An Open Letter to the Toronto Maple Leafs

Consistence is a virtue the Toronto Maple Leafs can lay claim to. It's about the only virtue left to the once great dynasty when players like the Kennedy brothers, Cyl Apps, Bill Ezinicki and Turk Broda ruled the NHL.

Things could have been different, oh so much different had they only listened. But a creeping intransigence has put a strangle hold on the team's management without them even knowing it. Up to now, no one has taken the initiative to point this out to them, so I have taken it upon myself as my loyal duty to the Toronto Maple Leafs Past, to jolt them into reality. It's time someone did that!

An Open Letter to

The Toronto Maple Leafs Management

From “Vicious” Vic Epp, defenseman

The Weston Memorial Community Club

Bantam B Hockey team of 1949

February 6, 2009

Re: Statue of Limitations

Take Notice:

Awright! This is where the rubber hits the road! An’ don’t act like you don’t know full well what I’m talkin’ about. It’s the rights to my services as a player that youse been hangin’ on to in your gnarly little hands since the winter of forty-nine when I signed up as defenseman an’ no less than assistant captain of the Weston Memorial Community Club Bantam B hockey club.

Our coach told us in no uncertain terms that youse guys had first dibs on us as players, an’ we believed him, cause whatever coach said was absolute gospel. He wouldn’t never lie to us. I even told my mom youse might call anytime an’ to be sure an’ pick up the phone when youse did. I sure as blazes wasn’t goin’ to be the one to miss the call.

Well, a whole sixty years has slipped away somewheres an’ until yesterday I was still waitin’. Well, I wasn’t just only waitin’. While I was doin’ that, I was thinkin’ too. I was thinkin’ of all the reasons I come to the decision that the statue of limitations on your crummy players rights was comin’ down. An, don’t think I don’t know the difference between the statue of limitations and the statute of limitations neither! I know full well what it is that’s comin’ down. There’s no way in H E double hockey sticks your gonna get me to play for youse now – an’ just in case youse all of a sudden get scairt, I’m gonna tell youse right up front just exactly why. I made a list. You’re gonna see that youse guys made a huge big mistake, an’ now you’re gonna have to suffer for it. So here youse are – the bald – faced truth!

1) Youse guys never phoned. Youse knew my number. It was right there on the form I signed – two long and one short. What could be easier than that? My mom would’a answered too. Remember, that was a time when moms still stayed home to look after families. So there’s no excuse, but youse never called.

2) Even if youse wanted to make it official in a letter, Con Smythe was never so poor he couldn’t afford a postage stamp, even when it went up from one cent to two. Youse never sent one.

3) Me an’ Wally Winters practiced regular, except Sundays when I had to go to Sunday School, but I made up for that durin’ the week. An’ we played every game too! We was ready for you, even back then in the golden days of hockey when life magazine was good for things other than just readin’, an Eaton’s catalogues was specially good for goalies. We perfected our wrist shots at a time when slap shots was only for golfers in knickers, an’ guys like Turk Broda would wear brush cuts to make it easier for to stitch up their heads rather than hide behind some sissy pants face mask. We even observed the iron rule of never fightin’ on the ice. We had the common courtesy to save that for the parkin’ lot after the game when the pads was off and skates in the duffel bags had some authority. If youse wanted to beat the snot outta’ them trippers an’ high stickers, that was the honorable way to do it – not with all that new fangled paddin’ meant for sissies! An’ we always – I repeat, always allowed fan participation, just like they done in the Montreal riot when Rocket Richard was ejected from the game. We would never think of denyin’ the public it’s right to get in on the act – even the cops. But, youse never called.

4) All them years we kept ourselves clean an’ pure for you, like sacrificial virgins for the sun god. We never entertained any offers from other teams either an’ just ignored whatever overtures they might have made - or not. We was loyal to our contract. Still, youse never called.

5) Ab MacDonald an’ Cec Hoekstra went an’ jumped ship to join the Montreal Canadians an’ won a bunch of Stanley Cups. We was sure we’d hear from youse then. After all, we’d played with them an’ knew how to shut them down. But youse didn’t call.

6) Still we was loyal, good to our word – loyal, but disappointed an’ gettin’ discouraged. I mean – how many Stanley Cups have youse guys won since the sixties? Tell me that! But did youse call? Youse didn’t call.

7) I don’t know about Wally. We haven’t talked much since them glory days. But together with bein’ disappointed an’ discouraged, me myself personally – I’m also disgusted. That’s right – disgusted! Youse didn’t call.

8) It all comes down to this. It seems youse got just a tad too uppity from your early days when youse actually won a Stanley Cup or two. Youse got respect in them days. Youse got loyal fans in them days too. Youse even got players waitin’ in the wings for to carry youse along the high road. But no, youse wouldn’t call.

9) Youse had it in your hands. Youse coulda been a contender. Youse coulda been somebody! If only youd’a called.

10) Well – it’s too late now. The way youse guys are playin’ these days, youse might as well take the money youse got out’a sellin’ the Maple Leaf Gardens an’ buy a bunch of rowboats. That way, youse can all sit on your butts goin backwards, an’ maybe still win first prize.

So I’m givin’ youse fair notice. Don’t even bother tryin’ the two long an’ one short phone number. Ain’t nobody gonna answer no more. Youse are too late! All yer kissin’ up won’t change nothin’. Youse had yer chance an’ youse blew it, so just suck it up buttercup, an’ consider it a lesson learned.

When the place I’m probly goin’ to in the life after this one freezes over, I’ll know youse actually won another Stanley Cup. But truth be told, I ain’t even gonna bother to take a parka.

Your long sufferin’ potential left defenseman,

“Vicious” Vic Epp

Mabel and Eunice and the Freakin Frickin Skunk

Well, you have to tell it how it is or how it was, and this is more or less how it was.

Mabel and Eunice and the Freakin Frickin Skunk

By Victor Epp

You might think that from what you know about these two that nothing would really buffalo them. Well, that may be the truth of it in pretty well most cases. The appetite they have for devouring the business of just plain living, not much would have the gumption to stand in their way. Well, what would be the point? Whatever it was would just get mowed down anyway; might as well save them the trouble.

Makes sense too, come to think of it. I mean you just have to look at each of their backgrounds to see that you'd have every right to think that way. I mean, Mabel was one of those people when she was younger who would do something just because you said she couldn't. She spent two years in the army when she was a teenager just because somebody said she'd never be able to hack it. Man, there were some miserable times during that period, but she freakin showed somebody. Must not have harmed her any either because she can still shine her shoes better'n anybody I've ever seen.

And Eunice - well Eunice tomcatted around in the country all her life and there wasn't much of anything she wouldn't try to fix if it was broke. It wasn't anything special to see her feet sticking out from underneath that big tub of a station wagon of hers, or her and Howard, that's one of Mabel's brats, chasing down some unsuspecting heron in somebody's stubble field just to get a close up look at the critter.

Well, given all that, it's really no wonder you'd come to that conclusion. But I'm here to tell you that some things are bigger than the both of them put together. There's that thing called extenuating circumstances. When you throw that into the mix there's no telling what might come out the other end. In this case it was Mud.

Now that don't sound right either, but it’s a fact. See Mud isn't just mud. Mud, short for Muddy, is a dog - a big excitable critter that's named for what she gets into more than anything. To look at her you'd think she's just an ordinary cross between lab and shepherd and maybe a couple of other things thrown in. But her brain, such as it is reminds me of something between my curious one year old great grandson and one of them screaming teenagers you see at rock concerts. She gets excited at just about anything, barking so hard that her feet actually leave the ground. About the only way you can calm her down I is wrap a hockey stick around her empty skull a few times.

You'd think I was talking about some ferocious man eating creature the way I say it, but actually the reverse is true. The first clap of thunder that goofy mutt hears and she's trying to get her big bony body under the bed. It's the same thing when some stranger pulls into the driveway. She'll bark and jump as though she'll eat whoever it is and then when they get out of the car, run and hide in the garage. Somehow Mud kind of fits into that household.

Extenuating circumstances is what I said. Wellsir, you take a house in the country, hot, dry weather, one of them concrete front steps attached to the foundation with shrinking soil under it and you've got your extenuating circumstances. I'm describing the exact situation at Mabel and Eunice's place a few summers ago, especially the shrinking soil under the front step. See that's just the sort of thing that makes a right fine cooling off place for some of nature's creatures. You can just crawl in there out of the sun and take yourself a good snooze without anyone ever knowing you're there, unless you happen to be a skunk.

"Holy bleep!" says Mabel, who happens to be sitting in the living room right beside the open front door. "There's a freakin' skunk in the yard!"

First thing Eunice does is check on where Mud is. She's been known to get skunked once or twice without ever learning a lesson. Nope, Mud's in the dog run. Can't be her. She scans the back yard to see if the critter is around somewhere, just passing through. No skunk is to be seen anywhere - front or back. Mabel would have slammed the door shut except it's too hot in the house as it is. Up until now the breeze had provided a bit of relief from the heat. Now it was providing enough skunk aromas to make you think the critter was right there in the house.

Wellsir, it got to be a little too much in a heck of a hurry. Howard and Mavis, the two youngest brats figured they'd go out and find the thing. It didn't take the two of them long to figure out exactly where it was either. Yeah, you guessed it. It was sleeping under the front step. Well, that was a fine freakin' how do you do according to Mabel. Eunice didn't help matters any when she announced that it was probably a female going to have her babies under there and we might as well get used to it unless somebody knew how to get it out of there. For once, Mabel doesn't even challenge Eunice's opinion. She just tells her to shut up and don't say things nobody wants to know about. As I said before, those two have a way with words.

Well, I'm no expert on skunks but as kids we'd flushed enough gophers out of their holes to know that water and burrowing animals don't mix too well. It was worth a shot. I tell Mabel to get the twenty-two while I get the hose to flush the sucker out. Well, it's standard procedure. You drown the critter out of it's burrow and when it emerges you brain it with a board or sling shot or a pellet gun or whatever you have handy. A skunk's skull is thick enough though, that you need a twenty-two as a minimum.

As soon as I start unreeling the hose Mud sees me and knows there's going to be water around. She tries jumping over the top of the run. I pay no attention. My mind is on how fast I can run once the skunk shows its ugly face from under the step. Being skunked is not a whole lot of fun for humans so I'm calculating which way the animal is likely to run and what my escape routes ought to be. Maude, that's Eunice's middle brat, is wandering around wringing her hands and whimpering. She's one of those earth people who wince whenever she has to swat a mosquito. She doesn't want the skunk to be hurt.

We're not sure whether Eunice is trying to comfort Maude or being sarcastic. "We're not going to hurt it dear," she says sweetly. We're going to blow its bleepin brains out. It won't feel a thing."

Then she adds, "Sort of like premeditated murder." Yep, she's being sarcastic all right. Maude starts to out and out bawl and that gets Mud even more excited. Holy bleep! Does everything have to be a three-ring circus around here?

On a more conciliatory note Eunice adds, "Aw, quit your blubberin Maude. If you stunk that bad you'd want to be put out of your misery too, just so you didn't have to smell yourself."

Maude is not consoled.

By now I've got the hose hauled out to the front of the house and over the stair so that the skunk won't trip over it. Alice and Mavis and Howard are hanging around waiting for the action. Maude is pacing up and down the yard blubbering. Lilly is lying on the couch disdainfully. The whole thing is disgusting as far as she's concerned. Mabel is wandering from closet to closet trying to remember where she'd left the twenty-two while Eunice is looking for the shells.

Wellsir once I get into position I take a sprinter's starting stance and turn on the water. It keeps on coming and coming and still no skunk. I have to figure out a different way to stand so as not to collapse when it finally comes out. Another ten minutes or so of hosing and I see a little black snout poking out from under the step. If any more of the critter shows up, I'm ready to clear out, but no, the snout disappears again the way it came. I yell at Mabel to get out here before the thing gets away.

Finally the snout reappears, pauses for a second and is followed by the rest of the body, which is surprisingly big. I had it figured right, She's headed north down the driveway. Perfect!

"Shoot the sucker!" somebody hollers.

"I've got to sight the gun in first," says Mabel excitedly. She's fumbling in her pocket for the shells.

"What?" Here's a woman could hold her own with Annie Oakley any day of the week and she's got to sight her gun in - her own gun at that? She's just making that up, I think.

Just as the skunk sets its course for the driveway, who shows up around the corner of the house but Mud? She's managed to clear the dog run fence and needs to check out all this commotion. When Mud sees the skunk she starts yappin and yippin and hoppin up and down like she's on a pogo stick. She scared the pants off just about everyone including herself.

"For bleep sake Mabel, shoot the freakin' thing!" yells Eunice, exasperated.

Mabel fires a round into the middle of a fence post about a hundred paces away. "Yep, it shoots true," she announces. There's this funny look on her face.

"Mom, Mom! It's getting away!" Howard keeps yelling, waving his arms frantically.

Mud, who's peed all over the lawn and herself in the excitement makes a lunge for the skunk and gets a snoot full. The skunk sees that things are not going too well and changes its mind about the driveway. It wheels right and heads straight toward Mabel's car that she left in front of the open garage door. Naturally, the windows are all down in this heat.

It's all Eunice can do to keep from ripping the twenty-two out of Mabel's hands. "For bleep sake woman," she screams at the top of her lungs, "pull the frickin trigger!"

"I can't!" Mabel screams back just as loud. "I'll hit the freakin car!"

The skunk vanishes.

"Idiot!" mutters Eunice under her breath. Out loud she wonders where the thing went.

"It's in the car and I hope it sprays on every bleepin thing in it!" Maude pipes up defiantly. 'Sprays' isn't exactly the word she used but we'll let it go at that. Good Lord, if she isn't sounding more and more like her mother.

"Alice, you go look," says Mabel.

Normally Alice would happily comply, but not this time. In fact nobody is particularly enthusiastic about the idea. Maybe it doesn't occur to Mabel that she's got two legs too, but she doesn't offer either. It finally gets the best of Howard and Mavis. They're at an age when the chance of an adventure is more important than the consequence.

"Nope," they sing in unison, "not in there."

Maude seems disappointed and I get a sudden hankerin to go look in the garage. See, my car is in the other bay and I don't know if my windows are closed. Thankfully they are but the smell is sure strong in there. Well, it's a big garage but its wide open to see what's what and there's no skunk in there that I can see. Mind, there's the workbench across the back with several shelves under it but still I see nothing. The smell down towards the other end though leaves no doubt about the skunk's whereabouts.

Howard is lying on his belly on the floor with a flashlight shining under the bottom shelf. "I see it!" he announces triumphantly. "I see its beady eyes under the shelf."

It's impossible for a critter that size to get under that shelf through a missing piece of kick plate, but somehow it did.

It seems the adventure isn't over yet. Now we've got to get it out of there somehow. That's going to be even more interesting since the hose won't reach that far. Banging on the shelf with the hammer doesn't do anything either. That skunk is staying put.

First I back my car out and park it down the driveway with the windows shut. The idea is to make as much running room as possible if I flush the thing out. Then I get a couple of the longest sticks I can find and tie them together and start prodding. Mabel and Eunice are standing behind Mabel's car complaining about how everything happens to them.

"Here it comes!" yells Howard at his mom and jumps up out of the way.

"Oh bleep!" says a flustered Mabel. She fumbles with the shells in her pocket, loads the gun and takes another shot at the fence post.

The skunk in the meantime is headed right for her car. At the sound of the shot it takes another turn, fires off a big burst of spray and heads off in the deep grass. Maude is trying to stifle a diabolical snicker. I guess she's figured out that Mabel doesn't really want to hurt the skunk either, but that's not for me to announce to the world.

With sad resignation Eunice breaks out the tomato juice, paper towels and all the paraphernalia the goes with removing skunk odor from cars and dogs. They're smart enough to know better than to bark at each other over this bungled manhunt, so they demurely focus on polishing the car, keeping the conversation to comments on how nice it looks.

There's a footnote to this story that bears mentioning. As you've already seen I always try to be helpful and this time was no different than others. It's just my nature. When the supply of tomato juice was about exhausted, I gave the girls one of them pine tree car deodorizers that I had to spare. It would have to do and maybe it just would.

Extenuating circumstances again intervened. Driving to work in the wee hours of the morning was bearable enough, what with the cool air blowing in the car windows. At that time of day the girls never thought much about closing the windows and locking the car up tight once they got to the parking lot. Well you had to keep everything locked down tight with maybe three or four hundred other cars in the same lot. It was a beautiful clear day, not a breeze in the air. The sun baked everything in site at about ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit. That's how the concoction of skunk juice and pine tree deodorized simmered and slow-cooked all day. When Mabel opened the door at quitting time, she could have sworn she saw all the cars around her shuddering.

All I know is at around supper time there was a great cloud of dust on the gravel road by our place and the car was going so fast it had trouble negotiating the turns in the driveway. It had hardly stopped when Eunice and Mabel came flying out like they'd been shot out of a cannon. Eunice headed straight for the shower and Mabel for the pool. For once there was no freakin frickin dialogue. By the time they finally emerged for their supper about two hours later some of the green in their complexion was starting to fade.

The next morning I did notice that they'd taken Eunice's big tub of a station wagon, leaving Mabel's car at home with the windows wide open. There was a small pile of clothes in the burn barrel too. Nobody's ever talked about the affair since, until I brought it up the other day. Now it seems a whole lot more humorous than it was at the time.

The Williamsburg Address

Wellsir, you might not think characters like the ones in this story exist, but if that's what you think then I'm here to tell you you might just be wrong. Most of these folks are made up of a composite of people I've actually come to know over my lifetime, and I just can't see a breed like them dying out any time soon. So for what it's worth, here they are:

The Williamsburg Address

By Victor Epp

Some folks might confuse the Williamsburg address with the Gettysburg address, but they wouldn’t even be close. Oh, I know it sounds political and important and historical and all that mind, but the Williamsburg address for all it’s historical importance, somehow just slipped by without so much as a blink of an eye; well, except for a few of us who didn’t quite forget. Let me tell you about it.

You could always pretty much tell how things were with Davey MacGregor by the first two or three words that came out of his mouth, not that there was usually much more to follow after. "Dang", he’d mutter; usually to himself with a nervous kind of energy. That more or less meant that everything was normal - a little sub-standard according to Davey’s measure, but what else could you expect anyway? Now when he said ‘Dang Farn’, that would be borderline cussin’ - usually meant that things were not going his way, and if it didn’t get any better soon, you’d hear - ‘Dang Farn It Poop!’

You can lay odds that whatever or whoever caused Davey to outright cuss like that was in for some misery. Davey didn’t like cussin’; thought it ruined his disposition, but sometimes, you just had to use strong language.

Now don’t get the wrong idea about Davey MacGregor. He wasn’t the gnarly old coot his manner made him out to be. Folks around here liked old Davey, and for the most part he liked them. It was just that he was very direct - no nonsense. All the MacGregors were like that, and had been for the hundred odd years they’d been in these parts. It was just accepted. People didn’t waste Davey’s time with small talk or gossip. They said what they had to say and moved on, and everybody got along just fine.

Well sir, in fact Davey was a gnarly old coot. I don’t mean his personality or his character, but what he looked like; sort of like a weathered old tree stump and just about as solid. At the time I’m going to tell you about, he would have been in his mid fifties though he looked a lot older, except when he moved. Probably running his half section mixed farm made him that way. He was clean about himself, as clean as he was about his place. Nothing fancy on either him or the farm, but what there was, was well looked after and in good repair.

I left out telling you about another side of Davey MacGregor that the local folks know about, often at their own expense. Not that I was holding out mind - I was coming to it. Whenever Davey started to say something he always put a ‘Wellsir’ in front of it. If you asked him for the time, he’d look up at the sun and tell you, "Wellsir - looks to be about twenty after nine." Other times when the mood struck him to tell a yarn, his ‘Wellsir’ sounded about the same as usual, but if you watched his eyes, and you had to be quick about it too, you could tell a whopper was coming, or maybe even a prank. He wasn’t above playing a prank on some poor unsuspecting soul now and then, and unless you read his eyes, you’d never see it coming ‘til it was too late. Now the one ‘Wellsir’ you didn’t want to hear from Davey if it was directed at you, was when it was followed by ‘we’ll see about that’. Those MacGregors all had a stubborn streak that would make a mule seem wishy - washy, and Davey was a MacGregor through and through. He didn’t have a reverse gear in his bones. Once he made his mind up about something, there was no turning back.

Bill found out about Davey’s stubborn streak a time or two. Bill, that was Davey’s eight year old quarter horse - Welsh cross who also had a bit of a mind of his own as far as horses go, but he was no match for Davey. Even so, his Welsh blood would come out to challenge Davey every so often. The two would match wits for however long it took until Bill gave up and fell back into line. It almost seemed they had to test one another. It was part of how they got along. Davey had other horses of course, but when he was working his herd of Black Angus, he’d never use any but Bill. Both were athletes, and they knew their business. When they were working there was no time for nonsense. They were a sight to see, smooth as silk, moving the herd or cutting calves, like they were born to one another.

Davey kept around a hundred twenty or so head of the Black Angus from the herd that his great grandfather had started when he first settled here. Never would look at anything else. All the new breeds that were coming in and being promoted held no interest for him. Maybe the Angus breed was smaller than the Simmentals or Charales, he ‘Wellsird’, but there was no finer beef than on a well bred Aberdeen Angus.

It was just about that very thing that he had gained the grudging respect of old man Farndham on the neighboring farm, or the country estate as Farndham liked to call it. Much as the old coot knew about getting rich in the oil business, he didn’t know didley when it came to livestock of any kind. Basically, he just lived in the big mansion and his farm managers ran the business end. He could tell how well he was doing by looking at the books; you had to give him that. The old boy was no fool. But in the main, he used the place to entertain and show off to his rich customers, especially those dang fool thoroughbreds of his. He must have had close to twenty-five of them. Davey had no use for thoroughbreds. They were all legs and no brains as far as he could tell. Oh they could run all right, but for what? Running hard to get nowhere for no particular purpose made no sense to Davey - no sense at all.

That aside, old Farndham had decided to give Davey some friendly advice about his cattle herd one day. That was years ago when Farndham was still among the living.

"MacGregor," he said. He always called men by their last names. That was his way of commanding authority without being disrespectful. Davey didn’t mind that at all though. He rather preferred not to be too friendly with the likes of Farndham anyway.

"MacGregor," he said again, "You’d do well to get rid of those Angus and buy yourself a better breeding stock."

"Wellsir," answered Davey, "I reckon I got as good a stock as there is, as I see it."

"They’re too small; take too long to get to shipping weight, if they ever get there at all. No, you should be looking at the Charales breed. Hardy beasts they are; and heavy. Good beef too. You’d do much better. That’s my advice to you."

Davey looked old Farndham over to size up the meaning of this advice and figured it to be genuine, if somewhat pompous. "Wellsir, we’ll see about that," he said after a bit. Farndham wasn’t quick enough to notice the twinkle in the corner of Davey’s eyes.

"Tell me," he continued, "you ever eat your own beef?"

"Well of course," flustered Farndham. Naturally, he had no idea. The cook took care of buying what they needed. He just made sure she didn’t overspend. "It’s perfectly good beef too."

A rare smile flashed across Davey’s face. It changed his entire countenance and startled old Farndham. "Tell you what, Farndham," he said using the last name in addressing his neighbor. "I’d like to invite you to dinner tomorrow for a good feed of my Angus beef."

"Oh, that’s impossible," blustered Farndham, "we have guests coming tomorrow - from Brazil."

"Even better, then we’ll have dinner at your place." Davey’s eyes were sparkling now. He wasn’t going to let the old man dance out of this one.

"But you don’t understand MacGregor. These are important people from Brazil. They are very influential clients of mine."

Now most folks would have taken offence at that sort of turndown, perhaps felt inferior. Not Davey; like a chess player anticipating his opponent’s next move, he’d measured his neighbor and measured right. No less accurate was his next step.

"Farndham," he started. "About the only thing you and I have in common is honesty - not much of that to be found these days, especially in a neighbor. Now I’m sure you’ll do me the courtesy of sending your cook over for the finest steaks in the whole dang country for your dinner party and I’ll be just as happy to stay at home with mine."

Farndham was at a loss. He couldn’t think of anything to say. This was totally opposite of what he was accustomed to. Usually people were trying to get something from him. That was something he could deal with, but this - he could only stammer, "If you’re sure, MacGregor, I’ll send the cook right over." I reckon he figured that if the meat was no good, there was still time to replace it.

"Much obliged." Davey smiled again and stuck his hand out. Farndham took it awkwardly and went on home.

It wasn’t more than three days later that Farndham sought Davey out. He was just coming in from the north quarter, making another swing around the place in case their might be a stray. Usually if he encountered anyone, Davey would stay mounted on his horse, bareback or saddled. There was no place he felt more comfortable than on a horse, especially Bill. Today he was bareback - no saddle, no bridle, no tack at all and he was finished with his chores, so he slid down beside Farndham’s car and gave Bill a slap on the rump to send him off to the water trough.

"Good morning Davey," said Farndham, getting out of his Beamer. If Davey was taken aback by Farndham calling him by his first name, he didn’t let on.

"Mornin’ Mister Farndham," he returned. Using the mister was about as close as he could get to familiarity. He wasn’t sure whether the old man’s first name was really Ulysses or not, and he didn’t want to chance it. Mister was close enough, and it showed some respect anyway.

"I came to thank you personally for those fine steaks," he said. "They are the best I’ve ever had."

"Exactly," Davey said quietly.

"I’ll tell you what Davey," Farndham began, "I’d like to arrange to buy all my beef from you. How does that strike you?"

"Can’t do that, Mister Farndham,” he replied. “If you want MacGregor Angus, the only place to get it is at Sheffield and Macleod."

"You must be joking," Farndham shot back. "They are the most expensive place my cook knows."

"Exactly," Davey chuckled, repeating himself on purpose.

About this time, Farndham was eyeing Bill who had finished up at the water trough He was mulling over in his mind with some curiosity how Davey managed that quarter horse with no tack. He’d heard of it before, but never actually seen it. His thoroughbreds took all the tack you could legally muster to keep them in check and even then it didn’t always work, they were that high strung. But he wasn’t finished talking about cattle yet. It bothered him that not only had he under estimated his neighbor, but he also had been bested in the cattle business.

"Listen Davey," Farndham offered, "whatever the contract you have with those people at Sheffield and MacLeod, I’ll be glad to buy it out. You’ve somehow got the best beef I’ve ever seen, and I want it.

"Got no contract," Davey replied matter of factly.

"Then what’s the problem with selling to me?"

“You’re word any good?” asked Davey.

"Any good," old Farndham blustered like a wounded bull, "any good? I’ll have you know my word is my bond! How else do you think I got to where I am?" You’da’ thought he was going to pop a blood vessel.

“Wellsir, Mister Farndham," reckoned Davey, "then I figure we got two things in common. Tell you what. If Sheffield and Macleod ever go out of business we’ll have a talk."

Reluctantly, Farndham cut the visit short. He had things that needed attending to. He’d be back though, next week perhaps. Maybe they could talk more about the merits of the Aberdeen Black Angus.

Maybe they might, allowed Davey.

It turned out to be prophetic that they shook hands on parting. They would never meet again because three days later Ulysses Farndham died of a massive stroke. ‘Shame,’ thought Davey. At least you could talk to the old man, not like that arrogant excuse for a son of his.

Well, that was three years ago and after a while, Davey never much thought about old man Farndham except when he passed the place. Young Stanley Johnathan Ulysses had taken over the farm since packing his mother off to some retirement home. The company he kept was a lot different than the old folks. The livestock had changed too, and for the worse. There were no cattle on the place anymore, only thoroughbreds. Thoroughbreds and trainers and jockeys and, well who knew what all else. A person could be nothing other than disgusted at such a collection of no good. The place, by Davey’s measure anyway, was going down hill. At least the former manager had kept order, given what he had to work with, but Davey kept his own council and minded his own business. He expected the same from young S. J.

That might have been the way of it too, had it not been for an incident that started Bill on a path that not even Davey could have imagined in a thousand years. Fate, it seemed, had decided to put Davey to the test this one bright August morning, just to see if he was getting old.

He’d got out to the small corral behind the barn where he kept the horses so they would be handy for him for his morning chores only to find Bill was missing. Bill did that sometimes. Small though he was, he could jump if he had a mind to. He would take off to wherever or whatever he was curious about and once he was satisfied, come back in his own sweet time, waiting at the gate to be let back in. Funny thing was, he would never jump back over the rails but would just stand there as if to let Davey know he’d been away and could do it any time he pleased.

'Dang fool horse,' Davey muttered under his breath as he took stock of the situation. He liked the feel of Bill’s bare back first thing in the morning when he went to check his herd. Nothing was colder than an old saddle to start his morning rounds.

"Dang," he said again, as he pulled the gear out of the tack room and flung it over Belle’s back.

Davey headed over to the north quarter for no particular reason. The cattle weren’t there, but it was where his land joined Farndhamses place and maybe he wanted to admire its rolling beauty in the early morning sun before going about his business - or maybe he might be looking for Bill. The sight that caught his eye as he approached the fence line wasn’t anything he might have expected, and for most folks, it would have been a pleasant, lazy morning scene. There, right against the fence, Farndham’s men had stacked a load of fresh green alfalfa, and there, right against the fence was Bill, munching at the back end of it.

I don’t know how many ways you can split a second, but in about the smallest split there is, Davey had seen the whole picture, wheeled old Belle around, and dug his heels in hard enough to bring her to full gallop in the first step. "Dang Farn it" Davey yelled, not realizing the volume of his voice. "Dang Farn it Poop!" - And Belle got another taste of his heels. He was still yelling when he hit the house, totally oblivious to his own sounds.

"Where’s the sauerkraut, Olive?" he yelled, even though she was right in front of him.

"What?"

"The Sauerkraut, the Sauerkraut! I need the sauerkraut, Dang Farn it woman!"

Olive opened the pantry and handed him a jar.

"That’s all there is?" he demanded. His eyes rolled in frustration.

She handed him another.

"Bring Belle to the north quarter," he ordered and headed straight to the tractor shed, still Dang Farning it.

Olive didn’t remember ever having seen Davey that excited in all the years that she’d known him. There must be some powerful thing going on out there to get him so riled up. When he’d come charging in, his pale blue eyes blazing, she was just in the act of slipping her dress over her head after stepping out of the shower. She had dropped it on the floor to get him his sauerkraut. He hadn’t even seen her. His mind was transfixed on sauerkraut. ‘Wellsir.’ she aped his mannerism with a sparkle in her eye when he had run out, ‘we’ll see about that!’ She left the dress in a heap on the floor where it had fallen and got up on old Belle.

Davey was already out of view on the big Massey Ferguson. By the time Olive had got to where she was headed, the sight that confronted her told the whole story; green, fresh alfalfa - colic - horse and cattle killer. Davey had the forks on the Massey up over Bill with the sling he used to move the big round hay bales under his belly to keep him upright. Bill was still eating, even though he was grunting, in obvious pain. Davey in the meantime was prodding his belly with his fists and shoulders, muttering under his breath, the two big jars of sauerkraut now empty on the ground.

"Looks like a bit of colic," Olive offered, still in the saddle.

"A whole mountain of colic," answered Davey. "I just barely got this winch on him before he went down. Don’t know what I’d do if he weren’t as crazy for sauerkraut as he is for green alfalfa. That ought to blow the gas out of him." For the first time Davey looked up.

"My God woman," he shrieked. "You’re stark nekkid! Are you out of your mind? What if somebody sees you like that?"

Olive paused; a look coming over her face that Davey knew was his undoing every time. "Well, bless me," she drawled, "so I am - same as I was when you came screaming into the house. Don’t think anybody saw me then; especially you."

"Besides," Olive continued, "a good woman always serves her master - no questions asked. Ain’t that right Master Davey? You just told me to bring Belle over here. You didn't say anything about getting dressed." She leaned over in the saddle and flashed one of those famous smiles of hers.

Davey was done - bested, and he knew it. The icy blue eyes began to dance and a grin crossed his weathered face. "You just sit up there where you are for a short spell Lady Godiva," he said softly. "I just got a little bit of teaching to do with this Dang Farn bag of bones. Then I reckon I got a little bit of learnin’ to do my own self."

He kept prodding at Bill’s bloated belly, and slowly the sauerkraut started to work. Taking his time, Davey hauled out his pipe and began stuffing it, all the while listening to what was happening inside the horse. By the sound of things, it wasn’t going to be too long for what he had in mind. Fishing his pipe lighter out of his pocket, he unsnapped the clip that held the winch under Bill’s belly. He flicked the wheel on his lighter to see the flame shoot out sideways as it does with those kinds of lighters. As the roar of methane gas began to leave Bill’s body, Davey turned the lighter to where Bill’s tail was lifted and ignited the stream in a brilliant blue flame like the business end of a rocket. Waiting just long enough for Bill to get a whiff of the singed hair on his tail, Davey slapped him on the rump and yelled, "Fire!" as loud as he could. Bill took off in absolute terror, tail straight up in the air out of the way of the flame, which was exactly what Davey had in mind. The only way to get rid of the colic was to run it off.

The fact that he was a one-horse stampede was just a bonus.

Davey turned his attention toward Olive.

It must have been at least a couple of hours later that Bill finally showed up at the corral. He was all covered in sweat and lather. Mind, he had slowed down some on the way home because a lot of it was already drying on him. He seemed in good shape though, none the worse for his colic, and was probably clean as a whistle inside. Anyway, he was out of rocket fuel, and his wild eyes had gone back to normal sort of - for a quarter horse.

"Wellsir," Davey said out loud while giving Bill’s shoulder a poke with his fist, "I reckon you might ‘a learned somethin today. I suppose that calls for a rub down." He clicked his tongue and turned heel to the tack house. Bill followed along of his own accord. He knew the drill. That was one thing about Bill you could count on. He had quick grasp of things once you explained it to him in language he could understand. The trick was learning the language, and that was what Davey knew. The only thing Davey regretted as he worked over the horse was that he hadn’t been on his back on that wild run. That would have been some ride. A wild thought crossed Davey’s mind. He glanced over in the direction of the green alfalfa bales and smiled. ’Wellsir’, he said quietly to himself, ‘well see about that,’ - and for extra measure, ‘we’ll just see about that.’

It must have taken about two weeks or so before Bill would take off like a rocket on Davey’s command. The first couple of times he’d laid on a stirrup cinch and light bit, just in case.

Davey had no such thing as fear himself, but he was no fool either. Horseman that he was, he knew he’d better have something more than mane to hang on to on a ride like that. He sat easily on Bill’s back, taking a twist of horse hair from around the corral fence in his hand and putting his lighter to it, stuck it under Bill’s nose as he lay down flat and wrapped his fingers and the reign through the mane and whispering "Fire!"

Wellsir, it was the kind of a ride where Davey figured he could have used goggles to protect his eyes, that was the speed of it. Bill never lost his footing or his presence of mind either as they streaked around the whole perimeter of the half section. A fallen tree in their path flashed underneath them as Bill gracefully took to the air as though he had wings and was gone. Even the cattle had almost no time to see them, let alone react.

Now it turned out there was more to the green alfalfa at the fence line than just accident or thoughtlessness. The one thing that Davey MacGregor and J. S. Ulysses Farndham had in common was a dislike for one another. In fact, they couldn’t stand each other. When the old man was alive it wasn’t too bad. They just gave each other a wide berth, but now that J. S. was running the place, it was a different story. He was just a nasty, vindictive kind of little man, by Davey’s reckoning. The alfalfa was just one of many things that seemed suddenly to appear out of nowhere to cause annoyance and consternation to Davey. He never put two and two together until one day he got a call from some lawyer in New York who said he represented the Farndham Holdings and he wanted to know who Davey’s lawyer was so they could discuss a business deal.

The very hair stood up on Davey’s neck but he kept his calm and said if the lawyer wanted to discuss anything, he could come to Davey’s place and talk face to face with him. The lawyer told him that was not the way things were done, but after a while when Davey’d had enough and finally told him to go pack salt, he seemed to change his mind. Two days later he was sitting in Davey’s workshop, about as uncomfortable as could be. This was Davey’s ‘office’ where he did his business, and since they were discussing his business, this is where it would be done. The lawyer never did get to see the inside of the MacGregor home.

Wellsir, when they finally got down to it, what all the hullabaloo was about was that J. S wanted to buy Davey out, lock stock and barrel - wanted to turn the place into condominiums for race horse types. Davey didn’t even hear what price he was offering, that’s how mad he was. What the lawyer and most other people didn’t know was that when the Good Lord made heaven and earth, he also made MacGregor land and when he gave them commandments to Moses on the mount, Moses forgot to write down the two most important ones - don’t interfere with MacGregor livestock and don’t infringe on MacGregor land.

All in all, it was a bad meeting for the lawyer. He was accustomed to dealing with tough, sophisticated negotiators, but nothing had prepared him for a bull headed Scot whom he could neither control nor get a read on his thinking. Mind you, after that, things didn’t get any better for Davey either. That lawyer didn’t give up so easy. More offers followed. When they didn’t work, town-planning meetings and even community hall meetings were held to try to sell the development concept to the whole area. Pressure was mounting to oust Davey from his place.

Finally he’d had enough. "Olive," he said grimly, "It’s time to take over the Farndham place."

You could have knocked her over with a feather. Had he lost all his marbles all of a sudden? "How in the world are you going to do that?" she wanted to know. "We can’t afford to buy a place like that!"

"I didn’t say buy, I said take over," he replied.

Her face was pale with fear when she’d listened to what he had in mind. Olive was a MacGregor only by marriage, but as close as she and Davey were, her fierceness about the MacGregor place made her one - even more than Davey himself. "My God Davey, we could lose the place," she whispered hoarsely, wringing hands. Davey knew that when Olive was wringing her hands, she was truly upset.

"Wellsir, he allowed, trying to be positive about it, "the only other way I know to get that nasty little creep off our backs would mean my spending the rest of my life in jail, and that would be even worse.

The MacGregors may have lost a battle or two in their time but never" he paused to emphasize the point, "never have they ever backed away from a fight for their own."

"Then you’d better call Billy Bucknell to make sure you get everything in order," she told him.

The meeting took place at Billy Bucknell’s law office on the following Tuesday at ten in the morning. All that J. S. and his high priced lawyer knew was that it was to settle the deal on the MacGregor farm. "Once and for all" was what Bucknell had said. "By the way," he had asked, almost as an afterthought, "You got a deed to your place?"

J. S. said the lawyer did.

"Bring it." Billy hung up the phone.

There was a stack of papers on the table in front of each chair. "Read these, and sign them," Bucknell said simply. Of course Davey and Olive already had so they initialed every page and signed on the last one, putting them in front of Bucknell beside the deed to the MacGregor farm which he had already placed on the table.

"What kind of a trick is this?" the New York lawyer demanded, wondering how J. S. was going to react to paying for a wasted trip all the way out here.

"No trick," offered Davey, fixing his steel blue eyes on the high priced lawyer, "Just a simple way to get things in order real quick. J. S. don’t want us as neighbors, and we sure as shootin’ don’t want him as neighbors neither. Come Saturday, we’ll run a race at the community track by the stockyards there, and the winner takes both titles. What could be simpler than that?

"This is nuts," the lawyer said with a withered look and started to get up to leave. J. S. motioned him to sit down.

"Hold on a second," he started, realizing that he could pick up the MacGregor place by simply winning a horse race. "Lets look this over again. I believe old Davey may have just suckered himself into losing his farm. Why he hasn’t even got any real horses, just those quarter horse mules he uses for working that measly herd of his. It says here he will ride his Welsh cross - called Bill," J. S. stopped to chuckle at such a stupid name. He would lose just on the basis of bad naming, "and I can pick a horse and rider of my choice from my stable. But sixteen

Furlongs; that seems a bit far Davey don’t you think; for a quarter horse?"

"Your horses not up to it?" Davey shot back.

"I was thinking about yours’" J. S. lied. He was a little worried about the fact that old Doc Morrison who would start and oversee the race would also check the horses before and after the race for doping. That only left two of his horses that might not fail the test. Any doping of the horses would forfeit the race. But his concern was fleeting. After all, what did MacGregor know about racing? And a crummy quarter horse stood no chance against a thoroughbred anyway.

"If it’s all legal," he instructed his lawyer" lets sign. You can start making plans for our development."

When they had left, Billy Bucknell confronted both Davey and Olive, saying, "Are you two agreed on this? It’s a big gamble you know. Your old man would wrap my hide around my ears for this if he were still alive."

It was Olive who spoke up. "We’re agreed. Our war chest is full. The agreement calls for land and buildings only - not personal things or livestock and equipment. And I’ll tell you another thing Billy. Old Pop MacGregor would wrap our collective hides around our ears if we didn’t do this. There’s no shame in losing, only in running away from a fight."

By Saturday morning, the whole town knew about the goings on at the stockyards. Even the local paper had billed it as ‘Davey and Goliath - Race of the Century!’ The whole town was deserted. Everyone was at the track. It was even more crowded than at the annual county fair and auction. It wasn’t just about the horse race. It wasn’t even about this horse race. It was about the battle between Davey MacGregor and J. S. Ulysses Farndham, and that was the whole of it.

Well sir, they were going to get a show on this day like none they’d never seen before, and it was about to begin. Both riders were coming on to the track toward the starting gates. Mickey Flanders, who was the jockey J. S. had hired to ride ‘Whiskey’s Pride’ was wearing the Farndham blue and scarlet silks. The way that big black mare was prancing toward the gate you’d think she had already won the race. The two of them did look impressive, though. Even so, the crowd booed. They were pulling for the underdog. You’d think when Davey showed up on Bill, there would be a roar of encouragement. Instead, there was a prolonged and deathly silence, then a mournful groan. Here, aboard old Bill sat the most outlandish figure one could imagine in a modern age. Bare feet hanging down out of the stirrups, there sat Davey in full MacGregor regalia - kilt with sporran in place, a great sash in the MacGregor tartan thrown across his shoulder, and matching tam. In his hand there was what appeared to be a long wooden lance and in the corner of his mouth, of all things, was his pipe.

But the fact that he looked like an apparition out of the dawn of time didn’t bother Davey none. This was a serious enough matter that he’d dug out the MacGregor colors. He’d even found a white silk shirt that had been the old man’s. Win or lose, Farndham would have no doubt with whom he was dealing. The only thing that he was uncomfortable with was the kilt. Well, it wasn’t really the kilt itself; it was the height of the stirrups. Even with the sporran in place, he didn’t want to put his feet up into them and give the crowd a whole different kind of show.

Mickey shook his head and guffawed at the sight as he and the handler approached their gate. Davey, stuffing his pipe and re-lighting it, rode instead to the rail beside the gates to where Olive was standing. With a mighty thrust of a warrior, he rammed the lance into the ground just outside the rail, draped his sash over it, and with a last puff, handed his pipe to Olive. Then he headed over to his gate.

There was no fanfare - no big to do about it. Horses and riders just slipped into their gates, were locked in, and waited for the starting gun. Mickey and Whiskey’s Pride stood there poised, as natural as could be. They had been at the gate many times before and knew exactly what to do. Davey, his eye on Doc Morrison sat stock - still, mouth clenched in a tight - lipped grimace for what seemed like forever, and held his breath.

Doc moved up to the starter’s platform. Davey lay down on Bill’s back, his head resting low on the animal’s neck. Doc raised his arm straight up in firing position and Davey, whose face was absolutely purple by this time, blew a waft of smoke from the Three Nuns pipe tobacco mixed with horse hair past Bills nose. At the very second the gun exploded and the gates flew open, Davey screamed "Fire!" in Bill’s ear. The horse remembered perfectly. Nostrils flaring from the burning horsehair smell, wild eyed, he shot out of the gate - more like a cannon ball than a horse, leaving Mickey and his mount in his dust.

"Jesus!" cursed J. S. as Bill rounded the first turn, just barely missing the rail at the breakneck speed he was going.

Billy Bucknell, who was sitting close to him in the stand next to a white faced Olive, offered sarcastically, "Ain’t no use callin’ on the Lord for help when you’re up against a MacGregor." That was probably close to the truth.

"Well," J. S. opined, "he’s going to run out of steam before the finish line at that pace. That’s a quarter horse, and after a quarter mile, he’s done."

Normally that would have been true too, at least for a pure - bred quarter horse. But when you mix that with a Welsh breed though, that could be a whole different can of worms. Thoroughbred people don’t know about that kind of thing, what with being so preoccupied with their bloodlines and all.

By the fifth lap around the quarter mile track, Bill and Davey were pulling up on Mickey on their sixth time around, still at full gallop, although a bit slowed by now. Mickey was no rookie. He was letting Davey catch up. At the right moment he would edge him into the rail and disqualification. It would be over. J. S. could read what was coming, and a wry smile crossed his thin lips.

Bill, on the other hand, had figured out what this was all about, and by now the terror had left his eyes. He was just working for his master, going full out as was his custom. Covered in lather and sweat, he was nowhere near running out of steam or determination for that matter. It was his job to get ahead of that other horse, pure and simple, and he knew it. Drawing within half a length of Whiskey’s Pride, he held his ground in the middle of the track. Davey gave him his reign since he knew this was a horse tactic, and it was not for him to guide Bill’s instincts.

At this moment, Mickey began pushing his mount against Davey and Bill. He had them just where he wanted them. The sheer superiority of weight would force Bill into the rail. It would have too, if Bill hadn’t almost stopped dead in his tracks. He neatly ducked around the other side and took off again like he’d been shot. Whiskey’s Pride narrowly missed being the one crashing into the rail.

Mickey had his hands full trying to stay on board and get his horse’s mind back on the race. In a fit of rage, he put his crop to the big mare and charged straight at Bill who was now on the inside rail.

Instinctively, or as a response to the pain in her rump, she took off in a burst of power. Davey saw her just in time. "Fire!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, and twisted his fingers into Bill’s mane. Whiskey’s Pride missed them by a hair. In fact, it’s a miracle she didn’t get a hoof in her chest as she crashed headlong through the inside rail, falling in a heap somewhere in the middle green.

The roar noise coming from the crowd was tumultuous. You’d think it was V. E. Day the way they roared. Little Davey had beaten the mighty Goliath. Bill on the other hand was non plussed by the whole thing. He sensed a victory though, and took up a canter like he did at home when he’d cut a day’s worth of steers; kind of arrogant and pleased with himself.

"Clear the track,” shouted Davey to the people who were now milling around to congratulate him. "I got a race to finish!" And finish he did. When he had crossed the finish line, he rode over to where his lance was thrust into the ground, draped his sash over his shoulder and dismounted. He threw the reigns at Doc Morrison and ripped the lance out of its moorings.

"Billy," he said, "you take care of business. I got to get home right now, this minute! I’ll be by to your office on Monday." Then, "Olive, where’s the pick up?"

She offered him the keys but he moaned, "No, you drive, I can’t."

Olive looked at her husband, alarmed. He was white as a ghost and drenched with sweat. "My God," she said, "we’d better get you to the doctor! You look awful."

"No doctor," groaned Davey, "the bathroom, and fast!"

Davey had been in the bathroom for about four hours when Olive finally heard the shower running. She had kept calling to see if he was alright, but the only answer she got was the sound of his retching. All she knew was as long as she heard that, he was still alive. Finally he emerged, gaunt and pale, but with a little smile on his face.

"Feeling better?" was the first thing Olive wanted to know.

"I will," offered Davey meekly, "soon as I get the horsehair smoke out of my system. I couldn’t help but inhale some of it while I was waiting for Doc Morrison to fire his fool cannon. That dang farn stuff still makes me as sick as it did when the old man made me smoke it one time. Now I’ll probably never take up the pipe again either."

"Hm," Olive mused, "caught you smoking and wanted to teach you a lesson, did he?"

"Something like that."

Wellsir, there was a whole lot less excitement around these parts after the big race. Folks just more or less went about their business as usual. They’re like that around these parts. Whenever something exciting comes along, they’ll hoot and holler right along with the best of them, but when it’s over - its over and life goes on. In fact, S. J. and his outfit slunk out of there in record time so as nobody would notice. No one knew much about where he went and cared even less.

Of course, life was just starting for Olive. A dream that only a few weeks ago had been as far away as heaven itself now lay at her feet, waiting to be fulfilled. A Bed and Breakfast, and a Tea Room - that’s what she’d dreamed of for years. Until now, it had only been something to daydream about, to pass the time in idle moments, so to speak - nothing more than a pleasant diversion. Now it was a reality and the way she went about organizing the whole thing, you could tell that the blueprint was stuck there, right in her head. If Davey was annoyed at the way she ordered him around to get this and get that; build this and build that, he never let on. You couldn’t tell whether he was pleased for Olive, or just so glad to get rid of his nuisance neighbor that he didn’t notice. Before you knew it, the whole place was humming like the dream it was. Maybe that was it. Once Olive’s work was done, Davey’d be able to go about his own business without any more truck and bother.

That was just what he did too. There were a few things that needed to be put right about this place and by gum they would be. The first thing he did was fence off a pasture for his cattle. Old man Farndham would finally smile to know there was a herd of the finest Aberdeen Black Angus on his land. He tipped his weather-beaten hat skyward in a gesture.

Now it was in Davey’s nature to give credit where credit is due. It was time to give Bill his so the next thing he did was to make a big sign out of some rough lumber he had around. He spent a lot of time at it and when it was finally finished he was proud of his handiwork. What the sign said was 'Bill’s Place.' Davey figured it was fitting to hang on the gate to replace the old Farndham sign. After all, it was Bill’s strength and savvy that had won the place as much as anything; well that and the Sauerkraut.

He was just in the process of removing the old plaque so as to make room for his new one that was leaning against the fence when Olive came by. "There," he said, pointing proudly at his work. "That ought to put things right with Bill." It never struck him that she might have another opinion.

Now in all fairness to Olive, it has to be said that she was right on line with Davey in paying proper respect to those deserving it. It was just that her taste in these matters was somewhat different than his, especially since she was the one who had started to remodel the Farndham place.

"If I was you Davey," she said in that particular tone of voice, "I wouldn’t think of putting up that new sign."

Now as you’ve seen before, once Davey set his mind to something, there wasn’t much that could stand in his way, but there were places that even Davey wouldn’t go. That tone of voice was one of them - not that doing Bill out of his rightful due had crossed his mind. This situation though, called for some diplomacy.

"Well then my dear," he smiled, with a full understanding that he would do exactly as she directed in the matter, "if you was me, what would you do instead?"

"What I would do," she smiled back, "is give old Bill the dignity old Farndham would have given him. Don’t forget this was a classy place before J. S. took it over. Since it was Bill that got it for us, this is his place as much as ours. It should be named proper."

What in blazes was she going on about? “I thought that’s what I was doing.” replied Davey.

"Your sentiments might be right Davey," Olive answered, "but your words are wrong. Since this is going to be a bed and breakfast, we need a dignified address that impress people and make them want to come here."

"And if you was me," Davey ventured, "you’d -”

"And if I was you," she broke out in one of her broad smiles, "I’d order a great big wrought iron sign that says ‘The Williamsburg Address’ and I’d have it put up right up there over the center of the crossbar when it arrives this afternoon about two o’clock."

"My God woman, you already ordered a sign!"

‘The Williamsburg Address’; what kind of a name was that for Bill’s Place? He sure didn’t like the uppity sound of it, and neither would Bill if he could read. ‘Dang Farn it all.’

"And," said Davey with a familiar bit of sarcasm, "if you was me, what would you do with this sign I worked on so long and hard?"

"If I was you," Olive teased, "I’d use it to build a big bonfire and cook some of your sauerkraut on it."

That did it. Nobody, but nobody - not even Olive was going to hang a high falutin’ uppity sign on the best cutting horse in these parts - not as long as Davey MacGregor had anything to say about it. Wellsir, "dang farn it, we’ll see about that," he said loud and clear so Olive would be sure to get his drift.

Wellsir, that all happened a good long time ago. Olive got her way and named the place ‘The Williamsburg Address' and ran a real good Bed and Breakfast and Tea Room for years. Davey - well Davey just went on about his business as though nothing out of the ordinary had ever happened. You’d think that for once his ‘Wellsir, we’ll see about that’ finally got it’s comeuppance. Some of us know better.

Sure enough, if you visit The Williamsburg Address, out on the south quarter where the two neighboring farms join together, you’ll see a little knoll where old Bill is buried, and there, like a small cross, is a wooden plaque that simply says, ‘Bill’s Place.’ Guess Davey seen about that after all.

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Vegetables - The Forbidden Fruit

 There was a time when parents knew how to get their children to not only eat lots of fresh vegetables, but like them too. Where has all that wisdom gone? Now nutritionists, dieticians, educators and all that educated riff-raff are tearing their collective hair out to solve the dilemma. Oh for heavens sake, get a grip you people. There's nothing to it. Listen up!

Vegetables – The Forbidden Fruit

By Victor Epp

 I was thinking about vegetables the other day. Well, that's what it’s come down to. I guess when you retire you get time to think about things other than how early you got to get up and how many things you got to do and how little time there is to do them in - things like that. Once you get over the habit of looking over your shoulder for somebody else wanting something from you, different thoughts drift over and settle in your mind. Oh, at first there's all the important, heady stuff like world affairs, and can they really do without you at the shop, and what will you do to keep busy? Then one day you're just sitting there minding your own business, being careful not to be a nuisance to the wife and - boom! There it is in your head - Vegetables! Whoa, where did that come from? Well, once its there, its there. The question is - why?

Oh yeah, now I remember. We had been talking about kids and the state of their health. There was a big debate about that around our table one night and what it came down to as the root of the problem was - you guessed it - vegetables. What a dilemma! In the wealthy countries, we can't get the kids to eat their vegetables. And in the poor countries we can't get the vegetables for the kids to eat. Now with all the high priced help that's around working on this conundrum, you'd think they'd come up with a solution. Oh sure, that's right likely isn't it?

I thought I'd do the responsible thing and put in a little research into the subject myself before I went overboard on my facts. The first two searches I did on the Internet had about a hundred thousand sites each. Well, that was enough for me! You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what that game is all about. There's a huge - I mean HUGE industry out there of physicians, researchers, consultants, drug and chemical companies and who knows what all else, hoping that kids will never start eating proper vegetables. Can you imagine what it would do to the economy if our children suddenly all got healthy?

Oh, don't get me wrong. We've got vegetables coming out of our yin yang. Kids eat them too. They eat potatoes - if they're fried in some melted lard. They call them French fries. Trouble is; they get to eat the lard too! For variety, you can get your hands on what's known as potato chips, you know, those dried up skinny wafers that come in any flavor but potato. And then there's the tomato - if you count ketchup as tomatoes. Now that's something they eat lots of. They put it on everything. They'd even put it on Jell-O if you’d let them. Well it's no wonder. That stuff comes in about every color of the rainbow these days. It looks great but I really wonder how many actual tomatoes go into a bottle of ketchup. Oh, and don't let me forget corn. The way corn looks these days it could be a potato chip, only it’s a little fatter and they claim it’s made from corn. What they do as far as I can figure is to grind the corn up beyond recognition and throw in a bunch of other stuff to glue it all together. Then they force it through a molded orifice at high pressure - and out comes a corn chip. The technical name for that sort of product is 'extruded' snack food. Holy Hanna! What will they think up next? The last thing I remember about extruding is making aluminum window frames, or steel beams, or pre-stressed concrete. It has to do with taking a bunch of material of some sort or another and the forcing it through some predetermined orifice until it comes out the other end in that exact shape. Ugh! When it comes to food, there's a certain mentality about extruding though that I find disgusting. I don’t want to talk about it and I guess that's why you'll never find a package on my shelf that says 'Extruded Snack'.

If you were to make an assessment of how vegetables came to this, you would have to put pretty well the whole burden on the moms. Well now, don't get all in a huff about it. Facts are facts. You moms out there - you know who you are. You boil the living tar out of vegetables until all they're fit for is extrusion. You leave out the globs of sugar and salt for health reasons and then expect the kids to eat them.

Did you really think gardeners would stop growing vegetables or the snack makers pass up a market opportunity just because you don't know how to prepare them? Oh yeah, right. They know that by the time you're done there isn't a vitamin or mineral that could possibly survive that kind of torture, and kids just won't put up with it. They also figured out that the kids have to fill up on something, so if they can get their little mouths unglued from the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, the snacks are right there handy. In Canada, there's one point one billion dollars worth of snacks consumed every year. Can you get your mind around that? It's staggering, and half of that are potato chips alone.

Well now, to be fair to the present modern day moms, it isn't entirely their fault either. Somewhere in our evolution a tradition has sneaked in to annihilate any goodness in our veggies through relentless boiling. Since then, it’s been passed down from generation to generation. So there you have it. The growers have found a market for their crops in the giant food processing plants for what is laughingly called 'value added' product, which in turn has fuelled the market for all those consultants I was talking about.

Well, there you have the whole sorry state of affairs with vegetables. Now there's a tug of war going on as to what to do about it. The snack makers don't want anything to change. They just want to keep pumping out their MSG and sugar and artificial flavor in this cash and carry business. The growers on the other hand don't care one way or the other, just so long as they can keep selling their crops. The moms are the only ones with frazzled nerves, wondering what to do, wringing their hands with worry, to the point they're not thinking straight. The only guidance available to them is on the bookstore shelves starting at $24.95 US. And the only reason for those books is to sell books.

Well actually there's more help out there than you might imagine, and it's right there under your very nose. Doesn’t cost $24.95 U.S. either. Getting kids to eat fresh vegetables is not only easy, but it’s also a lot of fun so long as you don’t tell them it is. The best part is, you don't have to do anything but keep a sharp eye out, but you do that anyway. The kids do all the rest themselves unless you catch them red handed or let them know you're on to them. It's based on a principle called 'Forbidden Fruit'.

The 'Forbidden Fruit' principle has been around forever. Jeez, even Adam and Eve knew about that one. Well, I don't want to mix apples and potatoes, but the principle is right there. That's how long that law has been around. Mind you, it's evolved somewhat since then to a little more civilized activity. In fact, for all you bible readers out there, I can quote you chapter and verse in the book of Ruth about the self-same thing. Go ahead - look it up for yourself. It’s in chapter two verses two to eighteen.

See, the idea is if you tell a kid to eat the veggies because they're good for him or her, you lose. That's just normal behavior. On the other hand, if you hog them all for yourself and tell the kid he or she is not allowed to have any - well that might have worked if you hadn't gone and boiled the life right out of them. No, no, you have to think a little farther ahead than that. You've got to do things different. You've got to start with the basics - and that's the garden. It won't be the Garden of Eden I know, but a garden none the less, and it’s jam-packed full of forbidden fruit. The young peas, the carrots, radishes, rhubarb are the most delicious when a kid has to swipe them.

Well now, before you start up about stealing and vandalism and all that, let me just point out that swiping veggies out of garden you're not supposed to be in is technically not stealing if the swipe -ee (that’s you) knows what's going on. It just has to look like swiping. You don't want to appear to catch the little buggers at it either. That'd be downright shameful and cause them not to do it. You see, it's not about the vegetables, or about taking them when they don't belong to you. No, proper or successful garden raids aren't worth it for kids unless they can get in there with big pockets, get what they want and get out without anyone being the wiser. That's the mark of a good garden raid. It takes a lot of skill and self control from a bunch of noisy brats who can't usually shut up if their life depends on it. What makes it trickier is that it usually needs to be done after dark. Otherwise, somebody's bound to be watching and you can't just say you were digging for worms to go fishing in the morning when you're right there in the potato patch with your pockets full.

Any gardener worth his salt is going to take these things into account when planning his garden. That is to say, ten percent is for the birds and rabbits that raid his garden regularly, ten percent for the kids who raid it occasionally, and eighty percent is what he planned to keep all along. Then he puts up a scarecrow for the birds and rabbits, and a no trespassing sign for the kids. The gardeners you can trust and respect are the ones that tack on a note to their no trespassing sign that says 'And don't step on the plants Harold'.

You see where this is going yet? This is no criminal activity. This is a finely choreographed dance of life and best of all; everyone is in on it - a full cast of characters. From the kids’ point of view, the play follows, going something like this.

It's important to recognize that any garden raid of consequence must have a purpose, even if it's only to celebrate a successful raid. Some preparation is mandatory. Keep in mind that if your mom catches you with most of the things needed for the celebration, that's a dead giveaway, so any supplies acquired should be pocket sized. Fortunately, most of them are. For example; silver paper - a.k.a. aluminum foil can be folded up neatly enough so you can get an ample supply without anyone noticing the bulge in your pocket. This is a very important thing to have, as you'll see later. Of course there's always the chance that you'll be found out when raiding mom's supply. This is where resourcefulness comes in. If you don't want to risk pinching the foil from the pantry, you can always keep an eye out for every cigarette package dad throws out, or even any empty ones you find in the back alley. These are the best because you never know if you might find a few smokes in them. Look at it this way; you'll be doing the neighborhood a service by cleaning up the trash. Well, to get on with it, you simply take the foil liners out of the package and fold them up neatly, then like a Good Samaritan; you put the box nicely in somebody's garbage bin. You'll have to burn the paper off the liner before it's of any use, but I'm coming to that.

When it comes to matches, you have to be extra careful. I know the wooden ones burn better than the paper book matches, and they even come in little pocket-sized boxes which makes them tempting. But watch out! They're dangerous. If you happen to have them in your front pants pocket when you get hit with a baseball or slide into first base on your belly, those things will rub together and light. What you'll end up with is third degree burns very close to where you never want to get any kind of a burn. Go for the book matches every time. Trust me, any aggravation you might encounter trying to light those suckers is offset by the potential of anything from skin burns to the licking you'll get from setting your pants on fire.

Salt and pepper isn't too hard to squirrel away. All you need to do when nobody is looking is to shake some out onto a little bit of wax paper, then fold it up and stick it in your pocket. That's easy. Butter is a little harder to come by, so you’ll probably have to have everybody bring some. The important thing is to make sure it's in a glass container with a good lid on it. If you don't take care here, it could squeeze out in your pocket and cause a whole different kind of trouble.

Well all right then, the trickiest part of the operation is done now. From here on in its smooth sailing until you get to the actual garden raid. All you need now is some firewood and some newspaper. There's always a heap of wood around somewhere - you know, twigs, broken hockey sticks or the scrap wood from your dad's shed. Newspaper is everywhere. That's a no-brainer.

Oh yeah, you also need a railway trestle, preferably one that goes over a drainage ditch or a little creek. Well that's the ideal, but young people are known to be flexible when it comes right down to location. A big culvert or any other sheltered place will do, so long as it's outside. Outside is the main ingredient, because you don't want to go building a fire anywhere inside. Well of course you're going to build a fire! You saw that coming didn't you? Now don't let me get ahead of myself here. I was just going to mention that wherever your site is going to be, that's where you want to empty you're pockets, because now you're going to need every last pocket you can muster.

So finally you head for the gardens you’ve targeted. You’re suddenly transformed into a shadow - a ghost in the twilight. The hunt is on. First the peas go in your pocket. Radishes go on top of them in the same pocket, then some carrots in another pocket. Make sure to save enough room for potatoes. They take more room than the other veggies, being round and all. If you're wearing a jacket, which you should be, you ought to have just about enough room for a few cobs of corn. Save this for last because you can stand upright to pick it. That way the other stuff won't fall out of your bulging pockets. If you get a chance though, a few sticks of broccoli will come in handy. I'll tell you what for later. Somebody in the group must still have some empty pockets, so you swing by wherever there might be some crab apples. You'll need desert to round out the feast, you know.

All right then, everything’s ready. It's been a big project, but your blood is just pumping. What with all that cloak and dagger sneaking around its got you all fired up for the big celebration. So you head down to your hideout where all the supplies are stashed and take inventory of the food supply. It's handy to have some of those young peas in the shell to chew on, on the way down. Counting up what you’ve managed to cobble together is just a formality because you can't go back for more anyway. Hopefully there's enough matches and firewood because to tell the truth, I haven't seen anybody yet who claims to be able to make a fire that can actually do it. Oh, I almost forgot. Some rocks about the size of a baseball should be thrown into the fire once it gets going good. That helps to hold the heat.

Now is the time to wrap the potatoes in that silver paper and just throw them right into the fire. You have to burn off the liners from the cigarette foils you gathered up, don’t forget. That's kind of a fun project in itself because if you hold the whole thing down to the fire, the paper slowly curls and burns off without singing your fingers.

Potatoes take a while to cook so you can use the time to clean off the carrots and radishes with the tops. Carrots can also go into the fire in silver paper wrapping, by the way. The radishes are just for munching with some salt while you wait for the potatoes to roast. After about fifteen minutes or so, you can throw the corn in. It just goes in husk and all without any wrapping. When the husk turns all charred black and start to smoke, they’re ready. Make sure to get it out of the fire before it bursts into flame, because if it does, it's ruined.

By now you've got the idea that I've been talking about a corn and potato roast all along. What an exciting adventure this always is! The energy that goes into such a project is high end to say the least. There is a spirit of co-operation in getting everything together and making it work, and camaraderie in its execution.

Now all you worried moms, just sit back and think about this a minute. What just happened here? Everybody ate all the veggies. That's what happened! There were no complaints, no bellyaching, and no finicky fussing. Go figure. Oh sure, there was a little bit of dirt left on the carrots and radishes when you wiped them with the greens, and maybe somebody got a mouthful of charred potato peel, but what the heck, you've got to eat a peck of dirt before you die anyway; well that's how the old saying goes. That reminds me - when I was doing my research I came across a reference to Lithium as a treatment for 'Bipolar disorder' or manic depression. It turns out that Lithium is a 'salt found in the earth'. It turns out that there is a good dose of that medicine in every corn and potato roast you don't even need a prescription for. Bonus.

The other thing I want to mention before I forget is the purpose of broccoli in this diet. It's really not for eating, but for protection. You see, in spite of all the teamwork and all that, there's always somebody in the crowd given to a lot of tittering and giggling. It's just downright annoying to say the least. Well, broccoli is a sure cure for that. What you do is offer a piece to the titterer. Some people can be a bit standoffish about broccoli and you might have to dare them, or tell them it's an aphrodisiac - whatever it takes. It's eaten raw, by the way. After he or she has crunched down a good piece, make sure you accidentally drop another piece into a dish of water where everybody can see it. Then you just happen to notice the invisible little green broccoli worms float to the top. That usually cures the giggles. You have to be careful whom you do that to though. One time Shirley Wilson got so grossed out that she threw up right in the fire and we had to roast everything to just about overdone just to burn off the puke.

Now when you're done with this magnificent vegetarian feast, there are a couple of things you've got to take care of. First, you’ve got to burn up all the greens and leftovers to - you know - get rid of the evidence. Then you dowse the fire and camouflage it so nobody knows you've been there. Well, you know you're going to do it again next week and you don't want anyone taking your spot. The silver paper can be a bit of a problem, but you can always dump it in somebody's garbage bin; that, or hide it in a good spot for next time. Also, try to clean your own self off as good as possible. It's easy to get sloppy at these roasts and you don't want to leave too many tell tale signs. As long as you don't overdo it, you can come home smelling like smoke and nobody will say a word - as long as it's wood smoke. One whiff of cigarette smoke though, and you're dead meat. I don't know how moms can tell the difference so easy, but trust me; they all got a smeller on them that can find you out a mile away.

Well now all you worried moms out there, I don't know what all the fuss is about in getting kids to eat their vegetables. This little illustration here is ample proof that not only is it easy to do, but once it's started, it's hard to stop. That's because there's ritual involved, almost like a rite of passage. It puts a certain importance on such matters. Well hello - kids are important too, in case you hadn't noticed! They're the ones going to be pushing your wheelchairs around sooner or later and spoon feeding you in your dotage. Isn't it about time we showed them a little respect? Insurance, I call it. If we insist on deceiving them, isn't it much better to do it by letting them think they're putting one over on us in these kinds of adventures than to be extruding a bunch of stuff through disgusting orifices and telling them it's vegetables? Mind, you have to be sharp about it so they don't hurt themselves or get into too much mischief, but the whole business is kind of exciting even for the adults - lets them kind of relive their youth too, so to speak. And the end result is; the kids get good wholesome, garden grown vegetables in the bargain. Let's see those smarty-pants consultants top that one!

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Appendicitis and Original Sin

          Well, you might not think that this title makes any sense, since one thing hasn't got anything to do with the other. But you might be surprised at the chain of events that can lead from a small prairie town nobody knows anything about all the way to Ethiopia. Have a read and you'll find out differently.

Appendicitis and Original Sin

By Victor Epp

          If you thought the Williamsburg Address was a tall tale, you’re going to have real trouble believing this one - but I swear, this one could be true (well, mostly true as best as I can tell). I never imagined it as anything different. It’s about the time I learned about the Garden of Eden and the Original Sin. No, I didn’t learn about it in Sunday school or the bible. No Sir! I learned this lesson right there in the Hunter Hospital in downtown Teulon, Manitoba - back in ’38 when I was just about seven years old, and I’ve never forgotten it. That’s why I’m telling you about it now, before I get any older and start losing my marbles.
          You’d never think a sleepy little prairie town in the middle of nowhere would have such an earth-shaking revelation to make. Heck, they never even realized it themselves! No, they just muddled along like they did before and since, without so much as a how-do-you-do.
          The only time before 1942 I ever remember Teulon’s population being anything other than 412 was back in ’37 when it went up to 415. Before that it was always 412 - never more - never less. A baby could be born in the Hunter Hospital one day, and before it got home, somebody'd left town. (I could never figure out why that happened). But whatever the cause, the town population was always 412 - exactly. Mind you, the numbers only counted for the town proper. Folks and goings on the other side of number 7 highway had other ways and other concerns, but that’s another story.
          We didn’t live in Teulon either, so our presence had no effect on the town population, one way or the other. No, we lived north and east, by about ten miles - off highway 8. Some say we lived so far off any known highway that if the neighbors hadn’t got together to build up the old animal trail into a passable road, our house would have been about a mile off the end of the earth. Now for somebody living that far away from anything civilized, Teulon was a pretty impressive place. It had (as I said before) a hospital - the Hunter Hospital. Mind you, there wasn’t much left of old Doc. Hunter except the hospital. He’d long passed on by then, but his name was still on the building just the same. It’s still there by the way, right there on Main Street, if you’re ever passing through.
          Of course, Teulon had other things in it besides the hospital. There was a general store, blacksmith shop, farm implement dealer and harness shop all rolled into one. It even had a school, which was pretty good for a small prairie town.
          But to Teuloners, none of that seemed to matter a great deal. They were used to all this by now. In early ’38 though, there was an earth-shaking event that got the attention of all the townsfolk for years to come. Yep - early in ’38, right there on Main Street, right next to the bank, a wealthy Texas cattleman opened his office. The sign in the window said; ‘T. L. Biguous - Black Angus Breeder’. Now that was something to brag about - a real honest-to-God Texas cattleman with an office in downtown Teulon! There wasn’t a farmer or rancher anywhere in these parts that even so much as thought of having an office, let alone having it in town. Heck, the cows were in the pasture except at milking time so you didn’t need an office to keep track of that. If you were buying or selling livestock the only office you needed was right there in your billfold. Paying out good money for an office was just not smart', that’s all.
          Rumor had it that Texans are different from most other folks. Everything in Texas is bigger - and better - and costs more money. Well, there was the proof! Now it has to be said that the Biguous land was not in the town itself. Matter of fact, it was the four sections just west of our place. That’s right - FOUR sections - 2,560 acres. Shoot, any of the local folks owning a measly quarter section those days were considered to be big time farmers. The odd one had even two quarters, but nothing like four sections all together in one place!
          That was why the Teulon town folk put so much stock in T. L. Biguous and his missus and the kid. Nosiree, they weren’t going to let all that out of their bragging rights - not a Texas cattleman with four sections of land all in one place and an office in town to boot! He was theirs by gum, and so they counted the three Biguouses into their census: - four hundred thirteen, four hundred fourteen, and four hundred fifteen. That is to say - T. L., his wife Mary Lou, and five-year-old A. M. Sounds funny, I know - the names I mean. Seems Texans do that a lot with their boys and men folk. I don’t know whether they think it makes them sound important - or they just can’t be bothered to think up any real names. I never did find out either.
          Well, what brought me together with the Biguous family - at least with A. M., was appendicitis - funny how you remember things like that. I was no more than seven years old, but the cold November day they took me to the Hunter Hospital is burned in my memory - my first time in a real automobile car! I guess I must have been pretty sick to cause my father to go ask old John Judd to drive us there. Turned out later to be true because somewhere between home and the hospital my appendix burst. Actually, I guess it more like blew to smithereens because Doc Goodwin couldn’t find it - only puss and poison. The last thing I remember is the ether mask going over my face.
          Now, for a seven-year-old city kid this might be something you would take in stride - at least be able to understand. But for a seven-year-old hayseed who had just barely begun to master the English language: who had hardly ever been to town before let alone sick in the hospital, all this hubbub and turmoil was way beyond my grasp. On top of that, I’d never really been sick before so it was all the more confusing.
          At the time I wouldn’t have known how long it took for me to wake up. Even if I did, the gravity of the situation never sunk in, which is a good thing because as it was there were already enough oddities in this place to scare the wits right out of me. The first thing was the spider web of tubes going in and coming out of different parts of my body. Now that wasn’t natural, I knew that much! There was a big one going into my belly under the bandages that was very uncomfortable, so I tried to get rid of it but the nurse caught me and gave me a stern lecture about not touching anything. I didn’t like that much. I didn’t like it much either that every morning Doc Goodwin came in and told me that if I could tell him my name, he’d give me a penny. Even if he’d explained that he was trying to monitor my delirious state of affairs, I’d have been nonplussed. I just figured he was a dumb old guy who couldn’t even remember my name from one day to the next. The fact that I was collecting a little bundle of pennies didn’t even register in my mind.
          Another thing I didn’t much like was that my mother only came to visit once a week. The fact that she was busy milking cows, feeding chickens, collecting eggs, churning butter for sale, even being home for my dad and my sister was no concern of mine. She was at the hospital all too little for my liking. In fact, there was nothing much about this whole experience I had any use for.
          Well, no, that’s not entirely true either. The kid in the bed next to me was a real puzzle. To start with, he talked funny - hard for me to understand. The only annoying thing about him was he talked all the time. He wouldn’t ever shut up. But between trying to figure out what he was saying half the time, and trying to learn how anybody could talk that way, he was quite tolerable. In fact, he kind of grew on me after a bit.
          "Name’s A.M.," he said, "What’s yours?"
          "Huh?"
          "Ah sayed, mah name’s A.M. - Biguous - A.M. Biguous. What’s yours?"
          Well I might be a dumb kid from the sticks, but I knew when somebody was putting on the dog, so I said, "Victor Emanuel" (after the King of Italy), and as an afterthought, "Epp." Heck, if he could put on airs, so could I. There was of course no connection between me and the King of Italy except first names, but it was always a matter of amusement to my uncles to make me sound famous, especially with a silly name like Victor, so I just threw that in. Of course, A.M. didn’t know any more about the king of Italy than I did but then, that wasn’t the point. The point was to sound important.
          "You talk funny," we both said at the same time and started to laugh at the coincidence. Only I stopped right away because laughing made my stomach hurt. A.M. must have figured that out when he saw me holding it in agony because he never said anything about it.
          "That really your name?" he asked, screwing up his face.
          "Yep," I said, and as an afterthought, "but no Emanuel." I was starting to copy his accent.
          "How come you got no name?" I wanted to know.
          "Ah’ve got a name - ah told you. It’s A.M. Don’t you git it - A. M. Biguous! That’s it!"
          "That’s only the first letters of your first names," I insisted. "You must have the whole ones." It didn’t make any sense to me - no sense at all.
          A. M. was philosophical. "Well, that’s how we do it in Texas, leastwise for the men folk. Heck, ah don’t even know whut the A. M. stands for."
          Stubborn old me. "This is Teulon, not Texas," I said glumly.
          "Where you live boy?" was his next question. I told him.

          "Shoot!" Actually he said ‘shee-ute’. "We’s neighbors! Hey, that’ll be some fun when we git home. We kin visit ‘n play ‘n all."
          "I guess." Playing wasn’t uppermost in my mind at the moment. My stomach was hurting so bad I wanted to puke. That big tough nurse who always scared the pants off me must have seen my situation because she was right there with her white porcelain bowl. While she was at it she hauled out her big rectal thermometer and took my temperature. I didn’t dare grumble in case she might think of some other kind of torture to inflict on me. A. M. watched the whole procedure with interest, making a running commentary the whole time.
          "Ah guess you’re pretty sick compared to me," he said after I was all put back into place and the nurse had left. "Ah only got a busted leg. It don’t even hurt now that ah got a cast on it."
          Then it happened! Old Doc Goodwin came through the door and - right behind him was this giant. He was huge - I mean - huge! He was so big I was sure if he stood up straight, he could look right in the loft door of our barn, and that was fourteen feet off the ground according to my dad. And that wasn’t the scariest part. He was black - all over! I mean black! His face was black, his hands were black, his hair, even his eyes - except for the whites. Why I’d have bet anything he was even black underneath all his clothes! Whoa man, I’d never ever seen anything like that before! And he was coming straight at me, right behind Doc Goodwin!
          "What’s your name son?" asked Doc Goodwin, peering over his glasses.
          Oh no - not again! "Victor Epp."
          This time it wasn’t a penny he put on the table beside me. It was a nickel. Hmm.
          "This is Doctor Collins, come all the way from Chicago. I asked him to have a look at you so we can make you better sooner."

          'Oh Gawd!' My mouth was frozen open and I couldn’t get my eyes back in my head. A voice inside me was saying, ‘He’s the grim reaper and I’m going to die,’ but no words would pass my lips. Even A. M. shut up just when I needed a friend. Paralyzed with outright terror, my heart sank as Doc Goodwin marched calmly from the room, leaving me alone with ‘The Angel of Death’. I think I wet myself as he sat down on the edge of the bed. He was even bigger and blacker than when he was standing. His huge hand came down softly on my forehead. When I realized I was still alive, I finally found my voice.
          "H - h - how come you’re all black?" I stammered.
          "Am I really black?" He acted surprised. His voice was like a soft, deep roll of thunder. I nodded numbly.
          "That’s a relief," he answered. "I was afraid I’d been caught."
          "Huh?"
          "You sure I’m still black?" he almost whispered leaning his big face over mine. I lost my voice again and could only nod.
          His broad grin and sparkling white teeth restored my confidence somewhat and of course, my curiosity. What did he mean- was he still black? I was totally confused. "You mean you’re not always black?" I wanted to know.
          "Nobody’s ever seen me not be black." Doctor Collins told me sternly. I glanced over to A. M.’s bed to see that he was as wide-eyed as I was.
          A thought struck me. "Are you black all over?" I wanted to know.
          "I’m not sure," was the answer.
          Now I was even more befuddled. "I can’t see under my clothes any more than you can. I only know I can’t be caught or I’ll turn the same color as you."
          Whoa! He could change color? "How do you do that?"
          "What?"
          "Change color."
          "You’re too young to understand about such things," he said mysteriously.
          "Please tell me," I begged. "Oh c'mon, please, please, please."
          "Yeah, c’mon mister, tell us!" A. M. had finally found his voice.
          "Well, I shouldn’t really but, oh well alright.”
          “ Let's start with what you know,” he said, addressing both of us. "What do you boys know about how God created heaven and earth, and Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden."
          Well that was one thing I knew about. Every Saturday afternoon after chores we would have to sit down at the big kitchen table and do our German lessons from a book that mother had brought with her from the old country. Then we'd have to study a passage or two from the bible so she could hold her own little private ‘Sunday school’ at home on Sunday morning. With everyone spread out so far from each other in the country, it wasn’t often that neighbors got together for Sunday service. The only time that happened was when a preacher from Winnipeg would show up maybe once every three months or so. They usually showed up more often at harvest time or pig killing time, and never left empty handed. Well the point is, one way or another you learned those things. There wasn’t much else to do - no radio other than crystal sets. Heck, there wasn’t even any electricity on the farm. So I knew about those things, and said so. Even A. M. knew about them, which kind of pleased me because now we had something else in common.
          "Then you know how God created Adam from dust and blew into his nostrils and gave him life." Both of us nodded enthusiastically.
          "What you didn’t know," Dr. Collins looked about as serious as he could get, "was that he made two Adams."
          He looked at both of us, back and forth for effect, waiting for one of us to comment.
          Now this was starting to get way out of hand, even for us boys. A. M. finally found his tongue.
          "Thet ain’t right," he offered. "You mean first he made Adam and then he made Eve. Thet’s whut the Bible says."
          Dr. Collins furrowed his brow. He seemed to frown more over one eye, looking at each one of us in turn. "Do either of you boys know where the Garden of Eden is?" he questioned. Both us shook our heads.
          "Egyptland?" A. M. ventured questioningly.
          "Ethiopia," Dr. Collins announced, giving us the once over again with that eye of his. "In the heart of darkest Africa." His booming voice was the stamp of authority.
          "But," stammered A. M., "Thet’s where N - N - black people come from."
          By this time I had forgotten all about my appendix, the bandages, the tubes, and the fact that my mom wasn’t there. Maybe this towering grim reaper was just plain scaring me, or maybe I was finally going to hear something I wasn’t supposed to. That was probably it. Seven-year-old boys are attracted to things they’re not supposed to hear. Excited - that’s what I was.
          "That’s where black people come from and that’s where they live to this very day,” said Dr. Collins, "and now they live all over Africa. In fact, they live all over the world."
          "Well then,' A. M. wanted to know, “where do white people come from?"
          "From black people," Dr. Collins replied crisply. You could see a shudder go through A. M. as though he’d been dowsed with a pail of cold water.
          "Thet cain’t be!" he exclaimed defiantly. "Thet jest cain’t be!"
          With that he turned his attention to me, pulling my eyelids apart and peering into them, prodding at my throat and other parts of my body, totally ignoring A. M.’s complaints. He took a spatula that felt more like a grain scoop and stuck it in my mouth. To this day I gag when I think about it. There was a series of ‘Hmms’ and ‘Aaahs’ and then a booming ‘Aha!’ With that, Dr. Collins pulled out a notepad and began scribbling things.           When he had done, he leaned his giant frowning face over mine and asked, "And what do you think young man?"
          "I don’t know!" I blurted out.
          What was I supposed to say? First of all I was still gagging from the spatula, and now my throat hurt too, and as if that wasn’t enough, I didn’t even know what the question was!
          "Then I think I’m going to tell you the whole story, and then you’ll know." He glanced sideways at A. M. before continuing. "You do know that God created Adam from dust, right?"
          I nodded. "And what color is dust?"
          That I could answer. "Black," I said.
          From the next bed A. M. piped up. "Then how’d we git to be white, I’d like to know." He was sure pushy with this big black giant.
          "I’m coming to that. Now you boys see how complicated the human body is - being sick as you are. Well, it takes a lot of skill to make a human being that complicated you know. It takes practice, even for God." Dr. Collins emphasized the point by looking at each one of us before he continued.
"The first Adam he made, he wasn’t altogether satisfied with - hair was too curly. When he blew life into his nostrils and watched him move he just knew he had to make another one, so he did.
          "Then he made Eve from Adam’s rib and, you know the story about what happened to them when they committed the original sin. Well maybe you don’t know the whole story. People have never liked to talk about it. That’s why it isn’t written down in the bible, but truth be told, when Adam and Eve were put out of the garden of Eden and made to work and toil in order to survive, he suddenly remembered the first Adam he had made.
          “Now he had a real problem with an extra Adam on his hands, so God thought and thought what he might do. Finally he came up with the idea that he would whitewash the second Adam and Eve so as not to mix them up."
          At this point Dr. Collins stopped talking. He looked at each one of us in turn with such finality that we were sure that the story was done. Suddenly A. M. piped up.
          "Whut happened to the black Adam?" he wanted to know. He would have to ask!
          "God couldn’t leave the black Adam by himself forever so he needed to make another Eve for him," Dr. Collins continued. "But he wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. After all, it was the first Eve who took the apple from the snake and gave it to Adam and got them both into an eternity of trouble. No sir! He would have none of that! Instead, he made another Eve right from scratch same as he had made Adam - out of dust."
          "Thet jest cain’t be," lamented A. M., "else it would be in the bible!"
          "Of course it’s not in the bible", frowned Dr. Collins. "Weren’t you paying attention young man? I said, people didn’t like to talk about such things - ever."
          All of this was way over my head. I had never heard anything like that before - not from my mother, not from my aunties, not from the preacher from Winnipeg, - nobody. But the importance all these adults seemed to place on such matters made me want to pay attention.
          “What happened to the black Adam," I wanted to know.
          "Oh, not much for a while," was Dr. Collins remark. His big face saddened a bit. "With the white Adam and Eve kicked out of the Garden of Eden, somebody had to look after things so God gave that job to the black ones. They did very well too, but wouldn’t you know it that the white Adam and Eve would still be getting into trouble. It got so bad when their son Cain slew his brother Abel - you boys know about that part don’t you?" Dr. Collins cocked his head at each of us until we nodded.
          "Well, God just plain got fed up with the white folks sinning and sinning - seems they just couldn’t be trusted on their own. So God, seeing what good caretakers the black folks were, made them a deal. He said that as long as they took care of the white sinners and didn’t mess with the likes of the first Eve, no one would ever see them to be any color other than black. He would cause them to have many children and multiply all over Africa, because looking after all the white sinners on top of their gardening duties would take a lot of manpower. If they did it well, they would always be welcome in the Garden of Eden and have God’s love."
          He was just about to tell us what might happen if black folks started sinnin' like white folks when Doc Goodwin came back into the room and to my bed. He was almost as tall standing up as Dr. Collins was sitting down. The worried look on his face was lost on us, but obviously not on Dr. Collins.
          "I was just telling the boys here about how black people are chosen to take care of you white sinners," he said and broke into a broad grin.
          Suspiciously, Doc Goodwin offered, "I hope that means you’ve found something I missed."
Dr. Collins pulled out his notebook and handed it to Doc Goodwin who glanced over it quickly and as his expression changed, he smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand, spun on his heel and marched back out.
          "You see boys, we even have to look after the best of them." He heaved his giant body upwards and followed Doc Goodwin.
          Well, all this looking after wasn’t just glitz and glamour as it turned out. It involved going under that sickening ether mask again and having my tonsils and adenoids cut out. That just gave me another place to hurt at, and now I could even hardly talk! Promises of vanilla flavored ice cream would have been a treat had I known what ice cream was. I found out later it was cold and made the sore throat go away. In a few days that seemed like an eternity, I started to feel considerably better and said so to Doc Goodwin, asking for more ice cream.
          In a rare moment of true conversation Doc Goodwin told me that it was his friend Dr. Collins who had come up to Canada on a hunting expedition who had probably saved my life with his eagle eye and that I should be thankful to him for that. Now if you say something like that to an adult, he can appreciate the enormity of such a gift, but to a seven-year-old who only understands chickens and pigs and gophers, such a statement borders on magic. Even A. M. thought so.
          Now everybody knows that young boys all have heroes. It could be Robin Hood, could be Charlemagne, even David who slew Goliath in the bible, but not for us two. Our real live hero who had saved my life was none other than the flesh and blood Doctor Collins. We wanted to be just like him.
          In the several years that followed, A. M. and I thought up every possible trick our little minds could conjure up to make ourselves be black. From mud in the garden to chimney soot to casting magic spells, nothing worked permanently. All it accomplished was to get us more lectures from our mothers even though we told them the reason it was so important. We sure didn’t want to be white sinners if we could help it. Once we even stood out in the mid day sun on the road leading to Teulon and grunted and strained and groaned until we turned from red to purple to being light-headed and dizzy. That caused a change in color all right, but it had more to do with our underwear than skin tone, and it made us bigger sinners than ever, so we gave it up.
          By the beginning of 1942, what with the Americans being drawn into a war with Japan, the Biguouses pulled up stakes in Teulon and headed back to Texas. The town of Teulon went quietly back to its population of 412, and the memory of my friend A. M. more or less faded into the background. Every once in a while though, he would pop into my head and I wondered whatever became of him. He was such a determined person, given to latch on to something and hang on like a bulldog. I shouldn’t have been surprised when, after nearly sixty years, a registered letter came to my door with a postmark from Ethiopia, but I was. You could have knocked me over with a feather. It was from Dr. A. M. Biguous, (Ph d. Arch. and a whole lot of other letters behind his name.) How he tracked me down after all that time I’ll never know, but he did.
          It seems that day in ’38 in the Teulon hospital, Dr. Collins had sealed old A. M.’s fate and given him his calling. He had ended up in Ethiopia to find the Garden of Eden and to try and capture somebody there not being black and by God if he could help it, stop being one of those white sinners himself. He hadn’t succeeded yet, but was on to some good leads. He wanted to know how I was doing and had I found out anything? They way he put it you’d think we were still neighbors.
          Well, I wrote him back and told him how good it was to hear from him and no, I hadn’t found out anything, but then I wasn’t much trying. I was much more interested in remembering old friends. By the way, I said, you write funny - no Texas accent.

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