All Entries Tagged With: "Lake City"
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”
Baptized in the Blues Red Hot Experience
Former Gunnison resident, Paul O’Sullivan, who now lives in Minneapolis, has hit a home run with Baptized in the Blues, featuring wife Annie Mack on lead vocals. The blues, often more traditional than innovative, gets a free limo ride downtown on this incredible CD.
The majority of songs, written by Annie and Paul, feature everything from Little Bitty Girl Blues, a fast moving song about growing up hard, to Walking Dead, a song about personal courage and the ability to stand up to it all. Call on Jesus grabs you right in the Bible belt with a bit of well-placed gospel moaning and wailing. Fool to Believe introduces rhythm and blues into the mix.
Perhaps my favorite song Saving Grace, talks about a mother’s love for her child. This powerful piece, written by Annie Mack and Tom Koochie, flows freely with lyrics such as “She speaks colors and laughs melodies. Wisdom draws her close, peace sits at her feet”.
Produced by O’Sullivan, who plays guitar and pedal steel, the work features Tom Koochie (who penned several songs) on guitar; Charley Lacy on guitar; Tim Scriber on bass and Miles Johnson on drums.
Anyone who enjoys the blues should give this CD a listen or two. It’s a lot of heat coming from a cold city up north. www.anniemackblues.com
WHAT I’VE FOUND OUT
There is virtually no mention of motorized travel in the Book of Genesis.
Stuffing a turkey and stuffing a ballot box are relatively simple once one gets the hang of it.
Having instant access to all that data on the Internet will not make you any smarter, especially with a lingering screen saver mentality.
In the recent Presidential campaign nobody catered to the Norwegian vote.
As far as predicting the severity of winter one might be far better measuring the amount of fur on the belly of a snowshoe rabbit as relying on the weather forecast on television.
There is a Burger King (cultural export) adjacent to several 16th Century buildings in central Guadalajara.
Cowboy Sundays last just a little bit longer than other ones.
Very few restaurants feature Canadian-American cuisine.
Ronald Reagan, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Richard Nixon have been rather quiet for quite a while now, although their stunning legacies have been kept on extensive life support.
Uninformed voters who show up at the polls with pencil in hand invalidate the election. Why then do all of our peter pan patriots keep urging them to vote when they are dolts?
The money spent to combat whirling disease at the Roaring Judy Fish Hatchery comes out to just a little under ten dollars per fish.
The purpose of the indentation at the bottom of a wine bottle is to trap the sediments in the wine.
If one’s monthly liquor bill is higher than the GNP of a small Latin American country maybe he/she should find a new interests.
Robert Todd Lincoln, son of Abraham Lincoln, was present at the assassinations of three presidents: his father’s, President Garfield’s and President McKinley’s. After the last shooting he refused ever to attend a state function again.
One ostrich egg can make up to twelve omelets.
In ancient Greece it was illegal to project the winner of an election until all the votes were counted. An actual democracy existed there for about ten years. In the United States, where projection is the rule, we have never had a true democracy.
Pirates have a lot more fun than accountants.
If one watches carefully he can detect a slight smile on the pouch of a pelican after dinner, despite his repetitious diet of fish.
