Gno's rant

The Alberton Papers Vol. VI, #VI
By Dick Darne 4-29-08
"How in the world are we supposed to move around in here, what with all these bikes all over the place?" seemed to be the first question of the day for the think tank.
"I think, with the price of fuel and the impending end of transportation as we all know and love so well, coupled with the demise of our neighborhood salvage yards, Old Crazy Dick figures to corner the market on bicycles." was the reply.
"Yeah, things are pretty much a mess now, three- fourths of our fellow citizens feel that way."
"But, what about the other fourth, how can that be explained?" was the next question.
"Well, some are far removed from any effects of the economy, having so much and feeling so superior to the unwashed masses, but the biggest bunch can be explained by their tendency to ‘just not get it’, easily recognized by their invisible craniums which are hidden from view by a lot of sand or the outer part of one of their prominent bodily orfices. One would think that they could see the plundering and squandering of our treasury, the wasting of our young people’s lives, the shoddy treatment of those returning from a war and occupation based on lies, the deterioration of our infrastructure, the foxes guarding the henhouse, the trashing of our constitution and bill of rights and having seen all of this, they would be sharpening their pitchforks. These people and their ilk are the ultimate enablers and the common gene pool would be better served by first cousins than them. If they had any semblance of honor, they would voluntarily submit to sterilization." ranted Gno in his usual mince no words manner.
"But Gno, shouldn’t we engage them and find common ground or something?" asked Johnny.
"How would one find common ground with those who would take all your liberties away, let them take only half? Enslave you, settle for serfdom? Some things are not negotiable. Ever!" Replied Gno.
Bill chimed in: "I think it’s time to read our history, we’ve been here a few times before and we should realize that if all of history was a line drawn from here to the county line, our little portion would be only a dot. Just during that ‘dot’, there has been one people’s revolt in a ‘civilized’ country resulting in heads rolling into baskets sans bodies. One of the main instigators lost his too. Just one ‘dot’ earlier in another civilized country they dug up Mr. Cromwell, author of an earlier revolt, who had been executed and in the grave for a decade, and after a fair trial, hung him, beheaded him and hung his head over London Bridge."
"Jefferson said that we need to nourish the Tree of Liberty with the blood of tyrants from time to time, but once it starts it can’t always be controlled. Taken in context of history, it’s probably a good thing." added Todd.
"And keep our pitchforks sharp!" said Gno. "And if any of you nice folks don’t believe any of this, just look it up." then he started to sing: Oh Mr. Block you were born by mistake, you make me ache, you take the cake. Tie a rock on your block and go jump in the lake, kindly do that for liberty’s sake." dd

The Education of Me and Cousin Freddie, ch. 3

The Alberton Pa pers Vol. VI, #V
By Dick Darne 4-8-08
The Education of Me and Cousin Freddie, chapter 3
I can only tell this story because after 50 years, the statute of limitations has to have run out. It began sometime in our early days as adventure seeking young men (otherwise known as little brats full of mischief). At first glance, it was a thing of beauty, after a few more glances it became a piece of junk. It was an old .32 caliber rimfire pistol, exactly where we found it I am unable to remember, but I do remember it was so worn out that we would have to wedge a penny between the cylinder and the frame in order to make it fire. We had to have a supply of pennies handy, as upon firing, the coin would sail over into the bushes while the slug would shave off parts of itself, missing the target completely and propelling slices of lead to both sides. It was best operated with your assistant directly behind you with his back turned.
One lazy spring morning, as the sun rose up and bathed us in stupid rays, we decided to play hookey, go into the big city and see if we could sell it at a pawn shop. We hitched a ride into the city and were left with a couple of miles to traverse on foot. At that exact time, the sun, after sharing it’s stupid rays with us decided to take the rest of the day off and turn everything over to rain and cold. We were soaked when we got to the pawn shop.
"Can I help you boys?" the pawnbroker asked.
"Yes, we would like to sell this pistol." we answered as we set it on the counter, not knowing that not only were handguns illegal in the city but we were way too young to even be in that place.
"You boys wait right here, I’ll be right back." he said as he disappeared into the back room.
About that time the stupid rays wore off and we were both seized with newfound wisdom. Our simultaneous mental telegrams said the same thing; HE’S CALLING THE COPS, LET’S GET OUTA HERE! We grabbed the pistol and ran out the door and into the rain. The only safe route was to walk out of town on the old canal towpath, long and wet. We got back to our town and hid out in the hayloft of a horse barn until school ended. We got busted for hookey, but our folks never knew the details of the adventure .but wait, there’s more.
One of the shells stayed in my pocket, kinda like a good luck charm until close to the end of school, on a day that the sun was bathing us in lazy rays while the teacher droned on and on. I pulled my lucky shell out and noticed the slug was a little loose. With a little help from my compass point, I managed to pry it apart. I poured the minute amount of powder into a folded piece of paper and put it away for future experimentation. I looked into the casing and saw what appeared to be some powder left around the rim. No problem, my trusty compass point should scrape it loose. About the second scrape, a flash, a hearty YEOWW and some slightly singed fingers broke the grip of our daily humdrum existence in that class. Brightened up the teacher’s otherwise dull day too. Infused me with newfound knowledge, I now knew what a rimfire was. The teacher applied the two-finger earlock on me and drug me to the office. These days I would be branded a terrorist and probably waterboarded, but back then it was just one more badge of honor to be seen as cool hand luke before he was even invented. Losing half of Uncle Fred’s shotgun is a story for another day. Never let ‘em see you sweat. dd

hank

The Alberton Papers Vol. VI, #IV
By Dick Darne 4-15-08
Alberton has lost another of it’s denizens a few days ago, Hank McKirdy, a first class citizen and a first class thinker. I knew Hank for the most of the last thirty years and enjoyed many a breakfast, lunch, dinner or just coffee with accompanying dialogue on a multitude of subjects. While we didn’t always agree, it was always enjoyable and a pleasure to hear him present his point of view. He also was a world class expert on plunder as practiced in our area, that is to say that he had a talent for seeing the potential value of things discarded as worthless by the unenlightened. He could also fit a new handle into tools, something not all of us can do, including myself, which is why during the years when my boys were breaking at least a tool a week, I may have been one of Hank’s Handle’s biggest customers.
Hank’s biggest story may have began many, many years ago as a young man in the midst of a world war. Some may know the story and it must be told. Hank’s song could be the equivalent of a gold record. I hope he didn’t take all his stories with him, but whatever, I am sure he will do quite well on his new adventure. See you for coffee sometime Hank, and I’m proud to have known you. dd

stella

The Alberton Papers Vol. VI, # III
By Dick Darne 4-7-08
Another sad day in Alberton. Stella Wylie has passed away at the age of 97. I got to know Stella a little bit over the last few years when Tom Wheeler and I would go over to reassure her that her furnace was working. We would usually visit for a short while and she would tell us some stories from her past. She told us that she came here from Portland Oregon as a young lady (although she never said exactly when) and how she was a cook in Honest Tom Bailey’s hunting camp, cooking for "eastern dudes". She told of one particular story about some clients from New York who would party a little too hard at night and be quite sick the next morning. She would fix them an "easy to keep down breakfast" and help them recover enough to actually go hunting the next day. They rewarded her efforts with generous gratuities which enabled her to have central heating installed in her house. They also returned year after year to the camp.
Now when one makes it to 97 years, we can assume they lived a long and full life and if any of us makes it anywhere near that, we could figure we got our money’s worth. Now, here is the sad part, Stella had many, many stories and we were all too lazy to listen and record them. She got to sing her songs, but we didn’t listen to all of them. There are hundreds, if not thousands of stories right here in our little town. We should be collecting them Studs Terkel style, a good listener and a tape recorder. We all have to leave sometime but the stories should remain behind. The stories are our past, the past is our heritage and the parting gift from our elders is their accumulated wisdom and knowledge.
Our library should have all of Studs Terkel’s books. Keep listening and remembering.
Farewell Stella. dd

wheres all the money go?

The Alberton Papers Vol. VI, #II
By Dick Darne 4-1-08
"Can you hear me now?" came the voice of our old friend and consultant, Professor Sven Berkowitz, from the North Dakota Institute of Financial Technology.
"Yeah, real good," someone said. "I guess Dick’s ‘lo-tech’ phone system pieced together with Goodwill cordless phones must be working."
"Ah, wunnerful, wunnerful!"replied Professor Berkowitz. "Just call me Sven, just don’t call me late for lunch, I hear you have good cooks up at your Senior Citizens’ lunch. Maybe we could even finagle a ‘mid morning snicker-snack’, eh. You have some questions, maybe about where all the money goes, huh?"
"Well, we were all wondering, just where the money goes when we hear about a big company going bankrupt, or big losses on wall street, stuff like that." asked Bill.
"Well, one of the first things we teach here at Nodak U, is that figures don’t lie, but liars figure." Answered Sven. The next thing is that the boodle doesn’t just vaporize into the air, but rather tends to wind up in someone’s pocket or offshore bank account. Then one should always remember that when the market fluctuates, some gain and some lose, but a few always seem to gain, those who have ‘insider knowledge’ are severely tempted and even if it is against the law, one or more of the seven deadly sins usually wins out."
"How about that big company, Bear- Stearns, how could a company that big fail?" asked Johnny.
"Greed, mostly" answered Sven. "Of course, the muckity-mucks at the top will make out, albeit in somewhat diminished opulence. they were all ‘free-marketeers’,but what that actually means is they keep the profits , but pass as many costs as possible on to someone else, like as not the taxpayer."
"What about this ‘stimulus payment’ about to be mailed out, do you think that will help?" asked Todd
"Ah, glad you asked that" replied Sven. "Mostly it will be used to buy cheap plastic crap from the likes of Wal-Mart. Mostly it will go to China and to obscene compensation for their executives. Boost for them, gone and over for us. Probably get the checks just before the election, but I think people are not as dumb as some would believe."
"Let me add to that," exclaimed Gno. Those practices have been the norm for most corporations for a long time. They have lobbied hard to make the practices legal, still shameful, but hey, as they proudly proclaim, greed is good. If they actually had any shame, we would be hearing a coast to coast moan as they all committed simultaneous ritual sepuku. If the people had real cojones they would do it for them. They are truly America’s enemies. They pocket the profits and when things go sour, take the handout."
"There you have it, boys, now you know about the ‘Vile Maxim of the Masters.’ gotta go now, gotta get over and check on our study of Alvinville. Always wunnerful to talk to you boys, call me anytime and keep thinking."
I have to go now too, I have to call cousin Freddie about our education. dd