ELK BOY FOUND NEAR BALDWIN

(Gunnison) A verified sighting of the fabled Elk Boy of Ohio Creek has been reported here this week. Late season mushroom hunters from Tulsa not only photographed the skinny creature but allegedly exchanged greetings and then shared their lunch with him. For years hikers and jeep enthusiasts have insisted that they watched elk herds roam the region followed by a struggling young male human who imitated the animals and had even begun to look a bit like a wobbly calf. Many tales tell of aggressive behavior on the part of “bulls” whenever the herd was approached. Normally the animals simply flee.

“We don’t know who the kid is or how he got in with these characters in the first place,” said a county sheriff’s deputy on the scene. “Considering the wear and tear of the wilderness and his sparse diet he doesn’t look too bad. We are currently investigating all reports of missing persons in these mountains for the past twenty years. Hopefully we will stumble into some clue as to his lineage.”

Eyewitnesses gave conflicting reports as to the presence of course, heavy body hair and the emergence of stumpy, spiked horns, common to adolescent elk. They agreed however, that the elk boy seemed quite curious and at ease.

“It’s as if he’s always  known that he was one of us,” said Gwen Two Shoes of Baldwin, a native Ute and avid fly fisherman who claims to have first met the boy in 2009. “We fish together and I bring him stuffed jalapenos which he dearly loves. Otherwise he is content to graze, nibble on berries and scratch himself along the quakey bark like the rest of his herd.”

A spokesman for the local Sociable Services has asked authorities to apprehend the boy so that he can be rehabilitated. They plan to set a trap with a gross of the stuffed jalapenos near his watering hole tomorrow, despite the objections of Two Shoes who has threatened to warn him of the scheme.

“We must save this poor unfortunate from the wilds and allow him to become civilized like us,” said Samantha Meeker, a Bored Again Kokanee Counselor for someone’s county. “Then, somewhere down the road if he survives captivity and pays his fair share of taxes, he can decide for himself which species he wishes to emulate.”

Two Shoes, a direct descendent of a Tablecloth Ute chief, says the plan is atrocious and potentially disastrous.

“One hundred years ago they tried to turn the proud Red man into a farmer when all he wanted to do was to race his horses, hunt and soak in the hot springs. Now that same strain of white folks want to drag this wild elk boy into their world kicking and screaming,” she spat. “What will he do… work as a convenience store clerk or open a trendy boutique? Sociable Services even confiscated the new snowboard that I gave him for his birthday last year and he was just starting to really shred! You should see him hit the Baldwin bumps!”

Two Shoes went on to explain that First Americans never really assimilated to the ways of the European overlord.

“What makes them think a boy raised in the Rockies by an elk herd will take to their silly ways?” she flinched.

-Kashmir Horseshoe

Looking south from Silverton

HUNTING HIGHLIGHTS

with Sir Otis of Liver

McDonald, Wendy, Burger King Among Missing in West Elks

(Baldwin) A slew of fast food giants, including Ronald McDonald himself, are still missing in the West Elk Wilderness despite a massive manhunt conducted by local grease gourmets. According to close friends in Montrose the three left that city on Monday intent on setting up a hunting camp prior to opening day. When Wendy failed to return on Thursday to work her regular shift employees called the police.

“There are a lot of very bad people out there who would like to see harm come to brave hype-cartoons like these three,” said an animated window washer over at Kentucky Fried Chicken. “Sure we are in competition but we still respect each other “somewhat”.

One clerk at Taco Bell echoed similar remarks.

“We’ve always had a good working relationship with the other fast food pimps here in the United States and in Grand Junction,” she quipped, “even though Wendy is a pathetic slut and the Burger King is a drunk.”

Meanwhile police express hope as the three are experienced sportsmen.

“We found a clump of red clown hair strung to a small shrub near Coffeepot Creek late last night,” said one searcher. “We don’t know yet if that was meant as some sort of sign or if McDonald was engaged in a struggle.”

The West Elk Wilderness is home to an estimated 2500 hungry black bear who are prone to eat almost anything.

“We sincerely hope the three missing hunters don’t end up as lunch for some fury beast, but that would be ironic, wouldn’t it?” he offered.

DOW BANS BAGPIPES

(Almont) The Colorado Division of Wildlife has outlawed the use of bagpipes in the woods this year due to what it calls an unfair advantage to elk hunters. Saying that the wapiti cannot resist the sounds of the ancient Celtic instruments, DOW officials have threatened to confiscate hunting licenses and fine guilty parties in this regard. Although the practice of calling elk with bagpipes has not become chronic in Colorado, the herd wardens fear that the problem could burgeon overnight and threaten the relative safety of the state’s herds.

This is the second time in as many years that the DOW has stepped in to prohibit questionable symphonic hunting techniques, having banned the use of assault kazoos over 8,000 feet in 2012.

Jones to replace Jackson on $20 bill

(Denver) Labor organizer and “miner’s angel” Mary Harris “Mother” Jones will replace former President Andrew Jackson on the twenty-dollar bill in January. According to sources at the Denver Mint, the decision came down after reviewing the lives and times of both celebrities.

Andrew Jackson was a major voice in the forced removal of more than ten Native American tribes from ancestral homelands, was strong proponent of slavery and a frontline warrior for Manifest Destiny, a philosophy saying white America had the divine right to govern most of North America.

He was a real estate broker with a pistol and canon. One major accomplishment, the “Trail of Tears” in which 40,000 Cherokee perished, set in motion a system of ethnic cleansing extending to Creeks, Choctaw and Seminole. It was simple: he would drive the tribes from their land and buy it for the expanding United States, taking his lucrative commission along the way. He appeared briefly on the Confederate $1000 bill.

Mother Jones, largely affiliated with the United Mine Workers Union, was born in Cork County Ireland. She spent the best part of her life combating child labor practices and raising hell for the rights of workers in Colorado and other Western states.

She was often denounced on the floor of the Senate by anti-labor sentiment as “the grandmother of all agitators”, a title she heartily enjoyed.

In the American Songbook Carl Sandburg suggests that “She’ll be comin’ ‘round the mountain when she comes” refers to Jones and her travels in the Appalachian coal camps to promote the unionization of miners.

Noted critics of the move, still stinging from a decision to change the name of Ronald Regan Washington National Airport to Bob Marley International Airport in April, say it is just a blatant liberal housecleaning and one more example of creeping socialism in this country.

Proponents argue that Jones symbolizes the principles of freedom and democracy by defending the rights of workers while Jackson distorts these truths, displaying the greed and racism that swaggered and sashayed along the Frontier in the 1800s.

The new bills are set for release in early 2011. More on this after we milk the cows, feed the chickens, stable the horses and paint the barn. – H. L. Menoken

Kinickin Man Creates Gettysburg Replica in Spuds

(Montrose) Melvin Toole had little to do after retiring from Colona Brothers Slaughterhouse in 1991. However, after visiting several Civil War battlegrounds the following summer, he stumbled onto an appropriate project that would keep him busy for many winters to come.

He would recreate the Battle of Gettysburg entirely out of mashed potatoes.

The replica would be in full color and to scale, with moving parts, authentic weaponry, uniforms and structures.

“The first thing I had to do was figure out where to buy the materials, you know, lots of potatoes, butter and milk,” said Toole. “Then I spent months covering the Western Slope in search of a giant mixing device.”

After a rather expensive search (Toole drinks) he found a large concrete blender at an abandoned amalgamation resource just outside of Maybell, in Northwest Colorado. The giant device, once used to churn out time-release blacktop for the Division of Transportation, would be perfect. He hauled the thing home with his diesel-powered 1945 Henway, pulled by over 400 llamas.

After talking to local agricultural co-ops Toole secured the rights to latter day potato crops, mutant wall flower cream supplies and truckloads of unused butter and margarine samples from local restaurants. He was ready to go.

“In order to maintain an air of authenticity I had predetermined that I would use grits in the Confederate mixture,” said Toole, “but then I found out that the Rebel troops under General Robert E. Lee had run out of that staple while crossing the Piedmont Plateau.” (Historical note: Here Toole is full of horse cookies. Actually most of the grit-weary troops were anxious to get up into Pennsylvania for a nice, homestyle breakfast where the corn byproduct was not served).

“Having secured the raw materials I now faced a potential engineering nightmare: How would I create the topography common to hilly South Central Pennsylvania when all I had was mountain spuds from Idaho and Colorado? Oddly enough the answer came easy. I simply added a little less butter to the recipe and flattened out about 35 tons of the mixture onto a piece of waferboard. Then, allowing it to be exposed to the elements overnight, I discarded the board and sat back in awe of my landscape.”

Building the weapons of the day from often whipped potatoes took some time but Toole went about the task with a painstaking eye for detail. At first the muzzles of the canon drooped so he shortened them a bit. Then the wheels on the artillery would not turn properly so he added skimmed milk and a bit of ground basil. The canon balls were the easiest part.

“I just rolled them in gravy and they flew through the air like the real thing,” Toole beamed. “Troops on both sides would have been surprised as one of my spud missiles could easily devastate an ammunition dump or scattered contingents of cavalry.”

In order to keep mashed potatoes earmarked for infantry separate from spuds reserved for, say, hospital corpsman or ordinance battalions, Toole used sophisticated methods of identification.

“Sometimes I added paprika or oregano to certain forces while I relied on my nose to pick out the defenders laced with garlic cloves or white pepper. In keeping with regional cuisine, I always used cayenne on the Southern troops and rosemary on the Union assemblage,” he explained.

“Probably the hardest work came when I started to paint each individual combatant, you know, the blue and the gray,” he mused. “I recall one frightening moment as I reached the final stages of painting soldiers engaged in the famous George E. Pickett’s Charge and I had run out of real milk and had to rely on the powdered variety. At the time I worried that someone would dispute the accuracy of my effort but no one seems to have noticed.”

Toole’s massive creation will be on display at the Montrose Regional Airport through the 2020.

Ready for winter?

Ready for winter?