All Entries Tagged With: "Western"
Turkey Lottery Cruel?
(Montrose) The proposed Turkey Lottery for next Thanksgiving has played to mixed reaction here and in other rural communities across the country.
Saying that the birds already encounter enough stress this time of the year one critic of the concept called the measure inhumane. Supporters of the bill insist that it will create a sense of justice and put a vast segment of the turkey population out of harm’s way, for now.
Here’s how it works: The birds will be assigned numbers based on birthdays and then draw for positions. Lower numbers will designate the dinner table while higher numbers will earn a reprieve for the year.
“It’s as fair as anything else,” said Melvin Toole, architect of the lottery. “This way the condemned can get their lives in order before November and the saved can go on with their lives without fear of a swan song with mashed potatoes and cranberries.”
Vegetarians were not consulted on this matter and plan to boycott the entire issue.
“What rubs my chops is that nobody has consulted the sweet potatoes or the yams,” said Toole
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UTE WHALE HUNTS APPROVED
Lake Powell Breakthrough Lauded
(Ignacio) In a monumental turn of events the United Snakes Senate today voted in favor of Ute Whale hunts in Arizona and Utah. The action paves the way toward diversification of the reservation economy and promises to give indigent members of the tribe increased opportunity.
“Quite a high percentage of Native Americans seem to lack direction these days,” said Estelle Marmotbreath, Director of Reservation Rehabilitation and Relaxation. Marmotbreath, a tea leaf reader, thinks the destruction of their culture ,the seizure of tribal lands and the adoption of reservations has led to this problem.
“The Utes were never heavy into buffalo hunting since there were few of the beasts in the mountains,” explained Marmotbreath who earned her PhD. in Casino Administration at the Isolationist Institute for International Studies in 2007. “We think the whale hunts will replace the historically incorrect yet legendary buffalo hunts, and in turn help moral.”
The plan has angered environmentalists, many whom support Sierra Club efforts to drain Lake Powell and return Glen Canyon to its natural state.
“What chance will whales have against Ute hunting parties when the water is gone?” asked one Sierra Club member.
If the Lake Powell whale safaris are successful Ute whaling ships may once again be seen on the Colorado River and right there in your bathtub.
Already water interests in Arapaho County have petitioned the state of Colorado for a permit to build a Ute Whaler Water Theme Park adjacent to the Aurora Gang War Zone Memorial there. Principals in that effort insist they will need additional Western Slope water to complete the project. – Small Mouth Bess
Judiciary Contest Winner Announced
(Crested Butte) Little Melvin Toole of Irwin has won first place in the 2013 Judiciary Contest sponsored by the local civil liberties union. Toole, 6, took home $300 for correctly defining habeas corpus as the right to stand before one’s accuser and the right to protection from unlawful restraint.
The second place finisher Marigold Swami of Crestone defined habeas corpus as producing a dead body while three others said it was a lusty, hummus-like porridge, (haggis) favored by those of Scottish origin and their hung-over friends.
In the final tally 35% of those participating said habeas corpus was a disease common to wild boar while almost 50% said it was the name of a Roman Emperor. One woman told us it was the name of a popular Montrose micro brew.
In addition to the cash Toole will receive an Attica basketball jersey and a free boat trip around Alcatraz Island. – H. L. Menoken
Lake City Rumor Mill Shut Down
(Capitol City) One of the last vestiges of the San Juan mining era was closed today, dislodging a chunk of the population and leaving others cemented in their overshoes, shocked and clueless.
The termination of activities at the mill, located up Henson Creek adjacent to the Yellow Snow Mine, is reportedly due to erratic production, general neglect, bad whiskey and ground pollution. According to people in ties, clipboards and white shirts from the Euphemistic Procrastination Agency the mill presented a danger to the health and harmony of the town.
“The EPA has confirmed the forced closure of the celebrated Lake City Rumor Mill,” said a source within the agency. “Tomorrow we bring in the bulldozers and dynamite. Soon all traces of that wicked pimple on the landscape will be gone.”
The former rumor mill, thought to be haunted, will become a destination spot for extreme ninja RVers, due to high landslide potential on the funny side of the mountain.
For decades the rumor mill churned out juicy stories involving everyone from the mayor to the town drunk. Attempts to pump life into the facility have been futile due to its remote status and distance from civilization. National historic distinction has done little to generate operating funds and potential for an obscure structural wilderness status is still up in the air.
“I remember kissing Margaret Hatch in front of the mill in my ’54 Chevy back in 1953,” said Old Man Pritchard of the Hinsdale Pritchards. “When her daddy got wind of my intentions he chased me all the way to Spar City with a chainsaw. Boy, those were the days!”
The rumor mill’s popularity as a make-out spot soon came to the attention of local law enforcement agencies who carried out countless SWAT team excursions into the area in the Sixties and Seventies.
“We were convinced there were guerrillas hiding in the tunnels out there,” said one deputy, “but all we found were a bunch of nubian hippies and their skinny goats.”
Despite a sadness lingering over the town most people have accepted the closure and have gotten back to the business of talking about each other.
“Plowing over a few acres of rock will never stop the gossip from flowing,” said one resident credited with starting tattle on such hot topics as lake polygamy to naughty knife swapping parties to UFO landings on the Cannibal Plateau. “After one particularly creative session we had hundreds of tourists out looking for Slumgullion’s Treasure as far south as the Weminuche when everyone here knows that the peg-legged, murdering pirate’s stash was deposited in the local bank back in 2009.”
According to gov’ment agencies jockeying for fetal position above town, mounds of tailings, the residue of the mill, will be hauled to the Ronald Reagan Re-Education Camp at Powderhorn. Rumor has it that it will then be spun into gold by political prisoners currently incarcerated there. – Fred Zeppelin
THE TARZAN AND JANE DIALOGUES
Brought to you every Saturday afternoon in innocent black and white by O’Hara’s Kalahari Breath Mints and Monkey Calming Ointment. O’Hara’s – Recognized by schlimazels the world over as an effective cholesterol substitute and mirth control device.
The scene: A tree house in East Africa
Jane: It says here in the Nairobi paper that Chief Mutumbo has won a lucrative insurance settlement after falling out of his tree house.
Tarzan: Tarzan no read. Chief drunk? Chief win lotta money?
Jane: 10,000 pilasters, dear.
Tarzan: That buy lotta jungle juice and bones for all wives’ noses.
Jane: And what’s more the Somalian Optimists have been forced to cancel the annual Feed the Homeless Feast.
Tarzan: Why? They not have food?
Jane: No, dear, it’s another insurance hang-up. The club is afraid one of the homeless might sue, you know, if they get food caught in their throat or they stab themselves with a fork.
Tarzan: That silly. Homeless not afford lawyers.
(Tarzan is distracted as a flock of vultures flies overhead)
Jane: That’s what you think. Have you seen Cheetah today?
Tarzan: Monkey gone shopping for new Cadillac.
Jane: A new car? I didn’t know Cheetah drove.
Tarzan: Monkey drive now. Tobacco company settle for lotta cash. Cheetah smoke for twenty years. Has bad cough. Get lawyer. Sue cigarette maker.
Jane: The tobacco company paid Cheetah a settlement?
Tarzan: That right. Lotta cash. Look for Cadillac.
Jane: That reminds me dear, we just got a bill for the elephant’s employee health insurance, and Boy’s life insurance plus don’t forget your tree swinger’s accident insurance is due Tuesday.
Tarzan: Tarzan surprised loincloth insurance not mandatory.
THE END
Jericho Bob
by Anna Eichberg King
Jericho Bob, when he was four years old, hoped that one day he might be allowed to eat just as much turkey as he possibly could. He was eight now, but that hope had not been realized.
Mrs. Jericho Bob, his mother, kept hens for a living, and she expected they would lay enough eggs in the course of time to help her son to an independent career as a bootblack.
They lived in a tumble-down house in a waste of land near the steam cars. Besides her hens Mrs. Bob owned a goat.
Our story has, however, nothing to do with the goat except to say he was there, and that he was on nibbling terms, not only with Jericho Bob, but with his friend, Julius Caesar Fish, and it was surprising how many old hat brims and other tidbits of clothing he could swallow during a day.
And Mrs. Bob truly said, it was no earthly use to get something new for Jericho, even if she could afford it; for the goat browsed all over him, and had been known to carry away even a leg of his trousers.
Jericho Bob was eight years old and his friend, Julius Caesar Fish, was nine. They were so much alike that if it hadn’t been for Jericho’s bow-legs and his turned up nose, you really could not have told them apart.
A kindred taste for turkey also united them.
In honor of Thanksgiving Day Mrs. Bob always sacrificed a hen which would, but for such blessed release, have died of old age. One drumstick was given to Jericho, whose interior remained an unsatisfied void.
Jericho has heard of turkey as a fowl larger, sweeter and more tender than hen, and about Thanksgiving time he would linger around the provision stores and gaze with open mouth at the array of turkeys hanging head downward over bushels of cranberries, as if even at that uncooked stage, they were destined for one another. And turkey was his dream.
It was springtime, and the hens were being a credit to themselves. The goat in the yard, tied to a stake, was varying a meal of old shoe and tomato can by a nibble of fresh green grass. Mrs. Bob was laid up with rheumatism.
“Jericho Bob!” she said to her son, shaking her red and yellow turban at him. “Jericho Bob, you go down and fetch de eggs today. Ef I find yer don’t bring me twenty-three, I’ll…well never mind what I’ll do. but you won’t like it”
Now Jericho Bob meant to be honest, but the fact was he found twenty-four, and the twenty-fourth was so big, so remarkably big. Twenty-three eggs he brought to Mrs. Bob, but the twenty-fourth he left sinfully in charge of the discreet hen.
On his return he met Julius Caesar Fish, with his hands in his pockets and his head extinguished by his grandfather’s fur cap. Together they went toward the hen coop and Fish spoke, or rather lisped (he had lost some of his front teeth):
“Jericho Bob, tha’th a turkey’th egg.”
“Yer don’t say so.”
“I think i’th a-goin to hatch.”
No sooner said that they heard a pick and peck in the shell.
“Pick!” a tiny beak broke through the shell. “Peck!” more break. “Crack!” a funny little head, a long bare neck, and then “Pick, peck, crack! before them stood the funniest, fluffiest brown ball resting on two weak little legs.
“Hooray!” they shouted.
“Peep!” said the turkeykin.
“It’s mine!” Jericho Bob shouted excitedly.
“I’th Marm Pitkin’th turkey’th; she laid it there.”
“It’s mine, and I’m going to keep it, and next Thanksgiving I’m going ter eat him.”
“Think yer ma’ll let you feed him up for thath? Julius Caesar asked triumphantly.
Jericho Bob’s next Thanksgiving dinner seemed destined to be a dream. His face fell.
“I’ll tell you wath I’ll do,” his friend said, benevolently: “I’ll keep him for you, and Thanksgivin’ we’ll go halvth.”
Jericho resigned himself to the inevitable, and the infant turkey was borne home by his friend.
Fish. Jr., lived next door, and the only difference in the premises was a freight-car permanently switched off before the broken down fence of the Fish yard; and in this car turkeykin took up his abode.
I will not tell you how he grew and more than realized the hopes of his foster-fathers, nor with what impatience and anticipation they saw spring. summer and autumn pass, while they watched their Thanksgiving dinner stalk proudly up the bare yard and even hop across the railroad tracks.
But alas! the possession of the turkey brought with it strife and discord.
Quarrels arose between the friends as to the prospective disposal of his remains. We grieve to say that the question of who was to cook him led to blows.
It was the day before Thanksgiving. There was a coldness between the friends which was not dispelled by the bringing of a pint of cranberries to the common store by Jericho, and the contributing thereto of a couple of cold-boiled sweet potatoes by Julius Caesar Fish.
The friends sat on an ancient washtub in the backyard, and there was a momentary truce between them. Before them stood the freight-car, and along the track beyond, an occasional train tore down the road, which so far excited their mutual sympathy that they rose and shouted as one man.
At the open door of the freight-car stood the unsuspecting turkey who looked meditatively out on the landscape and at the two figures on the washtub.
One had bow-legs, a turned-up nose and a huge straw hat. The other wore a fur cap and a gentleman’s swallow-tail coat, with the tails caught up because they were too long.
The turkey hopped out of the car and gazed confidently at his protectors. In point of size he was altogether their superior.
“I think,” said Jericho Bob, “we’d better catch ‘im. Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving. Yum!”
And he looked with great joy at the innocent, the unsuspecting fowl.
“Butcher Tham’th goin’ to kill ‘im for ‘uth,” Julius Caesar hastened to say, “And I can cook ‘im.”
“No you ain’t. I’m goin’ to cook ‘im,” Jericho Bob cried resentfully. “He’s mine.”
“He ainth; he’s mine.”
“He was my egg,” and Jericho Bob danced defiantly at his friend.
The turkey looked with some surprise, and became alarmed when he saw his foster-fathers clasped in an embrace more of anger than of love.
“I’ll eat ‘im all alone!” Jericho Bob cried
“No you sha’nt!” the other shouted.
The turkey shrieked in terror and fled in a circle about the yard.
“Now look yere,” said Julius Caesar, who had conquered, “we’re going to be squar. He wath your egg, but who brought him up? Me! Who’th got a friend to kill him? Me! Who’th got a fire to cook ‘im? Me! Now you get up and we’ll ketch ‘im. Ef you say another word about your egg I’ll jeth eat ‘im up all mythelf.”
Jericho Bob was conquered. With mutual understanding they approached the turkey.
“Come yere; come yere,” Julius Caesar said, coaxing the bird.
For a moment the bird gazed at both, uncertain what to do.
“Come yere,” Julius repeated, and made a dive for him. The turkey spread his tail. Oh, didn’t he run.”
“Now I’ve got yer!” the wicked Jericho Bob cried, and thought he had captured the fowl, when with a shriek from Jericho Bob, as the turkey knocked him over, the Thanksgiving dinner spread his wings, rose in the air, and alighted on the roof of the freight-car.
The turkey looked down over the edge of the car at his enemies, and they gazed up at him. Both parties surveyed the situation.
“We’ve got ‘im,” Julius Caesar cried out exultantly. “You get on the roof, and if you can’t catch him up there I’ll kitch ‘im down here.”
And with the help of the washtub, an old chair the older Caesar’s back and much scrambling Jericho Bob was hoisted on top of the car. The turkey now stalked solemnly up and down the roof with wings half spread.
“I’ve got ‘er now,” Jericho Bob said, creeping slowly after him. “I’ve got yer now, sure, he was softly repeating, when with a deafening roar the express train for New York came tearing down the track.
For what possible reason it slowed up on approaching the freight-car nobody ever knew, but one fact remains that it did just as Jericho Bob laid one wicked paw on the turkey’s tail.
The turkey shrieked, spread its wings, shook the small black boy’s grasp from its tail, and with a mighty swoop alighted on the roof of the very last car as it passed, and in a moment more Jericho Bob’s Thanksgiving dinner has vanished, like a beautiful dream down the road.
Now what became of that Thanksgiving dinner no one ever knew. If you happen to meet a traveling turkey without any luggage, but with a smile on his countenance, kindly send word to Jericho Bob.