a new ol' Betsy?

Well I reckon Ol’ Snooky and Gisele got purty dang tired of singing that Davy Crockett song Saturday after Saturday, but I reckon they couldn’t get any other jobs after ruining their voices smoking those stubby little Luckies. I smoked Camels for a bit in my early twenties, thought it made me a tough guy. What an idiot. Then I drifted through a lot of different cigarettes, I don’t know how I chose them, I guess I thought they were cool for some reason. And then during a period of not much money I got to bumming a lot off a guy who smoked Kools, and you know, once you smoke Kools, you don’t go back.

Down to a pack every other week now, though once or twice a year I cheat a little, feel terrible about myself, cough a bit, it’s not even that much fun, outside of those first couple cigs it’s no fun at all. You know you can drink a case of beer on a Saturday night, and you will probably have some fun, and you might also get in trouble, but at least something will happen. You smoke a carton of cigarettes on a Saturday and all you’ll be doing is coughing all day Sunday.

Well I don’t know shit about fixing anything practical. I do have a roll of duct tape and I use it generously, but it never fixes anything up good as new. It looks great at first but then it just loses it’s grip.

So I did a little internet research on the cost of a muzzle loading gun. Brrrr, chilled me to the bone all those bloodthirsty types and all those poor dead deer, you guys are a bunch of savages, savages you hear me. Anyway seemed like there was quite a range in prices, from like a hundred to a thousand.

There was one gun called a Ridge Runner (about a hundred bucks). That’s one of my favorite words for hillbillies, I think you told me you had stump jumpers and something else in Michigan. Do you have any Hoosiers? What’s the derogatory name for people from Ohio? Well everybody needs hillbillies to make them feel smart. Back in the old country we had the Slovaks until they get fed up with us looking down our noses at them and seceded, and left us with the silly sounding name of Czech. I suppose we could have called ourselves Czecho, but that sounds even sillier. I guess now we mostly go as the Czech Republic, which still sounds a bit funny to me. Like as opposed to the Czech what? The Czech Tyranny, the Czech Oligarchy, the Czech Empire?

About the plan what I was thinking was how folks are always falling all over themselves to praise the lord for a bright sunshiny morning, but if they are going to do that shouldn’t they also be praising him for a dark and rainy morning, and for the tornado that wipes out the town except for the one guy who believes that the lord went out of his way to save him and kill everybody else, because why, he put an extra buck in the collection plate the day before?

I’ve heard the story of the Christmas boats before, and I was able to google and find the arrival of the boat, but I didn’t see it on any of the local news shows. I don’t know why, it’s the kind of story they love. One of them could wear a funny old-timey hat and joke with his pals back at the station and they could all get starry eyed about all the joy it will bring to the poor kids. Well Merry Fucking Christmas.