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Chris Allison

The Field Trip

I went to Hill Field Elementary School during my childhood.  Each grade from kindergarten through 6^th grade had three classes.  While I really had no complaints about the teachers that I had during those formative years, I always seemed to be assigned to the one teacher each year that did not take their students on a field trip.  My siblings all went on at least one field trip each year at the same school.  I even pleaded for my Mom to write a note allowing me to skip my class for a day so I could go on a field trip with a different teacher.  My Mom would reassure me that sooner or later I would get to go on a field trip with my own class.  Part of wanting to go on a field trip stemmed from my desire to ride in a school bus.  I had never ridden in one of those iconic big yellow buses, and I felt deprived.  Of course, the other reason was to skip a day of school and have some fun!

Years came and went, and I was assigned to Mr. Mellor’s 6^th grade class.  Still no field trip.  I must admit here that in Mrs. Adam’s fourth grade class we did have a “walking field trip,” but it didn’t really count.  We walked for no more than a quarter mile from the school house to a rundown farm with animals.  Okay, really it was about two acres with a few goats, one horse and some chickens.  There was no bus ride, and the whole things was as exciting as watching a tree stump.  It didn’t count.

With about two months left of my entire grade school experience, Mr. Mellor announced that we were going to have a field trip during the last month of school!  We would be going to the zoo!  Mere words cannot express the euphoria that overcame me.  I even raised my hand and asked if we would be riding in a bus to get there.  The zoo was over 30 miles away.  Mr. Mellor was taken back by my question, but refrained himself from pointing out the high degree of stupidity contained in my question.  He simply answered, “Yes.”  Life was complete… or about to be.  Most of my classmates had been on multiple field trips, and I am sure I was way too excited for this event.  Permission slips were sent home for parents to sign.  A list of things to bring was provided, which included a sack lunch.

The night before the field trip was almost as magical as was Christmas Eve.  Within hours I would be riding the bus, going to the zoo on my very first field trip.  It was almost too good to be true.  I was even healthy – no sickness or broken limbs that would somehow intervene to ruin this momentous occasion.  The next morning after the pledge of allegiance and school announcements, Mr. Mellor looked troubled.  Something was wrong.  I could sense it.  NOOO!  With fear and anger mounting I raised my hand and asked, “Mr. Mellor, we’re still going on the field trip, aren’t we?”  His answer was a quick, “Yes,” followed by a deliberate false and poorly presented caveat, “…but we have had to make an adjustment.  There are not enough funds to allow us to take the bus all the way to the zoo and pay for entrance fees.  So instead of going to the zoo, we will be going to the sewage treatment plant here in town.”  STUNNED SILENCE!  The what?!?!  We are going on a field trip to the sewage treatment plant?  What?!  “The principal insisted that if we still wanted to go on a field trip, it had to be close by and educational,” Mr. Mellor went on to explain.

I wanted to hurt someone.  Okay, not just someone; first Mr. Mellor, and then the principal.  Really?  Of all the places that could be “educational” in a city, that’s the best Mr. Mellor could do?  Even when we started driving away from the school on the bus, I thought, “He must be messing with us.  I’ll bet we’re still going to the zoo.”  Nope.  Ten minutes after we left the school we were at the sewage treatment facility… with our sack lunches.  Picture 30 students in stunned bewilderment, each holding a sack lunch in their hands looking at a series of 100 foot wide open sedimentation tanks.  Wow!  Now that’s educational!

The facility director began enthusiastically explaining how the sewage from our houses gets to the plant and that by the time it has been processed, the resultant water is drinkable.  Right!  You drink it and I’ll believe it.  About this time, Jerry – the class clown with no sense – while holding on to the railing, flipped his skinny body to the inside of one of the smelly sedimentation tanks that was swirling with raw sewage just a foot below his feet.  Why would he do that?  Who knows, but finally there was something cool happening!  If only he could fall in now!  He didn’t.  He just got yelled at by both Mr. Mellor and the facility director.

On a previous occasion earlier in the school year, Jerry, who was always willing to risk his life for a laugh, pulled the following stunt.  Mr. Mellor was at his usual position – sitting at his desk at the front of the class while we worked on our assignments.  A teacher came to the door and asked to speak with Mr. Mellor for a moment out in the hall.  Upon exiting the classroom, Jerry sprang from this seat and ran to the front of the room where he positioned himself beneath Mr. Mellor’s desk, in the space where the chair goes.  I remember thinking, “This is gonna be awesome!”  In a moment, Mr. Mellor was back.  He quietly walked over to his desk, pulled out the chair and slid forward.  At this very moment, Jerry screamed at the top of his lungs to scare Mr. Mellor.  It worked.  Mr. Mellor likewise yelled and went flying backwards falling off his chair.  Jerry stood up smiling basking in this apparent victory… for about one second.  That’s when Mr. Mellor got his hands on him.  He picked him up and quickly carried him out of the room with fistfuls of shirt in both hands.  We heard Jerry’s body hit the wall and another scream.

Well, the sack lunch at the sewage treatment plant wasn’t very appetizing with the smell and presence of raw sewage all around us.  We sat and ate it on the lawn that was routinely watered by treated sewage water.  I moved on to junior high, braces and glasses.  I never saw Jerry after elementary school.  Mr. Mellor retired early from teaching that year.  He went on to work for Coca Cola delivering drinks to businesses in the area.  I never went on another field trip, and I’ve never been back to the sewage treatment facility.  Maybe it was educational though.  I still remember it well… and even with some fondness.  Fondness maybe too strong.  I’ll bet in the annals of elementary school field trips, this may have been the worst.  That’s why it stands out.  But hey, I got my bus ride!

Buck Baker

Twelve and thirteen year old boys are and goofiest creatures on planet earth.  I should know.  I was one.  From birth to age five, boys are cute and wonderful.  By age twelve, they have devolved into adolescent freaks of nature.  Me?  I was buck-toothed and wore thick-rimmed glasses on my hulking seventy pound frame.  My metal-braced teeth entered rooms inches before the rest of my face.  Awkward doesn’t begin to describe me at that age.  The only hope for a twelve year old is that time will propel him on to manhood. 

At age twelve I belonged to a scout troop in Utah that was connected to our ecclesiastical unit, or ward.  A man on military assignment moved into our ward.  I’ll call him Buck Baker.  I’ve changed his name to protect the guilty.  He was appointed to a leadership position in our clergy.  In his civilian occupation he was a full-bird colonel in the Army and commanded considerable respect among his colleagues.  As scouts we didn’t much consider his rank or profession.  He was quite funny and he made an instant impression on us.  For reasons I do not recall, and to my embarrassment now, we nicknamed him “Twinkie.”  He was in good shape, all man, and had a commanding presence.  Nothing about the word Twinkie seemed to fit, but that’s what we called him in our immaturity.  Did I mention that we were twelve and thirteen years old?

After being in our ward for just a few months, Buck asked us if we liked to hike and camp.  We lived for it!  Olie Sharpe and Jim Fingerloss (their real names) were our scout leaders and they spent a lot of time with us in the mountains.  Having cleared his plans with our scout leaders, Buck offered us a deal that we couldn’t refuse.  He would take us into the mountains for 4-5 days.  He would cook for us and feed us like kings if we would haul his gear to the campsite.  This was before the days of two-deep leadership in scouting, and Buck would be the only adult.

Not wise enough to ask meaningful questions – we were slightly less intelligent than tree stumps – the offer was eagerly accepted.  The worst part about hiking and camping at twelve years of age is eating your own food.  In fact, every pancake I ever cooked as a scout was black on the outside and raw in the middle.  We would usually just end up drinking syrup.  But this time Buck would cook for us!  How could we miss with this offer?  Of course, what Buck was really doing was preparing a tutorial that none of us scouts would forget.

There is nothing quite as exhilarating as hiking in the pine and aspen studded Wasatch or Uinta Mountains in Utah… unless you made a deal to haul Buck’s gear.  His “gear” consisted of a pickup truck bed filled with items!  He had a stove, a tent, a table, a camp cot and mattress, pots and pans, a chair, coolers, water and of course, our food.  Although the campsite was only a couple of miles from where we parked, it was a steep hike up, and the six of us scouts made the round trip three times.  Most of that first day was spent hauling Buck’s stuff to camp, and Buck camped in style.  Buck himself only hiked the first leg to the campsite; no round-trips.  Besides a backpack, about the only thing he carried on his assent was a .40 caliber pistol strapped to his hip and a shotgun over his shoulder.  As we were about to begin our last round trip to the truck and back, Buck told us he would have a full meal ready for us upon our return.  We knew we would be more than ready for some good chow.

Within minutes of arriving back at camp in complete exhaustion with our final load, Buck announced that his favorite cooking knife was missing.  What’s more, he had already seen it and knew that it had made it to camp.  “Who stole my knife?” he calmly but firmly asked.  None of us answered from our resting positions on the ground.  “Get up,” he said, “and look for my knife.  Someone is a thief.”  All of us slowly arose.  All of us that is, except Doug.

As boys, we were a tight-knit group and we all knew that no boy in our group had stolen the knife, but we would go through the motions of searching for his knife.  Doug just sat there exhausted.  At this point Buck drew his .40 caliber pistol from its holster, looked at Doug who was still sitting on the ground with his metal mess kit positioned between his legs ready for food.  He once again told him to get up and look for his knife.  All of us stared in wide-eyed disbelief at the scene unfolding before us.  Doug called his bluff and didn’t budge.   He told Buck that he hadn’t seen his knife.  Furthermore, he reminded Buck that he had made three roundtrips to haul Buck’s gear to camp and that he wasn’t budging until Buck came up with the promised food.  BOOM!  Buck put a bullet dead-center through Doug’s mess kit… right between Doug’s legs!

Doug had new life!  We all had new life!  Holstering his weapon, Buck sauntered back to the confines of his tent as we were running around pretending to look for a knife we knew we wouldn’t find.  We got off a few whispered words to each other; words like “Help!” or “We’re gonna die!” or “Got to get off the mountain!”  Seconds later Buck calmly emerged from his tent with his knife.  “Sorry boys,” he said matter-of-factly, “The knife was in my tent.  Food will be ready in ten minutes.”  The stew was delicious and most of us ate out of our mess kits.

Buck established some camp rules that evening.  No one argued... or called him Twinkie. There was a designated trash bag.  No trash was to be seen anywhere in camp except for in the trash bag.  At one point during the week I threw a pop can towards the general vicinity of the trash bag.  Buck’s hand went quickly and deliberately towards his holster.  I jumped up and ran to correct my error.  Just before reaching the pop can, the .40 caliber cannon thundered again from behind me and the pop can sprang into the air.  I dove to the side and looked back in fear at Buck who was casually holstering the weapon of terror.

The camp was positioned by a pristine lake with steep slopes.  Snowpack still clung to the northern slope and swept down to the water’s edge.  At one point during the campout, we dared each other to slide down the 100 yard snow run into the frigid lake.  With tennis shoes and swimsuits each scout took a turn sliding at breakneck speed into the lake.  The sudden impact into the icy water would have killed anyone with a weak heart.  We would laugh our heads off as each scout came to the surface of the water gasping, and in shock due to rapid onset hypothermia.  One try was all that our scrawny bodies could endure.  Once out of the ice water we ran back to our pup-tents.  Modesty was not a priority and the tents did not offer much space to change clothes.  Shivering, and in all of our masculine glory we began to change out of our swimsuits in the open.

I was already putting on dry clothes when I saw Buck smile, un-holster his revolver, and look at Leland who was standing stark naked outside of his tent in the process of changing clothes.  Leland’s eyes met Buck’s.  Pointing the gun towards Leland, Buck only said one word with calmness and a wry grin, “Run.”  Terror struck, Leland dropped his clothes and began running into the woods as Buck fired several shots intentionally off to each side of Leland.  We lost sight of him through the trees.  The rest of us scouts laughed until tears were running down our cheeks.  Leland came back about fifteen minutes later snaking his way through the forest and finished changing.

By the time the week was coming to a close we had found new respect for Buck.  In fact, we hated to see the camping trip come to an end.  I don’t think he ever lost his knife on that first day.  We never called him Twinkie again.  He was a great cook and he told us that he would take us camping again and feed us… if we didn’t tell our parents about some of the incidents with the guns.  I don’t think any of us said a word to our parents about the mess kit, the pop can or about Leland’s romp through the forest.  Buck wasn’t crazy… well, not certifiably so.  Although, anyone who volunteers to give up vacation time to spend with twelve and thirteen year old scouts has to be a little crazy.  He was a molder and shaper of characters.  Most days and weeks of my life have slipped from memory.  Thanks to Buck, that week will never leave me.

Save Hostess / Save the World!

We live in troubling times.  Yes, these are times of violence, wars, economic crisis and TV shows like Wife Swap.  Perhaps even more concerning than all of the aforementioned problems is the current financial woes of Hostess Brands Inc.  On January 11, 2012, Hostess filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to confront burdensome debt and labor costs that the Twinkies and Wonder Bread baker says have left it fighting to compete.

HOW COULD THIS BE?!?!  The Hostess web site (http://www.hostesscakes.com/) indicates that approximately 500,000,000 Twinkies are produced each year.  In addition to Twinkies, Hostess has come up with more home runs in the form of Ding Dongs, Cup Cakes, Ho Hos, and other tasty morsels made from magical ingredients that preserve the snack cakes in pristine condition for years.  I believe Twinkies have a half-life longer than Plutonium 239.  For the record, I want the world to know that I am not personally to blame for the financial woes of this company!  I have done my share to keep this company afloat.  Yearly, I make it a goal to consume three or four Hostess Snack Cakes… per day, and I have been known to overachieve.  How can any company that makes and sells 500,000,000 of anything be in financial trouble?  This is a catastrophe on the scale of… hmmm, words fail me here… let’s see… SOMETHING REALLY BAD!

So, I am making a plea.  This year when you are filling – and I think Hostess invented the word filling – out your tax forms, forget about donating a dollar to your political party.  Forget about donating a dollar to reduce the national deficit.  I am asking you to select “other” and write-in “Hostess.”  And give till it hurts, brother!  If all of us donate $50 to help Hostess out, there will be Cherry Fruit Pies and SnoBalls for all of us for years to come!  If every adult in America donated $50, that would be hundreds of dollars! Has there ever been a more noble cause?  And don’t try to convince me that Sara McLaughlin’s sad commercials about animals would be a better cause.  This is about saving Hostess and saving the world!  If I could put sad music with this blog, it would beat Sara’s commercial hands down!

Without Hostess Snack Cakes around, what will convenience stores and gas stations sell?  Think about it!  And if you are still not on board with my “Save Hostess / Save the World” campaign, what I am about to tell you should clinch the deal.  The New York Times ran a story about deep frying Twinkies.  I quote from the article "Something magical occurs when the pastry hits the hot oil. The creamy white vegetable shortening filling liquefies, impregnating the sponge cake with its luscious vanilla flavor... The cake itself softens and warms, nearly melting, contrasting with the crisp, deep-fried crust in a buttery and suave way. The pièce de résistance, however, is a ruby-hued berry sauce, adding a tart sophistication to all that airy sugary goodness" ("Fry That Twinkie, But Hold the Chips". The New York Times. 2002-05-15. Retrieved 2012-02-08).  Sounds good, but wouldn’t that make the Twinkie unhealthy?

 

Hostess Fruit Pies are muy delicioso (that’s Spanish for “cost effective and nutritious).  A Hostess Apple Fruit Pie only has 470 calories and is 31% fat, of which only 50% is saturated fat.  Want to know how to make that even better?  Wrap it in Bacon, my friend!

Think I am getting a little ridiculous?  Perhaps it is you that has been a little short sighted.  On the aforementioned Hostess web site, there are recipes for each of the snack cakes.  There are twenty-two recipes for Twinkies.  Yup!  Why just eat your Twinkie when you could have “Chocolate Twinkie Smores”?  Or “Pumpkin Twinkie Dessert”?

It is time for you to step up to the plate and help save the Hostess Snack Cakes for generations to come.  I can’t do this all by myself!  Do you care about this world or not?  Put your money where your mouth is.  No, better yet donate your tax refund to Hostess and put a deep fried Twinkie where your mouth is!

I Am Man. I Go Caving.

This summer, on the Fourth of July weekend I went spelunking.  That’s cave exploring for the uninitiated.  This was no ordinary cave we decided to tackle.  My brother and his friend came up from Texas to Idaho so they could join in the adventure.  Six more of my closest friends also came along and I want to give them due credit in this blog.  Their names are Joseph, David and some other guys I can’t recall.  We spent weeks preparing for this expedition.  By “weeks” I mean we thought about how cool this was going to be for weeks, and then we bought some food the morning of the expedition.

Actually, we did have to secure a permit, gather rappelling gear and pack critical supplies like toilet paper.  The plan was to drive to the trailhead just inside the Wyoming border, hike to the cave entrance, enter the cave, work our way to a distant exit some 5-7 hours later, hike down the mountain and drive home.  There are five technical rappels within the cave – two of them next to thundering waterfalls and one 70 foot rappel down pure ice into a black maw.  There are very tight passageways to negotiate.  Passageways with nicknames like Birth canal, Chimney and Cork-screw.  There were bone-numbing frigid waters to ford and rock crevasses to navigate with one’s feet wedged on two-inch ledges on either side of the crevasse while straddling forty foot drops.  So, five minutes into the drive to the cave we got scared and decided to go to the mall instead.  We did some shopping and got pedicures.  It was a lovely day and we really bonded.

No, no, we are rugged men and nothing could deter us from our mission.  The hike up the mountain took longer than expected due to significant amounts of snow still lingering in the alpine valley at the base of the Tetons.  The final quarter mile to the entrance of the cave is a forty-five degree incline, and was completely covered in packed snow.  One slip would have meant certain death, or at least wet Levis as we sped down the hill to the valley below… with trees at the base that looked pretty solid.

The caving system that lay before us contains a labyrinth of passageways, and it was only in recent history that a route was found that led from our entrance to our intended exit further down the mountain.  Only two of us on this expedition had been in the cave on a previous occasion… a year earlier.  There is nothing like the memories of two men trying to recreate every right or left turn in dim light for miles in an underground maze from the year before.  And because we would not be exiting where we entered, we rigged our ropes to pull with us after each rappel.  That meant that after the first rappel down a 70 foot ice overhang into a black maw, there was no going back; now way to go back.  This plan had success written all over it!  What could possibly go wrong?

Well, obviously I lived… I am writing this blog.  However, I am still in the cave and bats carry my blog entries to the outside world.

Our five to seven hour journey inside the cave ended up taking about eleven hours due to some wrong turns.  My right big toe still lacks some feeling as a result of frostbite – we spent a lot of time with our feet in near freezing water.  And for some reason my running shoes did not adequately protect my feet.  I may sue!  When one pays $40.00 for a pair of running shoes at the mall, one expects the shoes to feel comfortable while running and adequately insulate the feet from cold when breaking through ice and fording thigh-deep streams for hours in the recesses of the earth.  IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?!?!?

Aside from the frostbite, getting lost several times and breaking a rib and my sacrum (a triangular bone at the base of the spine), it went quite well.  There’s nothing like breaking two bones at separate times in one day!  Ever better, is having to breathe, squeeze through tight passages, climb rocks and use one’s body for hours in said condition.  But hey, it was worth it.  I’m a guy, and in order to justify the pain of the day, subsequent medical bills, and the pain that would follow for weeks, I would need to tell everyone how cool the adventure was.  And lest you think that I am just a klutz, or got hurt because I am older; one of the oldest on the trip… O.K. the oldest on the trip, a full 11.11% of the nine people in our group broke one or more bones that day.  So get off my back!  No really, get off my back.  It is still mending.

As for the broken sacrum, I am a part-time EMT and I have NEVER seen contusions (bruising) like I saw on my back side in the days that followed my mishap.  It looked as though a black man donated his backside for a transplant on my pasty-white body.  Much internal bleeding.  And the worse part was not being able to show anyone, at least without being arrested for indecent exposure.  A cool injury with no one to show.  That’s like having kidney stones!

As a side note here, those who have broken a rib can testify that sleeping for the first two weeks must be done sitting up.  It is too painful to lie horizontally, in any position, on a ribcage with a snapped rib.  However, a broken sacrum prevents one from sitting in any position.  In such a case as this, sleeping must be done standing up, which only works until you actually fall asleep.  At which point you fall and break something.  Really, the best thing to do if you break both a rib and a sacrum on the same day is to be shot!  Put out of your considerable misery!  Just like a horse with a broken leg is put down.

I’m forty-eight years old.  I know, I know, that is still really young.  And for those who know me well, they wouldn’t think I was a day over sixty-two.  I am still young enough for many a death-defying adventure.  However, next Fourth of July, my brother will be flying up and we will do some awesome knitting while watching a romantic comedy.  We will knit doilies and then we will go get pedicures at the mall.  By then, maybe there will be some more feeling in my right big toe and it won’t look so purple.

Blogging About My Blog

I get a lot of fan mail and comments that stem from my blog entries – upwards of once a week!  Most of the comments are quite positive, but I am not the only contributor.  Sometimes others write comments and emails to me.  Those are often correcting, scolding or berating in nature.  I’ve asked my family members not to do that anymore.  Just kidding, they rarely read my entries.

One recent reader asked how I get the “inspiration” or ideas for my blog entries.  I just write what the voices in my head tell me to write.  These voices are often quite irrational and annoying.  I may start charging them rent.

I would now like to respond to the more pertinent questions I receive along with other questions that you should be asking:

Q:           Are you always so funny in real life?

A:            Yes.

Q:           You once wrote an entire blog about jelly beans.  It was one of my favorite blogs.  I actually have a jelly bean collection.  Do you?  How does one decide to write about jelly beans?

A:            I could never collect jelly beans.  They are edible candies and I would not have the willpower to collect them anywhere but in my stomach.  As for why I would write about them, I feel that the jelly bean has been tread upon long enough!  It does not get the respect it deserves!  Someone must stand up for this underprivileged candy.  After all, they may have hard exteriors, but they are soft and vulnerable on the inside, and I saw no one else taking up the cause.

Q:           You have written a couple of times about the differences between men and women.  Those blogs have been my favorite ones.  While they are funny, you also highlight some real differences between the sexes.  Do you have professional training in psychology or marriage counseling?

A:            No, I have credentials that supersede the schooling, degrees and licensure of both psychologists and marriage counselors.  I am a man.  And as such I am qualified to speak on matters of… anything.  The credential of manhood makes me qualified to speak on all things and gives me keen intuition on matters of love and the sexes.  Then for a second witness, and for confidence I ask my wife if I am correct.  Usually I am not, but I publish the blog anyway.

Q:           I have been reading your blog since its inception at the end of 2010.  When I first found your blog there were less than 100 hits.  Now there are thousands of hits.  Is there anyway to track your audience?  Who is reading your blog and how do people find out about your blog?

A:            I actually can track the audience by country.  Last week there were eleven hits from Iran.  Really!  There were a few hits from Turkey, Russia, three hits from the United Kingdom, and some hits from a place called Canada.  I think there are only two ways to find my blog: through referral sites (someone who links my blog to their blog or website), or by word of mouth.  My biggest fear is that this powerful blog will fall into enemy hands and be used against America, jelly beans or even myself.  Who knows if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran is one of the eleven readers from Iran?  There may be, as we speak, a counter blog being covertly formed by the Taliban!  Don’t be so naïve as to suppose it couldn’t happen!

Q:           Have you ever gone wild boar hunting?  Writing about that could be funny!  Look at my picture!

A:            Let me guess… Ohio?

Q:           I am a faithful reader.  However, you once made fun of cats.  I like cats and we own four of them.

A:            That’s about four cats too many!  And by the way, I did not make fun of cats.  I would never do that.  I made fun of people who own cats.  I also made fun of people who put clothing on their dogs, like doggy sweaters.  That’s just wrong and should be punishable by 3-5 in the slammer.

Q:           You seem to use an interesting dichotomy of statements regarding male superiority.  Some statements come across as chauvinistic, but are often followed by self-deprecating statements that mock the male sex.  So, which is it?  Are you chauvinistic or not?

A:            I refuse to answer your question, partly because I can’t understand half of the words you used.  As a female you seem much wiser than I.  And partly because I like to keep the women guessing – it gives me a sense of power to toy with them in this way.

Q:           Do you own any guns?

A:            Yes, how else could I go boar hunting?

Q:           Of the two choices, in the next Presidential election would you vote for Barack Obama or the Republican nominee?

A:            Oh no, I will not get sucked into a political rivalry!  This is a quick way to alienate a significant percentage of my readers.  Suffice it to say that I love this country and I will support the hallowed office of the President of the United States – from whichever party – as long as they oust Oklahoma from the Union.

Q:           Why would you want to oust Oklahoma?

A:            What have they ever given us besides a musical by the same name?  It’s sizzling hot in the summer and I hear their boar hunting pales in comparison to Ohio’s boar hunting!

Q:           So, you won’t answer the question about who you would vote for in the next election because you might offend some people, but you just slammed Oklahoma.  What about all of your readers in Oklahoma?

A:            Readers in Oklahoma?  Think about that for a minute.  That’s highly unlikely.  Oklahoma is not an educational Mecca like Idaho where I come from.

Q:           So, what has Idaho given us that makes your state so valued?

A:            Have you not read my blog on the museums of Idaho?  Do you not know that Bruce Willis owns a home in Idaho and that Harrison Ford lives in Jackson Hole, Wyoming which is close to Idaho?  Nough said!  The only reason that Idaho is so sparsely populated is that we have very high intellectual and educational standards in order to get in.  The words Idaho and Intellect both start with the letter “I” and are basically synonymous.  Oh, and you have to own a gun and a pickup. 

Well, I hope that clears a few things up.  For my readers in Iran, I welcome you to defect and come and live in Oklahoma.  To you female readers, I will try to be more humble… which is hard to do when I know so much.  To those who actually live in Oklahoma, I am sorry that I made fun of your state.  Your mighty Sooners Football team is impressive.  But really, you should still get out.  And just as a warning, if I get any angry emails from Oklahomians I will be tempted to mention the Fiesta Bowl of 2007 between the Sooners and the Boise State Broncos, and I don’t think you would want to go there!