All Entries Tagged With: "Silverton"

Bears Bully Pizza Drivers

(Gunnison, CO   Autumn Leaves and Back Alley Burglars   October 27, 2016  )

Local black bears, zoning in on retirement, or seasonal hibernation as it is commonly known, have stepped up activities aimed at separating pizzas from pizza delivery personnel here.

Although the mobile pie pilots are in no real danger from the hungry, usually docile bruins, there is some cause for alarm since pizza production makes up over 45% of the region’s local gross national product.

The local gov’ment is particularly sensitive to the heists as well. Any bureaucrat knows full well that public loss of faith in the ability to protect its citizens is paramount to the present perception that the entity is necessary in the first place.

Bears don’t vote while many people do. That pretty well decides the priorities.
Police have stepped up patrols in areas known to be frequented by bear. A plan to deputize and arm pizza dispensers was voted down in council chambers last night after a pizza ordered by legislators arrived half eaten (box and all) and two hours late.

This week alone some 25 pizza delivery technicians have been accosted with perishable losses alone estimated at well over $300. In addition the grillwork on a brand new Land Rover (nice pizza wagon, dude) was kicked in, a few windshields broken and some tires were slashed.

“Generally the bear have no plan of attack, they just do whatever comes to mind,” said Evelyn Marmotbreath, Executive Director of Fully Extended Extension Services for Gunnison and Saguache Counties.

“Once they get a whiff of a sausage and mushroom (pizza) they have little control. A pepperoni and green pepper drives them nuts. Delivery people should at least be aware of the potential powder keg they are hauling around town.”

Marmotbreath verified that only the hungriest bear will risk it all for a cheese pizza and that most don’t like anchovies.

Fortunately most bear are loners and cooperation in crimes like this is rare. Gang activity, however, has been detected in the suburbs where bear often work together gorging themselves on stolen pizzas and selling the rest to buy drugs like honey, termites, assorted berries and boxes of Sugar Crisps.

“These are the desperate ones,” stressed the director. “Often they come from broken homes and see their gang association as a substitute for the den. Attempts to resist when confronted by this element are ridiculous, especially when one considers the wages paid within the profession.”

Many resourceful delivery people have begun carrying baskets of berries and mounds of garbage around with them so as to distract the bear and make the delivery unscathed. Although this works in many cases bear have been known to hold the pizza man hostage at arm’s length, while consuming the berries and garbage. Then, when the appetizers have been fully munched they turn to the real prize, still hot from the oven.

“People must remember that these animals mean business,” continued Marmotbreath. “Attempts to reason with them or engage in physical combat could be fatal.”

Unless the situation improves by November, when bear are particularly haywire, door-to-door food distribution may be suspended until the bruins fall asleep for the winter.

Another more risky alternative would be to hire the bear to deliver the pizzas.

“That’s absurd,” said Marmotbreath. “They cannot be trusted nor can they make change. Imagine a hungry bear taking off with four or five large pies. He’s make it to the end of the alley then sit down and quietly inhale his cargo. Besides,” she quipped, “we have enough under-employment around here to introduce animals into the work force.”

Pizza parlors finishing nearest the top in the recent Best of Gunnison voting have been hit the hardest as bear tend to prefer real pizza produced by locally owned establishments and reject the cardboard fare of chain restaurants.

“Hey, any bear that can add twenty or thirty pounds on berries can damn well tell a good pizza from a marginal one,” said Marmotbreath. “The key here is caution. We can always make more pizzas but a good employee is hard to find.”

– Susie Compost

“Nothing is so aggravating as calmness.”
– Oscar Wilde

Wily Bruin Suspect in ATV Disappearances

(White Pine  Over There News  October 26, 2016)

Local authorities here have come to believe that a series of ATV thefts is the work of an illusive ring of black bears who live in the vicinity. Surprising though it may sound, considering the low crime in the region, police here have changed tactics in an attempt to apprehend the criminals saying that catching bears is a “whole ‘nuther hive of honey” than catching human crooks.

With yet another report of the loss of a new Honda four-wheeler last night, state wildlife biologists may be called in to firm up the ongoing investigation.

“At this point we think it’s just one bear acting alone in these crimes,” said Marshal Everett Pewter, “but he might have an accomplice or two for the bigger jobs. We found tracks and fur and scat all around the spot of the alleged theft. What slobs!”
The latest victims, three Kansas hunters, were forced to walk 15 miles to Highway 50 from the spot where they had left their vehicle on Friday.

According to one motorcycle/sports vehicle dealer the thefts are not all that odd.

“Bears have been walking off with everything from mail boxes to lawn furniture since I was a kid,” said Adam Griffith of Sun Sports in Gunnison. “What worries us is that now they’ve stepped it up a notch, grabbing dirt bikes and more sophisticated motorized vehicles. It’s enough to keep a person out of the woods.”

Griffith went on to say that he expected the stolen ATVs to turn up as chopped versions and clones of the real thing even though the bear were not that good with tools and had problems digesting service manuals.

As of press time there have been no reports of RVs or weapons missing.

“That’s good news for the people of White Pine who have always tried to live in harmony with their hairy neighbors,” said Pewter.

– Dinty Moore

“It’s a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you often get it.”
– Somerset Maughm

Combined Canning Season Considered

(Tin Pan Park  —  Colorado Mamories  —  October 25, 2016)

A combined canning season is now being considered for 2017 due to an increase in canners during the two separate seasons, says Louella Hatchet of the State Cosmic Canning Observatory in Aurora.

The number of canners increased from 18,561 to 23,076 since 2000 and with the increase has come more accidents, violations and the big money.

“We want to squeeze every last dollar out of the out-of staters,” laughed Hatchet. “So what if they can’t spend money with the local merchants like they used to. We don’t give a damn about the merchants either- most are just a wavering rich people, a true bunch of lost newcomers anyway.”

Canners from all over the world come to the Western Slope in search of erotic plants and edible rocks.

“Reloading, once quite controversial, has become quite popular in recent years,” added Hatchet,”and by 2017 we hope to tax the hell out of that too.”

Since 1963 the SCO has been tagging cans to check their health, breeding and migratory habits just like we do with the King’s deer. “So far we have spent $212,000 to find that these cans are immune to most diseases, sterile and relatively immobile, but we’ll keep trying,” said Hatchet.

– Mel Toole

Many Elk See Themselves as Bullet-Proof

(Silverton) A vast majority of elk in Baker’s Park herds think they are above the laws of natural selection and out-of-range when it comes the efforts of hunters to shoot them. Most, especially the bulls, feel that their precision instincts and ability to evade the pursuer will save them from the freezer and/or the final barbecue.

Many also expressed certainty that the Colorado Division of Wildlife will protect them.

Elk responses, monitored in other regions of the Rockies did not share this optimism, splitting down the middle on the stringent issue of basic survival, quality of life and general well-being.

Perhaps the most interesting profile emerged within younger members of these herds who overwhelmingly felt that hunting season was too long and rutting season too short. Many of these adolescents expressed despair when shown the color orange and were openly cynical when it came to discussing year-round treatment at the hands of the DOW, their legal custodians.

Meanwhile the older entourage expressed concern that many of the more bravado members of their species might be in for a surprise when the hunters come to town. Saying that they didn’t live this long by taking chances, most confirmed that they will take on a more ambiguous demeanor and practice more elusive behavior during the season. Avoiding confrontation, they say, is the best way to make it through the daylight hours when armed mobs roam these hills.

Radical elements insisting that they must meet violence with violence were written off as loco, or at best naïve, by most other elk.

The inquiries did not touch on the loaded question of gun control since all game animals vehemently favor what they call “long overdue” legislation .

– Fred Zeppelin

Texas losing elevation again

(Dalhart, TX — Metric Socialist Press — October , 2016)

With the return of the fortunate few to the humid flatlands, the great state of Texas is losing vertical space. As seasonal residents and tourists, who only months prior sought to escape the blazing heat, slowly trickle back home the Lone Star State is seeing its lowest altitude levels since mid-May.

The laws of physics quickly come into play with these drastic population shifts or when a lot of dead weight is absent for any length of time. This additional load obviously dictates distance from the ground as well as from the heavens. Adversely, horizontal increases are almost undetectable while the earth absorbs the extra mass, growing more and more substantial as the general population embraces obesity.

“Our planet is the constant gardener, paying close attention and adjusting for its parasitic population,” said Efram Pennywhistle of the Dalhart Observatory. “These minimal statistics may not mean much over a year or so but after hundreds of years the land shows the wear. Elevation shifts are not particularly beneficial to anyone and can cause faults, cirques, seismic anxiety and even volcanic activity.”

While Texas has no known volcanoes there are innumerable examples of soil and surface abuse all over the state. Rivers may look the same but they are not. Lakes will overflow their banks, but just a bit. Livestock fine-tunes footing, house trailers sink, oilrigs modify, traffic patterns are distorted. People may notice their cars parked at a different angle than the night before.

The distinction does not affect pine beetles, roaches or wharf rats, destructive species that, unlike the government, have their own checks and balances firmly in place.

The vertical void is expected to remain until about May 15 when the stress of the population is decreased due to movement to the mountains and industrial summer escapes.

“The utter weight of ATVs, boats RVs methodically hauled up to the Rockies has an impact on those piles of rock too, but it is not anywhere near as dangerous as the sinking motion that we see in the lower regions. We don’t know how our measuring stick would react if they just came up here themselves without all the motorized accessories.”

Rocks prove to be tough when it comes to accommodating the cyclic burden and the geophysics in play are far more stable even though the mountains are constantly shedding pieces of themselves.

“While it is common knowledge that if Colorado could be flattened out it would be far larger than Texas,” laughed Pennywhistle. “At this time no one has the technology to iron the place and if someone did they would probably face a slew of bureaucratic environmental restrictions.”

Politicians in Texas continue to deny the existence of elevation change while other groups pray that the end of the world is still some months off, or maybe not until next summer.

– Kashmir Horseshoe

“Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.”
– Mark Twain

Local Woman Earns Recognition For Talented Ants

A Delta County woman has gained recent notoriety through her pet jumping ants that dance and perform officially sanctioned gymnastics routines. The troupe is currently preparing to take their patriotic themed jingo show on the road this winter.

As most SHJ readers are already well aware, only three of the 396 ant genera known to exist on planet Earth are known leapers. Yet some of you may not be aware that of the three jumping ants, two are capable only of leaping up and backwards, often landing on their backs, in shame, suffering emotional scars at the least. Both of these backward jumping ants live and work in Southeast Asia.

And now because of the endurance and love of a Delta County woman, researchers have now learned that the third leaping ant can also jump forward, perform a triple lutz, land on its legs upright. The insect be able to perform Michael Jackson’s “Moon Walk” if correctly prompted.

As an aside, this extremely talented third ant group is named the trap-jaw ant. It is believed the name was given due to the ant’s tendency to trap obnoxious, young children in its jaws and run away to sell them into slavery at flesh pot/local garage sales.

Back in Delta County (Did we ever leave?), upon returning from a sojourn to the Indonesian rain forest last year, the local woman unpacked her satchel to discover an eager family of trap-jaw ants who had escaped their oppressive ant culture, and stealthily stowed away to find a refuge of happiness, freedom and equality in America.

In a press release released to the press last night, the local woman said this:

“As soon as I opened my single checked bag to unpack all of my duty-free, out jumped a plump little ant calf onto the bed! Imagine my surprise when the little guy began to dance and sing 80s pop tunes! After he finished a tear-jerking cover of Aquarius, he took a great big breath, leapt off the bed and hooked his six tiny legs into my neck. I have since learned that this is an ant hug, but I knew even then that crabs were not the only special thing I had come home with!

Over the course of the last year, the local woman has molded the native talent of her humble trap-jaw ant family into a performing dynamo that is currently in negotiations with several Branson, Missouri nightclub lounge venues. She is also negotiating with the principles at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, even though she and her entourage are not technically bluegrass but definitely about money.

“The highlight of the whole show is when our mama ant, dressed in USA Olympic uniform festooned with colorful flowing ribbons, catapults herself from one of the audience tables in the third row onto the stage while the back-up band plays God Bless America. Nobody ever notices Mama as she quietly crawls up the table leg. Then she unfurls the rainbow ribbons and proudly leaps!”

During one frightening evening performance Mama got stuck on the side of an audience member’s margarita, during a full-on rendition of The Star Spangled Banner,  just before it was time for the show-stopping leap to the stage.

“Luckily she struggled free just in time for a glorious jump. We use red, white and blue lighting and video monitors for Mama’s part of the show. Then the band went in to a lively America the Beautiful despite an overwhelming  audience desire to hear Take Me Out To The Ballgame just one more time before that song is banished by the secret police.

All is not happy-pants for the energetic new entertainers however. The ants and the local woman have caught the regulatory eye of the Colorado Fines and Wildlife Imprisonment, that has opened a file on what they term an “unauthorized and maybe even illegal importation of an immigrant, better known as refugee, ants, with a reputation for snagging small children in their jaws and pandering them at flesh pot garage sales.

“I definitely think this is something we should be looking into,” said Capt. Barbless Hook, head Fish Policeman and boss of the investigation. “Them foreign ants may be seeing some troubled waters drowning out their little ant dreams in the near future, if you see what I’m sayin’ here.”

– Lina Bacherre

“Fraternity boys simply should not have access to nuclear weapons.”
– conclusions of United Nations Commission on World Peace in 2016