All Entries Tagged With: "Ridgway"
PEBBLE SOUP
IN A FUNK THIS TIME OF THE YEAR? Here’s some advice to chase away the blues: 1.) Eat breakfast naked 2.) push a junk car off a 200-foot cliff 3.) Climb to the top of a cottonwood tree and make banana sounds. 4.) Eat a screen door 5.) Seduce someone at the feedlot. 6.) Wear sexy underwear in mixed company. Like these gems? Send for a complete Funk Fighter’s Guide available from Testosterone Brothers, Boston. We’re in the Jello Pages.
Leaving town for bit? We will visquine and duct tape your house in case of terrorist attack. Reasonable, bonded. Ed’s Duct Tape and Visquine Ltd., Wimpton, Colorado.
Get your Honorary Law Degree from Bland Valley Sand and Gavel without leaving home. Computer correspondence programs to tapered for your budget and agenda. Classes now forming for spring semester. Applicants must have suit and brief case. Car helpful.
Read the small print: Colorado Hunting and Fishing Licenses carry with them a two-year military commitment. Now you can put your ass on the line just like the elk and the kokanee – Your friends at the Colorado Division of Wildlife, “Surveillance in the deep woods”.
Desperately need official lyrics to Little Latin Loupe Lou by Friday. Reward. Blind Box 399, Horseshoe.
Earn your auto mechanics certificate while working toward a PhD. in clinical psychology. Too easy? Call Shrinks and Manifolds for a catalogue today.
We need between seven and thirty-six persons capable of giving themselves a common cold. Extensive tests. Cash paid daily. Medical insurance possible. Retirement benefits if the ledger sheet balances. DR. Simon Lackluster, St Roscoe’s Memorial Hospital, All American City Roundabout.
Wanted: Men to lie to me about how beautiful I am and will become. Sarah, Littleton.
FOR SALE/TRADE: My pride. Was caught with my hands in the cookie jar and boy is my face red. See B. Lonie Sausage in Canon City. Visiting hours are posted on the website. Send more cookies.
Ed’s Liver and Onion Wagon will be in your locale sooner than you may think unless the wheels freeze up. It’s cholesterol free!
Cleaning lady needed for local slaughterhouse. Must have good sense of humor. No vegetarians or communists please. Mel’s Meat Mall in Gunnison.
Wanted: Man or woman to keep an eye on our town during AA meetings through the rainy season. Room and board plus small stipend, whatever that is. Box ARE, Horseshoe.
Help Wanted: Scout for wagon train headed west. Must be willing to travel back in time one hundred and fifty-five years or so. Risks include Indian attacks, flash floods, chronic drought, prairie fever, mountain passes and bad food. Great pay at 1880 standards. Ward Bond look-alike preferred. Drop us a note as phones don’t exist in this fantasy. Time Warp, Nevada (no zip codes yet either).
Why fight rush hour traffic daily when there are innovative ways to get to work on time? Call Enselmo’s Industrial Bunjy Cord for the recreational experience of a lifetime. Cures lisps and stuttering on contact. Custom work our specialty. Mexican Gulch.
Bike for sale: Boy’s 114 inch, 37-speed mountain variety. Too big and mathematically challenging for junior. Will consider trade for jumping beans or anything coated with Naugahyde. Sally Spokes, Almont.
Grow hair for major rug company and never work again. Dial 6.
Bagpiping enthusiast seeks potential mate familiar with a cappella performances sans kilt. Mac at the Horseshoe.
Don’t forget: November 4 is the final deadline for refunds from the 2012-2013 Unused Firewood Tax Credit Act. Stop by anytime.
Brain irrigation wanted: For small Western Slope town. Commission only but great working conditions. Some experience helpful but will train the right person. Send resume and references to Cahone Town Hall before March 31.
Cut up to three strokes per hole off your handicap with Dr. Bowen’s orthopedic spikes. Available everywhere sensible shoes are sold.
The enchanted hammock
Dawn broke one more time. Roosters and howler monkeys told the tale. Across the peninsula campesinos sang their way to work perched happily on rickety bicycles, their machetes held tightly in leather sheaths against the handlebars or strung over their shoulders like prison chains. Accompanying them were small helpings of gallo pinto and tepid tea which would serve as the daily luncheon special. Memories of an early breakfast among the mango trees consoled them, and thoughts of dinner…more beans and rice and maybe a can of Imperial Beer. On Sunday there would be chicken. They could still live off the land, at least for the time being.
Why be sad? Why worry? Nothing was going to change and besides, each had his family to hold onto, his village and at least a small garden to tend while the evening sun dipped over the Golfo Dulce.
Marcelo Ramirez woke up early too. At 89 he still had chores to do. His lazy son Juan refused to help with the farm preferring to lounge in his hammock all day. After feeding his livestock and raking his front yard the old man washed, drank coffee and saddled up his aging bay mare, Carmen. It was now time for his daily pilgrimage to the village of Amarantha, three miles down the dirt road that connected LaPalma to Puerto Jimenez. There he would visit with the friends he had known for almost a century.
Passing children in navy and white school uniforms, sweating palm oil workers, a stray horse, a few citrus farmers and an occasional air-conditioned Gringo chariot on the way to the eco-jungle lodges of Corcovado, he choked from the dust. Dry season was hell on the lungs but at least the Corps of Engineer bridges would not be flooded as they were in rainy season. Marcelo waved and chatted, as he and Carmen surveyed the edges of his farm. He reflected on his good luck since in all of his years he had not been forced into the dirty, dangerous work of palm oil extraction.
Today many of his neighbors spent the day in the palm forests, engaged in back-breaking labor. The fortunes they had been paid for their homes had quickly disappeared and they were once again destitute only this time landless as well. Now Nortes perched on their former property, building large houses, driving SUVs and cultivating gentlemanly orchards.
As Marcelo wandered into town on the back of Carmen he was quite the sight to behold. Carmen, his mare of almost two decades was definitely slowing down but the slow stroll seemed to perk her up this morning. The pair had become as familiar a sight as banana trucks, scarlet macaws and the tour buses that had just began to reach to Osa Peninsula, bringing with them monetary salvation as perceived by the impoverished locals.
He was a tough old vaquero with a heart of gold and a smile for everyone…except perhaps his off-spring. Juan, was a worthless bum and his daughter-in-law was no better. He saw himself as the local ladies’ man while Penelope regarded herself as a definite femme fatale, despite her extra 40 pounds.
Some thought Marcelo better off for having even questionable company out on his place, but he would have preferred solitude. His two grandsons, Mario and Alberto, still had potential but that diminished as they watched their parents sleep away the afternoons while Marcelo did all the work. They might have become closer but the parents discouraged it. Some day their grandfather would be dead and they would inherit the land. That’s what Juan had told them.
Across the washboard road the local brujo, Bernardo Espinozo, watched the daily parade. Hidden from view by thick fig trees, banana leaves and bougainvillea he peered out at the world crowded with inferior mortals.
Espinozo desperately sought respect from those around him. His continued witch status required displays of dark power and the casting of mighty spells. He could not comprehend how or why Marcelo would allow these parasite relatives to live off him. Clearly, after having served six months in prison for polygamy and car theft, Espinozo had many unresolved issues with mankind.
When Marcelo returned from the village he saw his son asleep in his hammock. The dishes from breakfast were piled high in the sink while his daughter-in-law, cracked open her first beer of the day. The two grandchildren were playing in an derelict pickup parked in the driveway. His son had promised to repair the old truck’s transmission three years ago. He passed the snoring Juan and the sipping Penelope without comment. He went out to the garden intent on doing battle with tropical weeds and grasshoppers. Soon he was on the patio napping away the humid January afternoon.
That’s when Carmen died.
The grandsons found her and ran to tell Marcelo who rushed to the side of his longtime companion. Old age had taken its toll. Marcelo loved the horse. He stared down at her, a tear rolling down his tan, weathered cheek. Now she must be buried. The hired hand from the next farm got wind of the situation and showed up with a shovel, as did the neighbor and the owner of a small pulperia nearby. Juan lingered on the hammock refusing to lift a finger to help his father. He mocked the grave diggers, suggesting they join the animal in the hole.
The brujo, eager to regain his tenure and rejoin the celebrated ranks of sorcery watched from across the road as the drama played out. Marcelo ignored his son while the neighbors openly glared at him swinging on the hammock. The story would be told in town that very afternoon of an evil son too lazy to help his father bury his beloved, dead horse.
Espinozo conjured up a plot to rid Amarantha of Juan and his wife for good. He would need a charm, a hex, a pinch of voodoo and a vehicle through which to channel his power. He must have an instrument, something linked to Juan. He’s in that hammock almost all the time. It’s almost like a spider web but first he must lure the lazy couple away while he applied the finishing touches. This called for serious incantation, witchery of the highest degree.
Chanting ancient words, he mixed the bellies of kinkajous with the eyebrows of a bulldog bat and the tongue of a tayra. He added the dust of a moonless night with the course fur of a peccary and the toxins from a poison-arrow frog. He concentrated some more, adding Tamarind seed and volcano ash, adjusting his brew, when, as if on call, along came the bait, the beautiful Maria Mendoza.
Every man in town had yearnings for Maria. She was 23 years old and a lovely creature. About a year ago her husband Hector had been crushed by a palm oil press and she was left alone with three children. She survived on money from her family in Cartago and gifts from her gringo dates. Her mere arrival in LaPalma at the Friendly Bar on the Corner caused guaro-chugging patrons to go mad. Fist fights and even a knifing or two were chalked up to her account.
Now she was swinging down the road within view of Juan’s hammock. He opened one eye and saw her. Peering around for his wife, Penelope, Juan slid out of the hammock and sneaked outside. Maria had already passed the farm and was headed toward one of the newly built tourist restaurants above the river. He followed her unaware that he was shadowed by Penelope.
The brujo watched the three figures disappear into the jungle. He saw that Marcelo was still asleep and that the two boys had gone to swim in the Rio Rincon. Bernardo Espinozo let himself in.
The first order of business was to employ personal articles, possibly articles of clothing, belonging to his potential victims in the spell casting. Then he knew he must touch the hammock with a pinch of his concoction so as to give it life. He found one of Juan’s many combs and stared at the hammock waving the comb back and forth, whispering the simple words “eat him-eat every bit of him” over and over. He did the same thing with one of Penelope’s sandals and the scarf, encouraging what he hoped was now an enchanted hammock’s appetite. Then he scurried back to his shack to await the return of his prey.
Maria had reached a group of customers at the restaurant before Juan could catch up to her. Penelope, however, had caught up to him. By the time the two returned to the farm they were in a heated argument but Juan, enticed by the thought of Maria, was in the mood for love. In less than an hour he had apologized for his conduct and had invited his wife to join him in the hammock. He kept inviting. What else was there to do that evening? He persisted and she resisted. Then a smile crossed her fleshy face. They were both in the little cottage alone for a change. After all, he was her husband. The hammock looked inviting. Unaware of the danger she joined him.
That’s when the enchanted hammock took over, quickly swallowing both of them without further adieu. It was business as usual at first but then Juan noticed his arms had turned to noodles. Then his neck seemed limp. Penelope’s smile had turned to fear as gravity came to play. Juan’s hair stood on end. His very veins became a target to the hammock’s aggression. His brain turned to mush. Penelope screamed as her ankles became embroiled with the netting. Soon Juan could not move. His entire torso glued to the lowest points of bodily contact with the web. He was gasping for breath as Penelope looked to him for some ungodly answer. Moments before death they both made a sort of contrition, hoping that this was not really the end.
“We have so much to live for,” they both wailed. “The children…Marcelo…If only we could be given a second chance…We could make good…”
It was all very clean, very complete. There was no blood, no broken bones, no residue of a struggle. The brujo had done his homework and the mission was accomplished in just short of five minutes.
Espinozo watched proudly while the hammock sucked them both into the abode of the condemned. The hungry hammock performed beautifully, leaving not so much as a crumb. As the short struggle subsided the brujo thought for sure he heard the smacking of hammock lips and even a slight burp.
“Good,” he said.
Hours later when the boys returned from the river and Marcelo had awakened from his nap there was no sign of Juan or Penelope. The hammock, however, swung back and forth contentedly, as if still occupied. Later that day a neighbor told Marcelo that he had seen the two walking in the jungle near where a prowling jaguars had been spotted only the night before. Somebody else claimed to have smelled a witches’ brew. No one went out to look for them. No one, even the family, cared. After week Marcelo discarded Juan’s hammock and bought a three horses in LaPalma. The grandchildren, who had miraculously taken to working the farm, had accompanied him on the trek. His neighbors smiled as they approached. They were quite the sight to behold.
Espinozo, who openly claimed responsibility for the disappearance of Juan and Penelope, was soon after arrested for transporting a stolen vehicle across the Panamanian border at Rio Sereno. After countless escape attempts he remains incarcerated at a maximum security prison near David where he enjoys telling this story.
Meanwhile Marcelo’s farm has flourished. With the help of his two grandsons it now boasts dairy cattle, sugar cane, corn, beans, rice, abaca, hemp and tobacco. It was now a peaceful, thriving farm and Marcelo does little of the work. The neighbors say they have never seen him looking better and that he will be sure to reach 100. His grandsons and he named two of the horses after Juan and Penelope and they named the third one Bernardo.
FISH HOUSE DAYS
The following conversations took place while Melvin Toole
was employed at Gossman’s Dock, Montauk, New York in 1972.
The cast was as follows: Jackie: Jacqueline Onassis;
Mick: Mick Jagger; Billy: Billy Joel; Carly: Carly Simon; Melvin: Melvin Toole
The scene opens early in the morning on a sunny day in July with a large crowd gathered at the entrance to the fish house. Some are there to spot a celebrity.
Others are there simply to buy some fish.
Mick: How’s the flounder today?
Melvin: Quite good, Mick. We just hauled it in this morning. Probably the best catch we’ve had all week. I can let you have it for $8.99 a pound since we’re loaded with it.
Mick: Ducky. I’ll take three pounds. Got any steamers?
Melvin: Can’t you read the sign? No steamers.
Mick: Oh, yeah. Well give me some little necks then and a cup of Manhattan chowder.
Melvin: For here or to go?
Mick: Whatever…
Mick leaves with his fish meeting Carly on the way out the door.
Carly: Nice looking flounder, Mick.
Mick: Yeah and its on sale for $8.99 a pound
Carly: All right! (To Toole) I hear you’ve got some nice flounder.
Melvin: Who told you?
Carly: Why Mick Jagger. I ran into him on the way in.
Melvin: Oh. Yeah, and it’s as fresh as fresh can be. Caught it off Shagwong. We just got it on the ice an hour ago.
Carly: I’ll take four pounds and maybe some steamers.
Melvin: No steamers (he motions toward the sign which reads: “No Steamers Today”.)
Carly: Oh, sorry. How’s the bluefish?
Melvin: It’s delicious. I had a few for breakfast on the way in from Greenport at dawn. Sushi quality, guaranteed.
Carly: I prefer it cooked. I’ll take a pound and a half.
Melvin: That will be $21 with the tax.
Carly: Thanks. See ya.
Now it’s Billy’s turn
Billy: Nice looking lobster. What’s the tariff?
Melvin: They’re $3.50 a pound. The nicest ones are about 2 to 3 pounds.
Billy: OK. Gimme three. Got any snapper?
Melvin: Tomorrow. The boys are out chasing it as we speak. How about some flounder?
Billy: Sure, why not. It looks good. Do you have any steamers?
Melvin: No (forgetting the sign this time) but I’ve got some nice cherrystones and some soft-shelled crab in from the Chesapeake.
Billy: What’s the best way to cook them?
Melvin: Steam them until they open up a little…About seven to eight minutes. Want some mussels to go with that?
Billy: Sure, why not, I’m rich.
Melvin: That comes to $42.59.
Billy: Here’s a fifty. Keep the change.
Melvin: Thanks. Now I can pay my rent.
Toole is ready for a break. He walks out onto the dock to catch a little sun. While doing so he sees one of his better customers stuck behind a gang of one-horse tourists and motions for her to come around through the employee entrance.
Jackie: Gee, I’ve never used an employee entrance before.
Melvin: Good morning, Mrs, Onassis. Are you here to buy fish or look at celebrities?
Jackie: What’s the difference?
Melvin: You’re asking me? How might I help you?
Jackie: Aristotle is bring home a few business associates for dinner and I just don’t know what to cook.
Melvin: The last time I was on Crete everyone was chowing down on Red Mullet, Grouper and Squid.
Jackie: Got any Mackerel or Cod?
Melvin: (To himself: “Not very imaginative.”) Sure. We have both as well as some fresh-frozen striped bass.
Jackie: What does fresh-frozen mean?
Melvin: Too early to tell. Here’s the cod. It’s from out near Gardiner’s Island and is on sale today for $4.99 a pound. The Mackerel is only $3.99.
Jackie: Hmmmm. I guess I’ll take a pound of each and three lobsters.
Melvin: OK. Will there be anything else?
Jackie: You got any steamers?
– Kevin Haley
Letters to the Pe Green Answer Man
Dear Pea Green Answer Man:
How often do deer shed their horns?
G. White Hunter, Waco
Dear WH:
Deer shed their horns once a year. This occurs soon after the breeding season. The tines or snags of the antlers are called points. A deer with a set of antlers having four points on each side is called (in the flatlands) an eight-point deer, and so on. The horns begin as single points on the young deer during the second season and generally increase in size and number of points with each renewal, although the increase in size and number of points is not strictly progressive. For that reason it is not possible, as popularly supposed, to tell the age of a deer by the number of points on its antlers. The growth of the antlers is dependent upon a number of circumstances, such as the physical condition of the animal and its virility. As the deer grows old there is a tendency for the horns to become smaller with fewer points. Reindeer differ from other deer in that the females also have horns.
Pea Green the Answer Man
Dear Pea Green Answer Man:
Why are dummy clocks set at 8:18?
Anwar, Montrose
Dear Anwar:
The hands on dummy clocks and watches used by jewelers for advertising purposes almost invariably point to eighteen minutes past eight. There is a popular belief that the man who painted the first of these wooden clocks and watches had just heard of the death of Abraham Lincoln and that he painted the hands to perpetuate the fatal hour. According to one version of the story, the hands commemorate the exact time of his assassination. As a matter of fact Lincoln was shot at 10:10 in the evening and died about 7:30 the next morning. But the belief is more conclusively disproved by the fact that these wooden watches and clocks, with the hands pointing to eighteen minutes past eight were hanging as signs in front of jewelry shops long before the assassination of Lincoln. The real reason for so placing the hands is obvious. It is the most symmetrical arrangement possible for the hands, being pleasing to the eye, and at the same time leaving the greatest possible amount of space for advertising matter, such as the name of the jeweler. It will be noted that at 8:18 the hands are the same distance from the 12 and the 6 and two-thirds of the space on the dial is above the hands.
Pea Green the Answer Man
Dear Pea Green Answer Man,
Are there real mermaids?
DC, Gunnison
Dear DC:
Mermaids are mythical beings of the sea supposed to have the form of a woman above the waist and that of a fish below. According to mythology, mermaids have great personal charms with which they lure amorous men to destruction in the deep. There is a slight physical basis for the myth. Certain marine animals resemble human beings when seen at a distance in certain attitudes. In some northern countries seals have a way of lifting their heads from the water with a human, intelligent look in their faces, and they hug their young to their bosoms much like a human mother. When Henry Hudson was on a voyage between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla in 1608, he reported that one morning in June two of his sailors saw a mermaid who came close to the side of the vessel and gazed at them intently. Her face and breasts were those of a woman, but below she was a fish as big as a halibut and colored like a speckled mackerel. If the two sailors were not telling a yarn it is probable that they saw a seal, an animal then little known to Europeans. A few years later Captain Richard Whitbourne reported seeing a mermaid in St. John’s harbor on the coast of Newfoundland. Whitbourne, like Hudson’s sailors, was no doubt the victim of careless observation. Walruses seen dimly at a distance often appear like mermaids. Durongs or seacows as well as manatees, create a similar effect as they stand up in weedy shallows along the coast. The mother holds her young to her breast with one of her flippers, suggesting a mother and her baby. Many of the stories about mermaids were probably invented by sailors to amuse their families. It is not uncommon to find credulous people even today who believe in the actual existence of mermaids, and fake mermaids are frequently exhibited at circuses and other shows.
Pea Green the Answer Man
Dear Pea Green Answer Man:
What kind of fruit is used in making prunes?
El Viejo, Lake City
Dear El Viejo:
Prunes are made from certain varieties of plums. Popularly the word prune is applied to a dried plum of a certain type, or to a fresh plum capable of being dried in the sun without fermenting or souring when the pit is not removed. Hence plum trees producing such plums are often called prune trees. Only a few varieties of plums are capable of being converted into prunes; most plums, if dried with the pits in them, would ferment and sour in the process. Many people believe that prunes and plums belong to different species; they are merely varieties of Prunus domestica, the species to which all common plums belong. On this subject the late Luther Burbank wrote the author as follows: “All prunes are plums. Very few plums are prunes in the common acceptation of the term. The difference in plums and prunes is: Any plum which has sufficient sugar in its substance to dry without souring is called a prune. In France all plums are called prunes. So in the language of France all plums are prunes, while here only those that will dry in the sun without souring are prunes.”
Pea Green the Answer Man
Dear Pea Green Answer Man:
Did Washington receive a salary for his services during the Revolution?
Sweet Sally, Silverton
Dear Sally:
Washington refused to accept anything for his personal services during the Revolutionary War. He did, however, accept reimbursement for his personal expenses. On his way to Annapolis, where he resigned his commission to congress on December 23, 1783, General Washington stopped at Philadelphia and gave the Comptroller of the Treasury a neatly written manuscript which contained a detailed and accurate statement of his expenses in the public service from the time he took command of the army at Cambridge. The total sum was $64,315.00.
Pea Green the Answer Man
BUS ENTHUSIASTS FORM CLUB
(Gunnison) Local bus enthusiasts have organized the nation’s first bus club here according to a press release received this morning. The club, founded for promotion and preservation of bus-related culture, will attempt to educate the public while it combats common misgivings about this kind of travel.
In addition the club will be responsible for recording bus lingo and chronicling history of buses in the Western Slope region. Slide shows on the most recent technology and hints on making left turns will be presented each Friday night at the LaVeta Hotel on South Boulevard Street.
“We’ll be taking field trips to local fields and meeting the bus when it arrives on its daily trek from Pueblo and points beyond,” said Ralph Cramden of Almont. “Why just the other day we had a bus right here in Gunnison that came all the way from Kansas City. Small world, heh?”
Members feel that the public will gain new perspectives into bus travel through the efforts described here.
“With the Congress dragging its feet on passing gas bills we could all soon be riding the bus,” smiled Cramden, “and there’s nothing worse than a rookie holding up the line looking for change or asking the driver stupid questions.”
Plowing of Wildflowers gets Go Ahead
(Crested Butte) A scheme to plow under half of the Colorado’s wildflowers gets underway this afternoon in response to overwhelming data claiming that the vegetation is a threat to the boreal toad. The controversial plan, which seeks to protect the natural habitat and mating rituals of the legendary toad, is the brainchild of state and local biologists.
The status of the region’s romantic skunk cabbage remains undisclosed since it does not reproduce at magnified proportions like wildflowers. During one sunny day in the summer more than a million varieties of wildflower emerge as if from thin air consuming everything in sight. Traditional toad sustenance as well as shrinking wetlands further cloud the conflict inherent to toads and wildflowers.
“We know that the boreal toad is threatened and that his numbers have severely decreased over the past ten years,” said one University of Colorado biologist. “We think the toad lives in the Elks but we have yet to see one.”
“Every species in this rough country is competing for water,” said a Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory. “Toads need water, so do wildflowers, bears, trees and ski areas. It just comes down to priorities.”
In addition to creating plowing jobs the move is expected to better showcase the remaining flowers.
Nature enthusiasts are reminded that, despite the plowing, picking wildflowers is strictly forbidden and punishable by fines and imprisonment.
“Collecting boreal toads is also verboten but feel free to take as many of other toad species as you like,” said the RMBL source. “But keep your hands off our marmots.” – Small Mouth Bess
