exhausted Toole from his cave-like dwelling on the clay banks of the Mississippi River. “But rather than stop drinking I examined surgical options.”

Toole told The Horseshoe that he then traveled the globe in search of s surgeon that could help. Finally he found a clinic in Salvador, Brasil that claimed to have had a lot of success improving the lot of the chronic snorer.

“The doctors assured me that if they failed to cure my steadfast malady they could at least transform the sounds into a nice samba beat,” he winced. “I could not speak much Portuguese and even less Brasiliero and so the operation yielded very little.”

Toole’s friends and family have taken to sleeping in the other room or on the hammock outside if weather permits. Some distant relatives have all but abandoned Toole to the horrors of earplugs while others have taken to catching catnaps in Wyoming when they can. All agree that Toole has adapted well despite the fact that, like Einstein, he only sleeps three and a half  hours per night.

Problems adhering to local ordinances have burdened Toole with thousands of dollars in fines. Fortunately he is worth an estimated $2.6 billion and considers paying fines to be part of his role as a sturdy philanthropist.

In 2008 he was blamed for keeping up an entire elk herd on Simms Mesa. At one dark point in the summer of 2010 even the dog and cat ran away from home and the crickets moved out,” said a yawning Toole over a monogrammed goblet of warm goat’s milk.

IT’S HIGH TIME TO PUSH RESET BUTTONS OUT THERE

— PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT # 611 —

It’s getting onto spring around these rocks and many of you out there look no better for the wear and tear of the season. However, as always, nature takes care of her own, providing relief on demand. We are referring to the little red reset button that, along with your umbilical cord, your good looks and your innate power of reason arrived with the package that is you.

Surprisingly enough most folks are not aware of this ambiguous presence…but it’s there all right. It’s just a matter of a little exploration and education. For instance: Most people will find their tiny reset button just north of their naval. If you happen to be left-handed, your red button is probably located behind your right ear. It’s the left brain-right brain thing again. If you were born in 1919, 1926, 1931, 1949, 1955, 1967, 1980, 1982, 1990, 1997, 2003, 2004, 2012 you will most likely discover your reset switch behind the left knee.

Physicians and psychologists agree that people who make use of available release mechanisms lead happier, healthier lives. So, when you go home tonight why not jump into a nice hot bath and push your button. Better yet, leave the chore to someone you love.

– Editor

Reader Survey

In order that we can better serve our advertisers we ask that our readers take a few minutes out of their busy routines and respond to this simple survey. DO NOT SIGN YOUR RETURN as we do not wish to meet you.

1. Explain your aversion to authority.

2. Are you currently a prisoner?

3. Name the communicable diseases you have contracted this month.

4. When was the last time you stole a car? 10 months? One month? Ten minutes?

5. Name your favorite prison.

6. Complete the following: My credit is currently…

7. Which sport do you most prefer?

a.) poker

b.) cock fights

c.) mud wrestling

8. Do you presently own a refrigerator? A bed? Chair?

9. What color is your dish?

10. Do you eat out often? Our of a can? Off discarded newspaper?

11. Are you much of a shoplifter?

12. How much money do you spend on liquor each month? Estimate.

13. Your highest education level attained….1st grade? 2nd grade? Phd?

14. Why do you so enjoy cattle mutilation? When?

15. Do you have a post office box on East Colfax Ave? Why?

16. How many books do you read in a year? None? One? Comic Books?

17. The best remedy to remove cheap wine stains from clothing is…

Thank you for spending your precious time on this little questionnaire. The tabulated results will help us to decide just who we are reaching and how better hoodwink advertisers. Happy trails!