Whoopi’s Big Night

It was Nostalgia Night at the Oscars in the Modern Era year, 2015. Huge laser light shows and movie-studio 3-D holograms lit up the sky over Hollywood causing one jumbo jet to mistake Ventura Boulevard for LAX. This, besides causing untold human offings and other carnage, created white-limo and Maserati constipation all the way back to Malibu. (The headlines in the following day’s papers dealt only with the traffic jam.)

The ceremony itself was being held in the Hollywood Bowl whose breastworks had been augmented and back-lit to look like a bigger-than-life Acropolis. Five huge wind machines also created the wild but unnerving feel of Woodstock before that still-famous rain storm. The emcee, Whoopi Cushion, debuted her resurrection year with in-group bum swabbing and conservative-politico bashing. After all these years on The View, her sucker-punch lines and buddy-butt licks were so well anticipated that the derisive laughter and whoopi-whoops well preceded the ending of her sentences. She was trolloped-out in her trademark dreadnoughts fright-wig and a sequined halter atop Calvin Klein jeans with exposed (and lifted) gluteus maximus ... as was the fashion rage then.

The evenings’ entertainment featured Yooni and John Tush on twin chartreuse pianos, body-oiled and bedecked in harlequin loin cloths ... and to keep with the show’s fossils theme. Maya Angelglue read a poem called Dinosaur Droppings; and Sharon Stonehenge did the bunny hop with Meryl Strep-Throat to the kazoo music from The Boyz ‘n the Hood Meet Frankenstein. There was also a 45 minute film segment devoted to Hollywood's blessed life styles featuring tutorials on barn-yard marriages, hamster hemorrhoid cures, and the best places to buy smack for quality and quantity.

President Hillary Clinton sat frumpy and smirking in the front row flanked by Susan Saranwrap and the lap-dancers from Showgirls VII ...  her Willie having long ago been bundled off to a Sonoma sanitarium to cure his numerous STDs. Sylvester Satonone, Steven Spielmore, and Harvey Cryandtell opened the awards program by reading, in unison, the Screen Actors Guild’s Contract with Chicago, giving each other special Oscars and platinum-plated Bentleys. The Oscar ceremonies concluded 46 hours later with the statuette for “Best Editing of a Music Score of a Politically-Correct Short Subject by a Blond Yenta.” It, of course, went to Barbara Triesandfails.

© Copyright,  George W. Potts   

Tinker’s

Not Tinker's ... but close

The neighborhood bar … the altar upon which so many lives and livers have been sacrificed. There is a visceral and universal appeal to the neighborhood bat cave ... a place where one can get crocked in the company of like-minded sots ... a place where one can go to erase the chalk-board tally of one’s misspent life ... a place where anonymous trysts begin and end ... a place where comfort trumps aesthetics ... a place where struck-up friendships are as shallow as the conversation ... a place to flee to when life needs to be relished under a whiskey haze. A place where "everyone knows your name."  Once, I too had a neighborhood bar. It was called Tinker’s.

It was a rather nondescript 1960’s singles’ bar, easily missed unless you were looking for it. If you were, it was on the southwest corner of 74th Street and Second Avenue in Manhattan. It had two large windows with green-and-white striped awnings facing Second Avenue, framing a dark entrance, and had another large window on 74th street, around the corner to the right. A red neon sign hung at the corner. It said simply “Tinker’s” and, after my hike up from 63rd Street and York Avenue, it always gave me a Pavlovian thirst. As you entered, on your left was a large mahogany bar which began perpendicular to a brick wall and then curved around to run about twenty feet parallel to the back-bar shelves and mirror.

The five-foot space that remained between the front window and the bar was filled with the stools of the regulars. Looking out the front window, you could watch the world saunter by. However, because of the low light levels inside Tinker’s, the world couldn’t watch you unless they stopped to peer in. The tap room to the right of the bar was filled with small tables and spindle chairs ... except for the far back right corner which had Naugahyde-covered benches and some more tables. That is where you sat if you didn’t want to be noticed or if the rest of the tables were occupied. The well-worn wooden bar floor had fresh sawdust spread on it weekly for that old-world charm, usually on late Saturday night or early Sunday morning.

The aisle that was formed between the bar and the tables led directly to a small rear hallway where there was the public dial telephone on the left and, on the right and rear, were the camphor-caked rest rooms with cigarette-filled plumbing fixtures. The small kitchen was located in the left-rear corner, off the bar and enclosed by this rest-room alley and the service bar. It contained an old cast-iron grill (on which were made some of the best hamburgers on the upper East Side), a French-fryer, a tiny refrigerator, and a paucity of other equipment (such as a glass-washer-steamer that look like it came right out of a doll house). Tinker’s was a study in minimalism.

The jukebox, next to the service bar, was one of Tinker’s best features. It generally was playing softly in the background ... usually the latest pop hits ... but also opera, Gregorian chants, jazz, and many, many old classics (such as Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and even Billy Holiday). If the bar patrons weren’t playing a song, then the bartender or waitress would pluck a quarter from the till and play six favorites. Without looking up, you could often tell who was serving drinks by their selection of their music A goodly amount of baraphernalia festooned the walls and ceiling -- some hats, a few pictures of sports teams, a few odd banners, and a bat (which served dual purpose of decoration and protection). Ashtrays were sprinkled everywhere since smoking was still a favored pastime. In warm weather, some tables were also set out on the sidewalk. The window to the right of the entrance was somehow opened which connected the inside and outside patrons ... like in a Parisian cafe.

After I was separated from my first wife in 1964, Tinker’s became my regular hangout for about three squandered years. There, I escaped the failure of my marriage and my lack of career progress. (What did T.S. Eliot say? “Malt does more than Milton can to justify God’s way to man.”) I used Tinker’s as the center of my meager social life. There, I was accepted but not embraced as a regular. This was fine with me as long as I could do my own thing. Occasionally I would go to other bars such as Dick Edward’s (where I took my second wife on our first date), the Green Derby (I usually went there just for lunch), P.J. Clark's (where my second wife and I spent the evening before our wedding), TGI Friday’s (the bar most convenient to my apartment), etc. But it was Tinker’s that was my “home turf”. I often went there to get together with old college buddies and tell war stories. But, I would usually go there right after work, have a burger and a beer, smoke some cigarettes, and then try to get lucky. Sometimes, I was even successful. But, if by ten o’clock nothing seemed to be developing, I would use the back wall phone to call a female from my “little black book” and shamelessly ask her to meet me at Tinker’s. Then, for the price of a few drinks, I could often find comfort for the night.

It took me a while to notice an important social-psychological phenomenon of the single bar scene at that time (I assume it still holds.) It was that unattached women would not go into such a bar until after the sun was down. Not being female, I can’t explain this pathology. But I did eventually learn to take advantage of it. This meant that early-on I wasted a lot of bar time between 6:00 PM and 9:00 PM in the summer time. Things were generally dead at Tinker’s during this twilight period. But there was a trade-off. If you didn’t get there early enough, you didn’t get a bar stool by the front window ... which then made it a little harder to get noticed. But if you got there late, the only seats left were the Naugahyde benches ... which were the equivalent of being banished to Coventry. However, in the winter, when the sun set early, the bar was usually crowded with eager young women, often by 6:30 PM, and so one’s entrance timing became a much simpler calculus.

“Tinker” Ward ran the bar. (I never knew his Christian name.) He was about five-foot-six, slightly built, even a little effeminate. Rumor had it that Tinker’s father actually owned the bar and occasionally he would come in to check on things. But it was Tinker who handled the money. Once a night he used to plunder the cash register for a wad of bills which went right into his wallet. Bar talk had it that Tinker’s grossed about $30,000 per week which, in turn, suggested that it netted about a half a million dollars a year. This was a considerable about of money at that time ... particularly since so much of it appeared to be tax-free. (I figure I contributed about $3,000 a year to that largess ... much too much for someone paying child support on a meager banker’s salary.) Tinker also had two brothers who appeared from time to time to taste the bar’s various potables. I also believe he had one somewhat attractive sister who, like many Irish woman of the day, drifted through life as a shadow. I never met or even saw Tinker’s mother.

Tinker managed the bar in a no-nonsense fashion. He issued crisp orders like a drill-sergeant and seemed to be on top of everything. But he also knew how to make his patrons feel welcome. He let his regulars run bar tabs. But he never let you reach into his pocket too deeply. He kept a clipboard of these tabs and you had to settle things every week or two at the most. I spent so much money there that sometimes I even had to pay my tab in installments. But as compensation for your loyal patronage, about every third drink was bought by the bartenders. They did this by rapping on the bar twice quickly while serving you your next refreshment. And they always poured drinks with a heavy hand. The bartenders and waitresses, be they male or female, were universally good-looking and of loose morals. I never hit pay dirt with any of the female employees, but it was pretty clear others did. The male barkeepers usually ended up the evening with the most nubile of the besotted females. Tinker himself would sometimes cut out an awestruck heifer.

At this time of my life I was suffering from a slipped disk in my lower back. I suspect it arose from the emotional turmoil in my life that surrounded my separation and impending divorce. I had been advised to have an operation where the two vertebrae surrounding the offending disks would be fused with some bone splinters taken from my hip. I resisted this medical suggestion, but was forced to wear a back brace for about a year. In the morning I would strap on this contraption under my pinstripes and go to work, sweating profusely on my walk to the Lexington Avenue subway near Bloomingdale’s. I would have to stop every few blocks to lean against a lamp post to ease the incessant pain. When I got to work, I could sit and earn my keep without discomfort. It was standing and moving around that was difficult. But, there was some solice from this affliction ... it kept me out of the draft and Viet Nam.

A little over a year after my wife and I had separated and I had moved to New York City from Scarsdale ... and after it became clear that there was no possible reconciliation ... I got a notice from the draft board telling me to report for active duty. (I suspect that my father-in-law ratted me out.) When I informed the Selective Service of my bad back and sent them my doctor’s note and X-rays, they were quite skeptical and ordered me to report promptly to Fort Jay, on Governor’s Island, off the lower end of Manhattan, for a battery of neurological tests. One crisp fall morning, I took a short ferry ride there and made my leafy way to their medical center, full of dread for my military future and my predictable (and likely bloody) tour in the Far East. When one of the Army’s frowning white-coated majors found no reflexes in my left leg and also measured significant muscle atrophy in this same leg, I was told I could leave without further testing. I had my life back! I got my 4-F rating in the mail a few weeks later.

Despite this malady, I still made my painful trek up to Tinker’s most week nights. There, with each drink, the pain in my back abated. After about four libations, I was again hale and hearty and I was back in grace. It was as though I had no ailment at all! At the end of the evening, if I had no companionship for the night, my pain-free walk home became my only solace for all that money and time ill-spent. I would amble down Second Avenue, then east on Seventy-Second Street, and then right on First. There I would often stop at Dorian’s Red Hand, a slightly more elegant Irish bar, a few doors down from Seventy-second, for a quick once over of its remaining female talent. This of course was a desperate move, but for the price of one beer I occasionally met a female who was as desperate as myself and I would spend the night with some nameless and faceless female. But, most often the chickens had already been plucked, so I would continue my trip down First Avenue to my favorite pizza parlor around Sixty-fifth. There for fifty cents I would wolf down a couple of steaming cheesy slices to line my stomach for my boozy slumber. Next, I turned left down Sixty-third, past the original TGI Friday’s, and hung another left to end up at the York River House at Sixty-third and York. I would usually exchange a few jokes with the doorman and then went to bed ... dreading my next morning’s walk to the subway.


Copyright ©  George W. Potts

La Gioconda

The young Leonardo da Vinci had long been fascinated by the human body. By the age of twenty-three, he had already “borrowed” five paupers’s corpses from the Firenze town undertaker to dissect back in his garret. The fact that he had free access to the town morgue and had routinely sent its mortician large baskets of bread, Borrolo, cheese and olives did not excuse either man from this ghoulish misfeasance. However, Lenny did dispose of the human offal and rotting body parts with some dignity, wrapped in old artist canvas and buried in a land-fill near Pisa.

Moreover, Lenny’s addiction to anatomy did produce a remarkable understanding of our bodies’ kinesthetics, skeletal structure, and muscle layering; and his notebooks on these subjects were a legacy to all the artists and sculptors who plied these noble trades after he too had joined the worms. In fact, if all the artisans of Tuscany in the sixteenth century had pursued such corporeal cognition with Lenny’s equivalent zeal, there wouldn’t have been an unopened grave in all of northern Italy.

One day, the most prominent merchant-prince of Lombardy, Ferrari Gioconda, approached da Vinci to paint a portrait of his daughter, Mona Lisa Gioconda, on the occasion of her sixteenth birthday. Since da Vinci was the most highly regarded portraitist in all of Europe, Ferrari wanted to use this painting as an indication of his vast disposable wealth, of his lofty social status, and of his daughter’s vestal purity. He intended to display it prominently in the window of his carriage shop in Firenze surrounded by votive candles.

Lenny accepted this commission with great enthusiasm since he had often secretly noticed this very maiden’s budding bosoms. He arranged for her to pose for him at his studio on Tuesdays and Thursdays after school and all day Saturdays. During these sessions he would casually leave body parts from his dissection experiments lying around in lewd positions to purposefully shock her tender psyche. He also gradually convinced her to shed more and more of her drapery so that he might better capture her charms.

It wasn’t long before Mona was enthusiastically spending the whole of her sittings in her “birthday suit” (the original source of this vernacular). And, when returning home, she would often devote her evenings to scrubbing Venetian red and burnt umbra smudges from her torso. Lenny’s painting too was of the fully-nude Miss Gioconda ... and it was in a frenzied panic that, during their last weeks together, he over-painted her comely torso with a thick gouache representing her heretofore abandoned garments. The enigmatic smile that da Vinci carefully etched on Mona Lisa’s visage (fascinating art lovers down through the ages), was nothing more than his homage to her oft-repeated, post-coital glow.

© Copyright, George W. Potts

The Gumption Trap

Why do I have to do my daily duties?
Why must my life be defined by the work I complete?
Can’t I be judged instead by my ideas, my moustache?
Why are small gains often just as difficult as big ones?
Is Pirsig’s gumption the greatest gift or curse of all?
Who keeps the grand ledger of all the labors we render?
And when they do, do they also consider it a chore?

©  Copyright, George Potts 1996

The July of Fourth

Hosea Husted, a somewhat overweight ten-year-old, loved the 4th of July. To this precocious Pennsylvanian, it was the most exciting day of the year ... a day full of cherry pie and cherry bombs, malted shakes and coiling snakes, Rocket salad and sky rockets, canards and petards, baked cod and punk rods, string beans and string salutes, Romano-cheese spaghetti and Roman candles, tomatoes and torpedoes, bottled pop and bottle rockets, soda crackers and firecrackers, M&M’s and M-80s, lady fingers and lady-finger salutes ... a day to indulge one’s passions to the fullest. And the devil take the forequarters.

Food and explosives were Hosea’s fixations. He was a budding cook and an accomplished chemist. “Hosey,” his mother’s nickname for him, loved to fiddle in the attic with his Mr. Science set, augmented with chemicals he had bought at the local drug store, cadged from the High School lab, and cajoled from the local farmer’s supply store. He had fulminate of mercury. He had lots of nitric acid, the starting point for most explosives. From this he could make gun cotton (nitric acid and cotton balls), TNT (nitric acid and toluene), nitroglycerin (nitric acid and soap). He had blasting caps (with which his cousin Harry had blown out an eye.) He had sulfur flowers ... from which he made stink bombs. He had aluminum, iron, and copper powders for his sparkling fountain displays. He had metallic sodium and potassium, kept airless by immersion in mineral oil. With either of these (and some water), he could burn a hole through a car hood.

While his grade-school buddies played with whistlers, grow worms and sparklers, Hosey liked to play with dynamite (nitroglycerin contained in diatominous sand for safety’s sake). He made, and often sold, a full range of fireworks, but his specialties were ash cans (a small amount of potassium nitrate and powdered charcoal in a silvery tube with a belly-button wick) and torpedoes (the same mixture but in a gold-painted ball without the wick ... exploded by the spark from two BB’s struck together when thrown against a hard surface.) From this commerce, he thus got the money he needed to buy more volatile chemicals and his favorite foodstuffs.

On this particular nation’s birthday, Hosey awoke early and spent the morning in the kitchen and the attic. He was making a special ice-cream cake for the Elk’s club outing at Centennial Park. This was a bring-and-share picnic where most of the town families came together to engage in minor competitive sports, ate themselves into a stupor, and, finally, lazily laid on their blankets watching the dusk’s fireworks (over half of which being constructed in Master Husted’s pyrotechnics lab). Hosey made this iced, icy, spheroid dessert with a thin smile on his face ... as he remembered how he and his father had been cheated out of the blue ribbon in last year’s three-legged race. This would have been the first award that the male Husted’s had ever won, but the antlered judges had decreed that their leg binding had come loose as they crossed the finish line. Both senior and junior Husted left last year’s festivities seething, ... well before the fruits of Hosea’s labor were hurled up and burned up in the evening sky.

Now, Hosey brought this concoction to the park packed in dry ice at the same time he delivered five wooden cases full of display rockets. He placed this cake in the middle of the primary picnic table among the potato salads, the apple-crumb cakes, the coleslaws, the fried chicken, the head cheeses, the baked hams and picnic shoulders, the herring salads, the green and orange Jell-o molds (with marshmallows), the chili and beans, the Shoo-fly pies, the Swedish meat balls, the miniature franks bathed with a mixture of catsup and grape jelly, and the pot roasts slo-baked in a melange of mushroom soup and powered onion soup. These were pretty much the limits of culinary creativity for the matrons of this Keystone hamlet, so Hosea’s contribution stuck out like a Mercurochromed thumb. When asked what it was, Hosey said that he had found the recipe in a French cook book and that it was called a bombe extraordinaire.

Now you, kind reader, have probably jumped to a conclusion as to what was buried inside this confection. To do so would be wrong. Except for the slightest taste of Cordite, everyone enjoyed this bombe to a fair-thee-well without consequence. However, when Hosey’s sky rockets were set off later that evening, instead of spectacular displays of multi-colored stars and echoing reports, the spectators were showered with Castor sugar, sifted flour, Dutch-processed cocoa, granulated yeast, and Calumet baking powder. You see, as I neglected to tell you earlier, Hosea Husted was also quite dyslectic.

© George W. Potts

The Easier Bunny

Reginald was a journeyman Easter Bunny. He had apprenticed for two years in western Tasmania and took a remedial skip-hopping course in Liverpool before landing this plum of an assignment in Banff, Alberta. Within 24 hours of unpacking his portmanteau in this pine-scented paradise, Reginald knew he was “home”
.
It was early September so Reggie had a full six months to prepare for the first Sunday after the first Friday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. According to his “Lagomorph Day Timer,” Reggie was supposed to spend the rest of September making peeps, those yellow and pink marshmallow chicks with those little black-dot eyes. However, being a bit of a procrastinator, he squandered his first fortnight pub-crawling this rapidly-emptying tourist haven looking for “the wound that never heals.” (He was a rabbit you know.)

He eventually connected with an ash-blond groundhog, named Matilda, whose defenses were dulled due to the impending onset of her hibernation. Reginald then wasted the months of October (supposedly, jelly beans and cellophane-grass production time), November (decorated chocolate viewing-eggs with bucolic internal dioramas), and December (spangled straw Easter baskets with purple and yellow ribbons) taking this woodchickie’s internal temperature with his peniometer and popping tequilas con Seven Up.

By mid December, both Reggie and his perpetually-damp swiv-mate had fornicated themselves into a deep coma, augmented by extended hangovers and Nature’s own seasonal tropism. They awoke only once in early February when some gentlemen in top hats and tails removed Matilda from their den briefly to hold her up to a leaden winter sky in some homo-erectus shadow-seeing spring ritual.

Reggie awoke in a terror-sweat in late March to the thumping of the Grand Bunny on the stump outside this sex warren. Quickly realizing that Easter was only days off, he tried to tweedle-talk his way out of this very bad box. But the Grand Bunny wasn’t buying his patter and he demoted Reggie on the spot. He then hustled Reggie onto the next jumbo jet to Stuttgart with some papers indicating he was to report to the chief chef at a famous German culinary school called “Hass und Pfeiffer”.

© Copyright, George W. Potts

Evacuation Day

In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts they celebrate one obscure holiday which is conveniently concurrent with St. Patrick’s Day. It is called “Evacuation Day.” On this day, the state government closes down ... allowing its many pols and solons to gather at their favorite watering holes to celebrate the banishing of snakes from the ole sod. Once there, they donate a parcel of liquor taxes back to the treasury from which they draw their sustenance. Incidentally, the reason Massachusetts is called a “commonwealth” is that the Pilgrims believed “from each according to his ability and to each according to his need” ... a tradition that lives on in this state unto this day.

Evacuation Day was named to honor the purging that supposedly saved the life of Paul Revere’s mother when she had come down with the croup the night before her son’s famous ride. Her doctor, Elias DeBakey, gave her a double dose of ipecac and prune juice. Then he bled her with leaches; sweated her in a log-cabin sauna; gave her a soapy water enema; and finally, had her down a triple dose of bromide expectorant. She was “evacuated” so completely that she dropped nearly a third of her body weight. But, despite all this bad medicine, she survived ... and the people of the Bay State chose to honor this miracle by declaring this day an annual holiday.

The Irish, when they are not blowing each other up, spend a good deal of their time writing blue-ribbon prose; and, as already noted, have an affinity for amber liquids. On Evacuation Day this tropism becomes an obsession. Brass-railed bars with names like “Galway Bay” and “Glacamora” fill with corpulent-visaged Celts downing tuns of Harp lager and Guinness stout. And, at the tables, sit hoards of green-tie trenchermen devouring nitrided corned beef, bilious cabbage, boiled Bliss potatoes, and Irish soda bread. In the more radical of these establishments, Erse is spoken to cover the intrigues and cabals being planned, abetted by the bravado of booze.

These Sons of Erin, having sated and slaked themselves, finish the day with some sort of melee. On this day, a bloody nose or a broken tooth is a badge of honor. But the belligerents know it’s time to go home when they start seeing leprechauns prancing among the pots of shamrocks on the bar top. Then, after everyone has left, the leprechauns really do emerge, belt down the bar spitsies ... and, invariably, start their own brouhaha. But when in turn, these elves start seeing even littler people hidden among the mosses and detritus of the clover pots, even the leprechauns call it a day.

© Copyright, George W. Potts

The Way We Were

It was the best of times, it was the wurst of times -- kielbasa, breakfast links, abbruzesse, knockwurst, Genoa salami, corned beef mush, bockwurst, blood sausage, braunschweiger, minced meat, chirizo, chicken loaf, bratwurst, cocktail franks, Lebanon bologna, hot dogs, metwurst, andouille, bologna, weisswurst, summer sausage, linguizi, liverwurst, sweet Italian sausage, head cheese, smoked beef stick, saucisson, Slim Jims, mortidella, hard salami, olive loaf, braunschweiger, cotti salami, bangers, liver sausage, soprosate, bauenwurst, hot Italian sausage, kiczka, cervelat, pimento loaf, capicola, teawurst, red hots, Vienna sausage, scrapple, pepperoni, and Oscar Meyer wieners. All these delicious foodstuffs stuffed our Kelvinator when we were young. Now, its generally turkey loaf and low-fat mayonnaise.

Where did the good times go? Back then we could drink till dawn, shower, and then put in a full, productive day. Now we yawn if we have one drink, and feel productive if we get to work when it showers. In days of yore, we could spew our dew ten times a week; now you’re dazed and weak if you do it at all. Back then we could do fifty push-ups and five hundred sit-ups. Now we’re pushed to up and take a Sitz bath after five. In our salad days we were gassed to conquer the world. Now, we are happy to conquer our gastritis after a salad. As callowed youths we drove ourselves, smoked varied cigarettes, and even inhaled our pot. Now, we allow ourselves to go to pot and hale a cab whose driver invariably smokes. Where did those good times go, pray thee tell?

Marv Levy, the former coach of the Buffalo Bills, once said that when we become cynical, we lose our youth. What I ponder is: when we sense we are losing our youth, do we not then have the right to become cynical? And if the unidirectional nature of time fills us with bile, why then are we so constipated? But what is most depressing is that, in the course of one insomniacal television session, one can channel-surf past Bette Davis as a young, buxom and alluring Jezebel, to her as a middle-aged maniacal matron in “Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte,” and finally as a screw-faced crone being interviewed by Dick Cavette ... months before her demise. This electronic foreshortening of time jerks us into the reality of our own fleeting existence on this firmament, clears away the cobwebs of our own hubris ... and, for one, generally makes me extremely hungry for sausages.

© Copyright, George W. Potts

Guy Stuff

Guy Lombardo, being from Canada, grew up pronouncing his name as though it was “gee,” a command used to turn a horse to the right (as opposed to “haw” ... what Canucks call a lady of the evening.) But, after many years dealing with the boobs south of the 49th parallel, the baton of the “Royal Canadians” orchestra eventually relented and started answering to “Guy” (rhymes with “pie.”) Early in his career, Mr. New Years and his fellow music makers dressed as Mounties in Smoky-the-Bear hats, gray jodhpurs, red riding jackets, high black saddle boots, cross-chest leather straps, and brass-buckled belts. However, as their midriffs drifted east and west, they switched to a double-breasted tuxedos with white carnations.

Actually, Guy Lombardo hated New Years and everything that went with it. His audience was generally loud and boorish. His band members would often get sloshed and pee themselves. Champagne gave him a crotch itch and caviar, the runs. He hated wall-to-wall football throughout New Year’s day since he invariably had a rip-roaring headache from all the ambient cigarette smoke of the previous night. But his wife was a gridiron junkie so he was forced to endure every last tackle. And he was still brushing confetti out of his dinner jacket in July. But since 1954, the Royal Canadians were getting enormous fees to usher in New Years on national television. They had become a holiday icon much like the lighted ball dropping above Times Square. So Guy always put on his game face and smiled his way through this annual ordeal. In fact he claimed that when he died he was going to take New Years with him.

In 1992, the Lombardo orchestra was to play out the old year at The Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center. He had assembled most of his best players from times past and augmented them with a string section from the New York Philharmonic. The festivities started at 7:30 with a eight-course dinner including roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, and black-eyed peas (for the superstitious). The meal ended with Lindy’s cheesecake and a token haggis for those with “Mac” prefixing their last name. Guy and his guys played light vespers throughout dinner and moved to show tunes after the coffee was served. Then he brought on vocalists for the more romantic golden oldies which were punctuated, about ever fifth melody, with a rumba, a samba, or a polka. The evening went swimmingly until sometime after 10:30 when things started getting a little strange.

It all began when a slide trombone player hit three sour notes in a row during a “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” solo. This was unusual in and of itself, but when the first violinists broke his G-string during “Some Enchanted Evening”, Guy started to show some concern under his facial patina of teeth. Then the drummer put his stick right through the skin of his tom-tom ... and four reeds of the saxophone section all broke simultaneously during “Midnight Sleigh Ride.” By 11:15, Guy’s world was rapidly coming apart. Up till then the TV networks had been able to cover most of these faux pas’ by cutting to commercials. But at this point, things were unraveling so fast that the networks were forced to broadcast any new errata to the entire nation ... like when the guitar player fell off his stool during “Spanish Eyes” right into the horn of the tuba. Or when the piano lid collapsed during “Kitten on the Keys” ... taking a portion of the pianist’s scalp with it.

By this time the audience had stopped dancing and just stood there, mouths agape, watching this scene out of a Keystone Kops movie. Guy tried to dispel the spell by calling an extended break during which the networks panned over the revelers in Times Square or switched to “A Horn Blows at Midnight,” starring Jack Benny. During this time out, Guy assembled his band members and forbade them to have anything more to drink. He also summarily dismissed two woodwind players who already had stained the knickers’ fronts ... and forced steaming hot coffee into his only flautist, since she was needed for “Auld Lang Syne.”

When they returned, it soon became clear that it wasn’t just the booze at work ruining this “first night.” Next acoustical tiles began dropping from the ceiling. Then the fountain in the middle of the dance floor went berserk and sprayed many patrons with cheap champagne ... while, at the same time, its multi-colored lights began shorting out, sending sparks leaping across the wet floor to the dancers. Five were electrocuted on the spot ... quivering like they were enraptured with ecstasy. Then the spinning mirrored ball came crashing to the floor, killing the bass player and badly injuring five spectators. And as the witching hour approached, things became even more bizarre. Tables began levitating. Forks and knives came alive and embedding themselves in peoples’ posteriors.

Through the glass ceiling above the dance floor, one could see incredibly bright lighting flashes under gray, ominous clouds. Then thunder came rolling into the restaurant, almost drowning out the orchestra which, by now, was almost completely out of syncopation due to its lack of a drum beat or bass notes. But they played on ... like the band on the sinking Titanic. At the first stroke of midnight those guests not already dead or injured were looking for a rapid escape route. Right then, Guy noticed a unfamiliar face in the brass section. This player was clearly not an ASCAP member. He had a flowing silver beard and was dressed in a long white robe. As he raised his trumpet to his lips, Guy noticed a name badge pinned to the breast of his cassock. It clearly spelled out, in diamond-inlayed lettering, “ARCHANGEL GABRIEL.”

Those of you reading this are obviously living in a parallel universe.

© Copyright, George W. Potts

A PC Christmas

“T’was the night before Christmas ...” The NAACP has complained to the Civil Rights Commission arguing that this line should be updated to read “T’was the night before Kwanzaa ...”

“Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.” The Friends of Animals takes umbrage at the term “creature” and is insisting that it be changed to “lovable, furry thing that should not be trapped.”

“The stockings were hung by the chimney with care” The Cross-Dressers of America want it noted here that this means taupe silk hose with oh-so-cute lacy stuff around the top ... and that only Woolite should be used to wash such dainties.

“The children were nestled all snug in their beds” The North American Man-Boy Love Association wants this changed to “nestled all snug in our beds”.

“... while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads” Michelle Obama has insisted that this phrase be changed to “thoughts of low-fat Greek yogurt” and is threatening to go on The View if she is ignored.

“Mama in her kerchief and I in my cap” The Queer Nation is objecting to the use of such stereotypical male/female bonding units as representing an idealized family.

“The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow” Yoko Ono insists that such sexists comments show that we still live in a male-dominated, piggish society. She wants this word changed to “chest.”
“As dry leaves before the wild hurricane fly when they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.” The Environmental Protection Agency has issued a complaint stating that leaves left unraked into the winter represents a violation of Sections 125.92: J and 9734.2: D-G of the Omnibus Environmental Protection Law of 1993.

“... with a little old driver” AARP has sought an immediate court injunction to estop such pejorative comments about senior citizens.

“... jolly old elf and I laughed when I saw him in spite of myself” The Little People’s Society has also insisted that the term “elf” and its associated derision be immediately expunged from this narrative.

“On Dasher, on Dancer, on Prancer and Vixen” The ASPCA has issued a formal complaint against St. Nicholas, citing his verbal and physical abuse of these eight tiny reindeer.

“He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot ...” The Animal Liberation Front has threatened to throw cow’s blood on anyone who dares to dress up in such insensitive costumes.

“... little round belly that shook when he laughed like a bowl full of jelly” The Surgeon General has demanded that a printed warning be put on this page saying that being obese to this degree could be hazardous to your health.

“The smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath” Henry Waxman, a congressman from California, has threatened to hold hearings unless this line is stricken in its entirety.

“He filled all the stockings and turned with a jerk” Steve Martin has gone to court suing for 10% royalties for the use of the term “jerk”.

“... up the chimney he rose” The Trial Lawyers of America has stated that forcing Santa Claus to enter and exit a premises via the fireplace is demeaning and likely to cause bodily harm. They are assembling a massive class action suit against all those parents who allowed Santa to visit in this manner.

“He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle” The AFL/CIO is demanding to know if St. Nick is a member of their North Pole Teamsters’ local. If he can’t produce proof that he is, they are going to picket New Years.

“Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night!” The National Education Association has objected that this line, and all the rest of this story ... saying that they contain words that are spelled correctly. This is obviously intended to stifle the creativity of our children.

© Copyright, George W. Potts

Over the River ...

The five of us arrived at Grandmother’s house after a long, chilly drive in Uncle Bill’s old Packard. His over-sized gray sedan smelled of damp mohair and the allspice, mace, and cinnamon that infused the steam seeping in from the pie basket in the trunk. In this hamper were three plump pumpkin pies, a cardamom-mince pie, and two zesty lemon pies with their alpine-high meringues dotted with caramelized sugar drops, all packed in among four dozen yeasty, poppy-seed dinner rolls. We also carried bouquets of the last of the brilliant fall asters and multi-colored maple leaves. Greeting us at the door were most of rest of Grandma’s and Grandpa’s issue and a few neighbors; 22 in all, beaming and chatting with growling stomachs.

We doffed of scarves and greatcoats and were given hot mulled wine or a Bourbon Old Fashion, according to our taste. Scattered around the den and kitchen were the hors d’oeuvres: butter-tender Schmaltz herring in a sweet-sour-cream sauce sprinkled with lots of chopped fresh dill; oysters Rockefeller (saucer-sized and nestling a bed of chopped spinach and a drop of Pernod with a bubbling crust of bread crumbs and grated Parmesan cheese); mounds and mounds of tender Jumbo shrimp with a sharp horseradish and chili-sauce dressing, crisp celery and carrot sticks with a dip made from butter and blue cheese mashed together and thinned with a vintage port wine; colossal Pimento-stuffed olives; miniature sweet Gherkins; and an assortment of odoriferous cheeses (a runny Brie, a ripe Gorgonzola, a well-aged Gouda, a nutty Emmenthaler, and a creamy Double Gloucester) with lots of crusty French country bread.

After over-sampling this largess and re-acquainting ourselves with each other, we were led into the candle-lit dining room for a family prayer and the object of our sojourn. There on the groaning board were ten chilled bottles of this year’s best Nouveau Beaujolais (fruity almost to the point of a fine Spanish Sangria); a huge cob-smoked ham with a orange-honey-clove glaze over a copious coat of toasty fat; two boned legs of grilled baby lamb basted with its garlic, rosemary, and lemon au jus; a 32-pound roasted capon turkey, cooked to a juicy perfection with its chestnut and sage dressing; and three gravy boats filled with a glistening minced-giblet gravy (made with the turkey pan drippings, arrowroot, and the water in which the giblets had simmered all morning along with celery tops, some carrots and crushed shallots).

Filling in the voids on this massive table were the poppy-seed rolls, a large chaffing dish of whole cranberry sauce augmented with toothpick-thin candied orange-rind strips and Grand Marnier; Greek string beans (made from haricots vert, an oregano-laced marinara sauce topped with bread crumbs and grated Romano cheese and baked to a nutty crust); golden carrots Vichey (dime sized carrot slices and tiny pearl onions blanched into tenderness and then sauced with a roux made with flour, grated onion, a soupcon of nutmeg, and fresh cream); two casseroles filled with steaming sauerkraut, laced with caraway seeds and nestling fresh baked kielbasa; a watercress, Belgian endive, and avocado salad with its mustardy vinaigrette in a yeoman-sized wooden bowl; and a surfeit of fluffy, butter-and-parsley-topped garlic mashed potatoes.

For dessert, out came all the pies we had brought; a chocolate and vanilla-iced Daffodil cake, a browned and steaming rice pudding studded with currents, candied citron, and dried cherries; a rainbow fruit compote (cantaloupe, watermelon, and honeydew balls with strawberries, blueberries, Valencia orange slices, and soused with Marsalla and champagne); and steaming pots of Costa Rican coffee and Earl Gray tea. For dessert’s dessert we had pitted prunes that had soaked to a divine softness in Armagnac; the remainder of the pre-dinner cheeses, now surrounded with ripe Anjou pears, Macoun apples, and fresh figs; and, finally, minted chocolate twigs.

We all sleepily threw ourselves into the washing up and, when it was over and done with all the crockery dried and put away; we settled around the roaring fire in the living room with a glass of hard cider or warming cognac. After many war stories, seasonal songs, and familial antidotes, we pulled on our weather clothes and re-entered the old Packard. Following lots of thank-you’s and echoed good-byes, Uncle Bill pulled from the curb with a short toot of the oogle horn. On the way home we all fell into a deep, high-blood-sugar and L-tryptophan induced sleep. Unfortunately, this also included Uncle Bill ... who consequently drove off of the road at over 60 MPH ... directly into a bridge abutment. Contented ... and with full bellies of Butterball ... we all instantly perished in a Thanksgiving fireball.

© Copyright, George W. Potts

Trick or Treat

It was a late Halloween afternoon, 1960 in Saratoga Springs, New York. The ponies had all gone south for the winter as had most of the birds that spent their summers in this bucolic hamlet. But it was clear that Saratoga Springs aspired to wealth and notoriety beyond its modest size ... with its hot-spring spas, its stately mansions and its miniaturized versions of everything else that was “New York City.” (It even had a Kosher delicatessen, “Moshe’s.”) The daylight was now fading fast as Eastern Standard Time had been re-introduced the weekend before ... just in time to force youngsters to go begging for their candy in the dark. This societal idiocy was ameliorated this particular year by a very bright harvest moon that gave off an orange glow like a sinister jack-o-lantern.

The kids along Congress St. in this tiny berg were doing all the things that children normally do on Halloween ... skipping through the fallen leaves, car egging, window soaping, tree toilet papering, and, of course, trick or treating. They were costumed out as poltergeists and puppy dogs, comic book heroes and cake-walkers, doppelgangers and desperadoes, ghouls and gorillas, ballerinas and boxers, grandmas and even one Gumby. As they went door to door for their penny candies, apples, and small change; it was clear that Congress St. was also a remake of an old New York City thoroughfare -- the 52nd St of the 1950s. For at every answered door was a young woman drawn from a wide variety of hues who was generally scantily clad, heavily made-up, and clearly hoping for a client from the rapidly diminishing tourist population ... or one of the returning college boys ... not a munchkin with a held-in-front brown paper bag.

Now Clement Whether, at 14, was a little older than the rest of the Halloween revelers, but, being a little slow of wit, still clung to the his childhood delights. Having recently moved to “The Springs,” he hadn’t yet been clued into the real function of Congress St. So he turned onto this shady lane in eager anticipation of sugary rewards. Clem was dressed as Samson with a large club, a fur loin cloth, and sandals ... an appropriate facsimile since he was well-muscled from his summer’s lumber jacking. At the third house on the left Clem was greeted by a gorgeous nymph, stripped to her smile, who, when Samson reddened and stammered “trick or treat?”, replied with a sultry look, “Both ... my trick will be your treat, handsome.”

© Copyright,  George W. Potts

Katz's Meow

Katz’s deli brimmed with portlies this cool Autumn forenoon. Many were gofers multi-ordering over-stuffed sandwiches and Dr. Brown’s for their office betters. The countermen were operating with the dexterity of Japanese griddle chefs, stabbing pastramis and beef briskets from the steam table and slicing them onto seeded rye or pumpernickel till a quick glance at the customer told them to stop. If said customer was clever enough to extend a greenie on the countertop, the cutting continued until there was a kalbfleisch tower.

Norris Nasselrod looked markedly out of place as he pushed his way into this odoriferous Octoberfest. He was athletically thin in a white tie and tails. The Hamilton that Norris slyly edged onto the counter had every white-apron in the place scrambling to take his order. But Moshe Poppel quickly testosteroned his right to hook and land this flounder. Moshe had established this pecking-order apex by “accidentally” dropping a butcher knife on the foot of any fellow worker who looked cross-eyed at him. He had done this so often that Blue Cross had specifically excluded this medical condition from further insurance re-imbursements.

Moshe took Norris’ order of a corned beef on marbled rye and outdid himself to justify the impending generous tip. A whole slab of steaming Jewish chateaubriand disappeared under his huge chef's knife and reappeared precariously balanced on serving-platter-sized crust of piebald provender. When he was done, he tucked three half-dones on top of this cholesterol cornucopia while wrapping it in an expanse of waxed paper.

As Norris was given and paid for this gastromonstosity, he deftly retrieved his sawbuck and slid through the lunch crowd like Paul Horning through the Cleveland Browns’ secondary. He penguin-suited his way out onto Houston St. and into a waiting cab before Moshe’s jaw stopped dropping. The derisive laughter and applause from the assembled lunch patrons and his fellow workers caused Moshe to redden from the neck upwards. By the time this sanguinity disappeared under the white yarmulke that Moshe was prone to wear, his whole face and most of his bald head were a bright crimson. The metaphor was obvious to everyone. Henceforth, Moshe was secretly referred to as “Pimple” Poppel.

© Copyright, George W. Potts

Gone Fishin'

It was early summer and the fluke were now biting in and around Montauk, Long Island. These aggressive flat fish were being taken in profusion using sand worms and shiners, on Gosman’s Dock and off shore, for just the last few days. The flounder had disappeared about eight weeks earlier and the offal leftovers had thus been lean for the wharf rats and seagulls. But now things were picking up again. At this news, Bruno Alewife began to smile anew. He loved and lived to fish. He was the town barber only to have something to do in the winter ... and to get enough money to keep his outboard boat, “Avatar,” in decent repair and full of gas in the other seasons. But with clement weather and promising fishing reports, Bruno put his well-worn “Gone Fishin’” sign in his shop’s window in Heather Hills and drove to Gurney’s Marina where he kept his twenty-two foot run-about with its faded blue cabin awning and its 33-horsepower Evenrude.

Bruno’s dream had been to catch a “doormat” fluke, a fish the size of the marlin-embossed sisal rug that lay in front of his tonsorial salon ... or, generally agreed to be a fish of twenty pounds or more. Old-timers often talked about hauling up these trophies on a regular basis before the Moonies had started using their drag nets on George’s Banks. Now the oft-repeated joke was that catching such a fish “would be a fluke.” It was even possible to catch a doormat flounder; but, because it required going out to sea a little further than he liked ... generally in more inclement weather, Bruno kept his chimeras confined to catching a doormat fluke. He had come close twice. Once his line snapped just when he was about to boat at least a thirty pound monster. And the second time, a Mako shark took two-thirds of his prize as soon as it hit the surface about fifteen yards out. Bruno brought back the head and dorsal fin of this almost-doormat, but his buddies only scoffed at his empty boasts as to its pre-Mako dimensions.

This day seemed perfect for prize taking. The waters were generally calm and a sea mist would keep things cool and should pull the fish up from the depths. Bruno left the harbor in good spirits with a cooler full of beer, two wrapped cheese-steak heroes, and his small portable radio tuned to the “oldies” station. He decided to try the bay first and then, if things didn’t work there, the ocean. He fished up and down the Peconic Bay with only a few throw-backs. So, around twelve-thirty, he decided to try his luck on the other side of Montauk Point. He powered up the ‘Rude and pointed his boat toward the fog-horn’s wail on the island’s eastern tip. In route, he leaned on the gunwale and proceeded to devour the heroes while steering the boat and sucking down three ‘Gansetts.

By the time he reached the confluence of the currents coming around both sides of Long Island, Bruno’s senses were a little dulled. He had been through these waters many times before and knew that they could be treacherous. Right off the Montauk Point cliffs and for about a mile off shore, the sea was always roiled, trying to resolve which flow was to prevail. Even on perfectly calm days, the waves in this area suddenly rose to ten feet or more ... and one never knew exactly which way they were going. On this particular day, Bruno was in a hurry to get to his next fishing hole and so cut the point a little too close. He got caught in the worst of the rip currents and had to fight to keep the Avatar on course. One nasty wave lifted his stern completely out of the water which then over-revved his outboard. When the propeller resubmerged, its tremendous torque sheared off its hardened-steel cotter pin like it was a thin pretzel.

Bruno swore and reached for his tool box with one hand while pulling the engine up out of the water with the other. But fate had more bad news in store for this erstwhile Isaac Walton. Just as he was to insert his only replacement cotter pin into the prop shaft, another wave jerked his boat sideways so violently that, in reaching for support, Bruno dropped this critical object into the sea. Some expletives later, Bruno sat pondering his options. The race on the ocean side of this confluence was now pulling him out to sea at about a three knot clip, so his small paddle was of little use. Visibility at this point was only about fifty yards so there was only a small chance that the white towel hung on his outrigger would be spotted by any craft large enough to offer assistance. And since it broke four years before, Bruno did not carry a two-way radio. He was indeed in a real pickle.

The Avatar drifted this way for about three hours ... further and further out into the shipping lanes coming off Sandy Hook. And since the weather was clearing, Bruno was now optimistic that he would be spotted. He dozed for a while, made sleepy by the sun and the three more beers he had imprudently downed. He awoke with a start. There off to the aft was a huge oil tanker, riding high in the water after having disgorged its two million barrels of petroleum into holding tanks near the mouth of Raritan river in New Jersey. The tanker was made in Japan, of Greek registry, flying a Panama flag, with a Romanian captain who was, at this point, snoring in his bunk after spending the previous night boozing and debauching on Tenth Avenue in Manhattan. Not that he would have necessarily seen Bruno’s boat had he been at the helm ... for the ship was the length of three football fields and its angle of vision was further obscured by its high draft. Had it been fully loaded, there might have been a minuscule chance that Bruno would have been spotted, but, even then, little could have been done to stop in time. There was an unofficial but sizable betting pool among its polyglot crew as to how many sails they would find wrapped around the propeller shaft at each trip’s end.

When Bruno fully realized his predicament he started shouting at the top of his lungs ... to no avail. The decibels produced by the bow-wake of the tanker were ten times louder than Bruno’s meager protestations. Then for a brief moment Bruno thought that he might be spared. The tanker was clearly not going to hit him head on ... perhaps a glancing blow only. But such is not the fate of doormat seekers. From about a ten foot distance, Bruno’s flimsy outboard was sucked underneath this behemoth ... where it traversed almost the full length of its barnacle-encrusted double hull before being chewed into chum by the huge, twin-opposing, ship’s propellers. After this gauntlet of mayhem, there wasn’t a piece left of the Avatar or its hapless captain that was as big as would have emerged from a ten-second-pulse on a Cuisenart. Everything had been brutally and efficiently pulverized. All was gone ... fishin'.

© Copyright, George W. Potts

The Way of All Flesh

The fat Hereford steer entered the slaughterhouse, five paces behind his erstwhile feed-lot mate. As soon as he pushed his way through a thick curtain of hanging black plastic strips, his skull was adroitly sledge-hammered by a bare-chested Negroid giant, named “Hard” Thomas. The Hereford dropped to his knees and was dexterously hooked on his knee tendons and winched upside down into a throat-slitting position. This was quickly and quietly done so that the Hereford could then donate his vital fluids to a small red river sluicing down a small gutter in the cement floor. This rivulet was later magically converted to the highest grade fertilizer. (The corn grows better because of the blood of the steer that ate the corn.)

The overhead conveyor chain then moved the still-twitching Hereford first to the header who, with a razor-sharp knife the size of a Samurai sword, finished the beheading process. The head was dropped onto a rubber conveyor belt moving off to the right, perpendicular to the main carcass procession. This noggin was in turn processed into hot dogs and dog food. Next the Hereford was introduced to two skinners, one on either side, who had its hide off in 15 seconds flat. This was dropped down a chute into a vat of lye to remove the hair, then to the tannery, and then to Italy or Brazil to make the finest shoes or pocketbooks. Simultaneous to the hiding, the steer was gutted. With three dexterous swipes of a knife, the offal was dropped into a stainless-steel container which was then whisked off to be processed along with the head.

What was left of the carcass was cut asunder with a stainless-steel chain saw and entered, through another black plastic curtain, into a chiller which, within the course of 25 yards, dropped its temperatures to 38 degrees F. Then, both halves went to a phalanx of butchers who quickly dissected them into T-bone steaks, sirloin steaks, filet mignons, New York strips, skirt steaks (from the diaphragm), beef briskets, top rounds, bottom rounds, eye rounds, rump steaks, chuck steaks, neck meat for hamburgers, standing rib roasts, short ribs, ox-tail chunks for soup, beef shanks for osso bucco ... and an assortment of other viands. Thence these cuts were sent to the packagers who prettied them up in crushed ice and stretch wrap for the ravenous trenchermen in the finest restaurants and home kitchens of America.

By contrast, “Hard” Thomas has been a strict vegetarian since three days after he started his current job.

© Copyright,  George W. Potts

The County Fair

Woody Whitbach ambled along the midway of the small carnival that had attached itself, like a tick on a hound dog, to the Somerset County, Pennsylvania county fair. He, being a raw-boned farm boy of thirteen, had never seen so many new things in one day. First there was the FarmAll “Dynamo” Wheat Combine which aptly combined the operations of cutting, raking, threshing, winnowing, bagging, and straw disposal ... all in one bright-red behemoth. Then there was cotton candy, spun fluffy and pink from some kind of metal contraption behind the counter of the Ladies’ Auxiliary tent. And corn dogs.  And big pretzels with mustard. And there were exotic breeds of cows, pigs and sheep; and an elixir called Kickapoo Joy Juice that was supposed to “make you more of a man.” Woody sensed that he knew what this phrase meant, but he couldn’t imagine why any man would need such help. He would get a boner just looking at the girdle ads in the Sears Roebuck catalogue.

All this novelty was causing his head to spin above the Ferris Wheel in an out-of-body experience. But he abruptly came crashing back to earth as he caught glimpse of a nude female breast off to his left. There, on one of the side-show stages, was the most beautiful girl Woody had ever seen, dancing the hoochy-koochy to some scratchy jazz-music coming out of two loud speakers hung above her head. She was wearing a number of diaphanous multi-colored veils that swirled around as she danced, exposing a shoulder here, a thigh there, and then the pale curve of her buttocks. But no matter how long he watched, he could not recapture another bared tit before this dancer retired behind the tent folds for her real “show.”

Woody was contemplating waiting around for the next “teaser” show. (He wasn’t a total rube ... his school buddies had given him this much prepping.) But it was getting late and since he had only one quarter left in his faded jeans, he decided to take the big step. With shallow breaths, he plunked down his specie and tried his best to saunter into the hot and dry “girlie” tent. After about five minutes the show began. Throughout this wait, Woody thought he might faint from the combination of his sexual arousal; the proximity of the other tittering teenagers and guffawing men; and the foul, stale air of the tent.

To a live drum beat, onto the stage came the most decrepit female he had ever seen. She was at least fifty with orange hair, sagging boobs, and hips, two ax-handles wide. She tried her best to reproduce the movements of the sylph whom Woody had seen only moments before. But the results were only laughable. Instead of rhythm, she had spasms; instead of allure, she had repulsion; instead of “take it off,” the crowd was shouting “put it on.” After a few minutes of such farce, the barker from out front came on stage to say that the “real show” was about to begin in the rear tent. For only one dollar more you could therein see Gloria (the tease dancer) and “all of her womanly charms.”

Since Woody was out of money, he slouched out of the tent and thence onto his daddy’s waiting pickup truck. The cool night air dashed his arousal as he rode home in the back of the truck. Chores resumed the next day and school began the next week. Woody spent a long and a sweaty year saving for the next summer’s Somerset County Fair. This time he showed up with five whole dollars and he wasted no time looking at the cows and the combines.

© Copyright, George W. Potts

Mow 'em Down

Stock Photo

The Kecksburg (Pennsylvania) Arrows were bouncing along at the bottom of their Class A league rankings. They had no pitching. Their hitting was sporadic at best; and their coach, “Snuffy” Smith, was pushing every last bit of his meager paycheck up his variegated nose. In fact, if it weren’t for those MacDonald’s Quarter Pounders that the team manager, Harvey Hoople, bought him when they were on the road, Stuffy would have long ago starved to death. Things indeed looked mighty grim for Snuffy's contract renewal.

With ten games left in their miserable season, the Arrows were finishing their last road trip with two games at Memorial Stadium in Front Royal, Virginia against the Front Royal Royals. They had lost the first of these games 22 to 3 and, after a hot, stuffy, air-condition-less night at the Super 8 motel, were taking to the field after going scoreless in the top of the first. Their pitcher for this game was Achmed Mohammed Hussein, a northpaw blackamoor from Brooklyn whose right arm was a full two inches longer than his left. Achmed, having not yet pitched on this circuit, had the only clean uniform on the team. The Arrow’s road colors were heliotrope on damask rose with apricot piping and Achmed, so pristinely attired, caused a ripple of admiring mummers throughout the stadium.

The Royals, also resplendent in their home-colors of royal blue and pale puce with tangerine piping, started off with seven quick hits, six walks, one hit batter, three errors, and a balk. As a consequence they were laughing and joking ... and razzing Achmed mercilessly.  Achmed’s eyes were beginning to water as the Royals were about to bat around for the third time; so, calling time out, he sauntered over to the Arrow's dugout. Reaching into his electric-blue Adidas bag, Achmed grabbed an automatic Uzi with three full banana clips duct-taped together.

With an existential smile, Achmed then proceeded to mow down the whole opposing team (including the coach, equipment manager, and the batboy) in their dugout as methodically as they, up till fifty seconds earlier, had humiliating him. When he finished, Achmed wiped off the Uzi with the team towel and threw it onto the field to the horrified gasps of the 1,835 paying fans. Of course, a jury of his peers was unable to comprehend the concept of reasonable doubt and completely bought the defense argument that Snuffy had earlier commanded the dim-witted Achmed to "mow 'em down"... and therefore Achmed walked.

© Copyright,  George W. Potts

L’Ouest Sauvage

“Lash” LaRue De La Paix trotted into town on a magnificent Appaloosa which made the street-tethered roans, pintos and sorrels look like so many hippo-mongrels. Lash was a cow-garçon from Marseilles who had come to Dodge City in search of adventure and some poontang. Sitting high in his saddle, he sneeringly steered his stallion among his lessers, sniffing the air for those female pheromones which would lead him to his evening comfort.

“Lash” wasn’t his Christian name; it was Gregorio. But Gregorio assumed this new appellation on the boat over to America somewhere northwest of the Sargasso Sea in order to distract females from his somewhat androgynous appearance. It worked like a charm. Within fifteen minutes of his rechristening, he was playing the ole in and out with a scullery maid from Bristol who was coming to America to wed her 12-year pen pal from Newark.

When Lash reached the only three-story hotel in Dodge City, The Roxy, he guided his horse to its hitching post. In doing so, he swung his right leg back over the saddle and spent the horse’s last ten paces suspended on his left stirrup. This bit of grandstanding was for the benefit of a comely miss who was standing on the hotel porch with at least eight crinolines hiding her pouting charms (on which Lash was already beginning to fantasize.)

With a tip of his 37.85 liter hat to this potential conquest, Lash tied up his horse and took the porch stairs three at a time. This was a grievous error in judgment. He missed the top step by millimeters and fell headlong into a gunslinger named Mickey from Butte, Montana. Without so much as a how-de-do, this desperado pumped all six bullets from his pearl-handled Colt into Lash’s torso ... which quickly twitched into stillness.

They buried him on Boot Hill with but a single word carved on his graveboard, “Frenchie”. His horse and saddle were sold to cover the funeral expenses. Mickey took the rest of Lash's personal effects for the insult.

© Copyright, George W. Potts

The Farmer in the Dell

The Red Dart bus dropped Geoffrey Granger off at the foot of a long dirt lane leading to a cozy farmhouse. He stood there for a good five minutes sucking in all the sensory stimuli of this bucolic setting. Manure, fresh-cut hay, ozone from a recent thunder storm, and the flowering privet in the hedge-row all contributed to the aromatic melange that Jeff used to resettle his mind into a yeoman’s serenity. A nearby plowed field steamed slightly as it was being plucked over by a troop of magpies foraging for a late lunch. The L-shaped road ahead was paralleled with a phalanx of tall maple trees that swayed in the slight breeze like a line of ballerina dancers at the practice bar.

As he turned and trudged up this rutted path, he gauged the caliber of the herds of sloe-eyed Jersey cows, Black Angus steers, and milky-white Marino sheep grazing in separate, movable pens on the lush alfalfa and clover fields. The husbandry prowess of this croft’s owner was evidenced by the well-fed sheen on the bovines’ hides and the length of the ovine wool. A gaggle of Canada geese paddled noisily in the nearby irrigation pond which was reflecting the increasingly bright August sun and random, racing nimbus clouds throwing crisp shadows across the huddled water lilies.

As he approached the enclosed barnyard he noted a parcel of piebald Guinea hens and russet Rhode Island Reds pecking and scratching and throwing up the afternoon dust. Ten Poland China sows and one enormous boar rooted in the mud of a pig sty attached to the side of a carmine-red barn and their communal grunting created a soothing background cadence. To the side of the white clapboard farmhouse, the kitchen garden was overflowing with lush red tomatoes, purple-black eggplants, vermilion and verdant peppers, and a wide range of salad greens.

Just as Jeff was turning by the silo to enter the straw-filled upper barn his whole world went blank, mute, and odorless. It was quickly clear what had happened. Jeff’s black Labrador, Flatulence, had tripped over and, consequently, pulled the plug to his Dell, Studio XPS 9000 with Windows 7, personal computer system on which he was running the virtual reality software “Agra-Views.” Jeff removed his wrap-around, viewing and smelling, acoustical-helmet and gave his now hang-dog pet a swift kick to the solar plexus.

© Copyright, George W. Potts

The Soda Jerk

The McCrory’s Five and Dime in the Cameron section of Alexandria, Virginia was in a gradual economic decline. Even in the early 1950’s it was becoming anachronistic. Its sales-atolls of fabrics, notions, candies, hardware, toys, and such .... with a clerk centered in each lagoon ... were lapsing due to changing business economics -- to be replaced in the years ahead by shopping carts and check-out counters. Even its high, tinned ceiling and its rotating wooden fans would soon succumb to air conditioning. Along its entire left wall stood an old-fashioned soda fountain with chrome and red-plastic-covered stools and a long burnished-brown Formica counter.

Into this merchandising museum stepping Gregory Tyro to interview for an advertised job as a soda-fountain server. He was a sophomore at nearby George Washington High School and, since he was the only person to apply for this position in three days, was immediately hired. He was to work Tuesday and Thursday afternoons from 3:00 until 6:00 and all day Saturday ... for 75 cents an hour (from which he had to pay for his lunch on Saturdays.) Gregory’s customers tended to be gray, mousy saleswomen from McCrory’s and the other modest emporia of this small village. They would invariably order the daily special, such as a grilled cheese sandwich, a small drink, and Campbell’s tomato soup (with a sweet pickle) for 70¢. They generally were a very persnickety sort. A smudged plate, a dirty knife (which they probably wouldn’t use anyway), or unevenly-toasted bread would send them into spasms of grousing. Once satisfied, they would then nibble at the corners of their sandwich and slowly sip their soup until their half-hour break was consumed. Then they would leave three quarters on the counter, netting Gregory a whole nickel for the abuse.

Sometimes, his customers would be a local banker or a gas station owner who would eat fast and leave a bigger tip ... or retirees who would come in for a cherry or a vanilla Coke and then douse it with ammoniate and phosphate from a cruet on the counter (indicated to be "for their nerves"). In his six months there, Gregory did get pretty adept at this job.  He could fry a burger or make a malted milk with ease.  The one hitch was that the malted milk machine invariable gave him a small shock when he pushed the steel contained into its harness.  And the half-hour cleaning-up of his workspace at the end of the day wasn't his favorite either.  Only rarely did someone of Gregory’s own age penetrate the blue-veined veil of this eatery and give him someone to talk to. But, because he was young and usually shy, and because such novelty almost always swamped his vocal synapses; Gregory would generally open by saying something stupid like, “Ghat can I wet you?”

This was the first of many customer-service jobs that Gregory had during his salad years. And he learned from these experiences that working almost always tends to be work. (If you haven’t figured it out by now, Gregory was yours truly.)

© Copyright,   George W. Potts