The Publisher's Page BY HAROLD T. BECK

JANUARY 29 - FEBRUARY 4, 2000

FEBRUARY 4, 2K

DT at the Bradford Hotel

Good morning. It is exactly 29.8 degrees at  6:45 A.M. So I slept in a little this morning! I have an excuse. I was out late at the Bradford Hotel last night. And what a night it was.

I walked in like I always do. As usual Dave Sheffer was at the bar with Billy Peckham, the greatest Chief of Police in the history of Bradford, PA and all of this part of the state. Welfare Wes, Toothless Tim, Mattress Margie, and Gizmo were there too. Tommy Clark was there, too. As usual, Tommy Clark had a witticism.

"Out Of The Mouths Of Bimbos," he said. "This is the first Great Quote For 2000.  Monica Lewinsky was being interviewed on
CNN's Larry King Live regarding her Jenny Craig weight-loss contract. She told him: "I've learned not to put things in my mouth that are bad for me."

Everyone roared.

Over in the corner I recognized Dave. He spoke but I ignored him. I don't like the man, and, from what I've read, he doesn't like me, either. But in a bar, I am a live and let live kind of person. I am there to drink. Not cause a problem. For that reason I ignored him.

The fellows were glad to see me. They wanted to talk county politics.

"Quite an interesting Commissioners' meeting last Monday," Peckham said. "With you gone, things are starting to come into perspective."

Sheffer laughed and agreed with Peckham. So did Welfare Wes.

"Does Stratton know anything?" he asked me. "Whenever anyone asks him a direct question about any subject he never knows and either says that he will look into it, or he is working on it at that time.  He never gives anyone a straight answer and he comes off as really being stupid."

At that Tommy Clark joined the discussion.

"Comes off as being stupid!" Tommy said. "Where have you been for four years? He is stupid."

Sheffer agreed. Then Gizmo added his two cents worth.

"Hey! How about how mouthy Weaver has suddenly gotten! Weaver has turned his back on everyone who thought they were his friend. The guys over at Dresser's could tell you about that. Weaver is out for himself and no one else. If anything was ever true, it was what old John wrote about him in that letter."

Tom Clark agreed with that, too.

"He had a chance to help out his own appointment on the Solid Waste Authority just before Bud left office. Because Bud was involved he would have nothing to do with it and he turned his back on one of him major supporters in doing it, too. Isn't that right Bud?" he asked.

"I don't know first hand," I answered. "I was approached and I did agree to go along if Weaver made the nomination. Then I heard he wouldn't. I basically heard what you said, but I never talked to Weaver about it. So, it appears that the garbage dump will be business as usual. That's what the people want and Weaver doesn't care anymore. He has no reason to."

I glanced over to the corner where Dave was sitting. I like to know where enemies are at all times and I realized he was gone. The woman he was sitting with was still there, and so was another woman. A very large woman with frizzy blond hair. I figured he had left. I turned my attention back to the conversation.

"Yeah," Welfare Wes said. "Weaver is really mouthy. He doesn't have Bud to do his talking for him anymore. Neither does Stratton. Now the both of them are finally coming off as exactly what they are. Stratton is a dope and Weaver is an arrogant fool."

I sat back and listened. I always liked Jim until the end. He showed his true colors when he called me a liar about raising taxes. And he even went around telling people that I wrote the letter in an effort to discredit me. I had a pretty ugly thing I could have said to him, but I remained a gentleman until the end and didn't. I had to live with myself, whether I won or lost. And, in losing, I can still say I did my best and ran a good, clean campaign.

As for Larry, he is stupid. I don't like the way he bullies people in public meetings. People have the right to speak. He tries to limit and to stifle them. That isn't right. And his opinion is always right, even when he doesn't know what the hell he is talking about. He just tries to bluff his way through it. It seems that Jim Buck has finally caught on and is showing him up time and time again when he does it.

I didn't have to talk. The guys at the bar were saying pretty much what I was thinking. I didn't have to join in. They were on the right track.

I looked back over at the table. Dave had not returned but that big blond and the other woman were still there. I looked closer at the big blond. I had to take another look after I did, and then I realized that the big blond was in fact Dave.

"Oh my God!" I exclaimed.

The conversation stopped.

"What?" Mattress Margie asked.

I couldn't believe my eyes and kept staring at the two in the corner. Everyone else followed my eyes and keyed in on the "two women" sitting at the table.

"Who the hell is that?" Peckham asked, already knowing the answer.

"Oh my God," he roared after me.

Sheffer caught on too. He didn't waste too much time, only the extra steps it took him to make it from the bar stool to the table.

"You, you queer son of a bitch!" he roared at Dave. "Get the hell out of my bar. We don't allow this perverted crap around here."

Dave and the other "woman" stood up. Both of them were men dressed as women. Dave, a six foot two inch fifty-four year old retired school teacher who still substitutes from time to time, was dressed in a short skirt, panty hose, high heels and a tight sweater with huge breast, no doubt falsies, under it. He was wearing a blond wig, lip stick, and rouge for his cheeks. He almost looked like a woman. The other was just as convincing.

No doubt he had changed in the Ladies Room. A gym bag was sitting next to him.

Both of them threw long black coats over their feminine clothing and left the bar. Peckhman couldn't believe what had just happened.

"I know his cousins," he said. "I know them real well. And I know his parents. This would kill his mother."

I shook my head. It was more than I was ready for.

"Give me another whiskey," I said. "What a pile of crap. And that guy taught children and now is working with the mentally ill. He's mentally ill."

I'd seen everything.

Tommy Clark started referring to him as DT - Dave the Transvestite.

That was a good laugh for the bar, but it still was sick.

"He goes to church with his mother and sits down front and sings every Sunday," Mattress Margie said. "And they are down on you for Club Bradford."

With that I needed another whiskey. The conversation never got back to Stratton and Weaver. It stayed on Dave the Transvestite and more sickos just like him. What are you supposed to say about that? I didn't know. I just kept drinking whiskey. That's why I am late this morning.

Comments are welcome at rdhedbud@penn.com.  

FEBRUARY 3, 2K

Marilyn's anniversary

Good morning. It is 18.9 degrees at 6:08 A.M.

Many people have asked me what I am doing with my time, besides the obvious task assigned to me - becoming the prime debaucher of Bradford and its Hysterical District and, as some church going people have said - an agent of Satan.Well, when I am not dreaming up Black Masses and the like, I have been writing. In fact I have been expanding a short story I wrote exactly 20 years ago today. The story is entitled Marilyn.

Twenty years ago I was working for Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, a single working mother, and alone with my six year old son in Rockford, Illinois. I had been transferred there in September of the prior year and I found Geoff and I a cute little house in a quiet neighborhood on the east side of the town.

Rockford reminded me a lot of Jamestown, NY in the respect that it was a manufacturing town with Swedish and Italian heritage. Furniture manufacturing and metal fabrication were the major industries. And after spending a good deal amount of time in the Jamestown area, it was a natural and I felt pretty much at home.

It was a cute house. It was located on a corner lot with a fenced in back yard. It had a two car garage, three bedrooms - the master bedroom was on the main floor behind the living room, and the other two were upstairs. There was a formal dining room with doors that you could close for privacy. It had a little breakfast nook off the kitchen and a full basement with three separate rooms. It also had a porch on the roof of the garage which you got to by going up the first flight of stairs to the bedrooms. It was a great little home for a single man raising his six year old son.

I didn't know much of the history of the house when I bought it. A young woman who was a television personality sold it to me. She had a better offer in Baton Rouge. It was a quick sale and I got a real steal. And the fireplace in the living room cinched it for me. I have always loved fireplaces.

I enrolled Geoff in school. I found a house keeper of sorts - just to be there when Geoff came home from kindergarten which was half day. Then I settled into my new job and hunkered down for the winter. And winter came early that year with a huge Halloween snowstorm.

In all, it was a lonely first winter for me. I was in a new city and really didn't know anyone. So, to pass the time, I wrote.

Edna, my friend in Buffalo who suffered through many midnight or later phone calls from me when I couldn't sleep, was my sounding board for my writing. I was always sending something off to her to critique for me. Some were half way decent, others just outright stunk. That's the way it is. Then, on the morning of February 3, 1980 some time after two in the morning I got up and sat at my dining room table and began to write.

Something woke me up. At the time I couldn't describe what it was. It was like someone was standing over me and looking down. They were looking down at me for a very long time just waiting for me to wake. Do you know how that feels? If you do, then that is what happened that morning. That's what it was like, but except for my son, no one else was in the house with us. And he was asleep upstairs in bed.

The outside temperature was ten below zero and the wind was howling. Back then we didn't have all night HBO or Cinemax. Back then television ended around one. As I wandered through the house that morning in the dark I had a very strange feeling. I had the feeling that someone else was with me and they were trying to tell me something. I sat and I listened. Nothing happened. That was when I started to write.

" She never knew anyone like Roger. There had been men during her years of existence, but none who had seemed so precious to her. Roger was a man Marilyn wanted to hold to her breast, to suckle and calm, to have and feel his heart beat. She wanted to be able just to touch him when his sleep was restless.

"She longed to tell him everything would be alright and the problems he was having at his job were really unimportant. She ached watching him unable to sleep roaming through the darkened house at three in the morning and peering out the windows into the frozen February morning. Marilyn wished there was something she could do. There wasn't. She was helpless. Marilyn would be dead seventeen years this coming May. "

And that is how it began. The story was very self serving. It was about me and how lonely I was and it was an outlet so that I could, in my own way, justify what I was doing - raising my son alone, without the aid of a wife.

The first draft was the only draft. It recounted Marilyn's life as a mother of four, wife of a man who traveled, and how she cheated on her husband with men she would meet at bars when he was gone. It told of her affair with a neighbor and how, one Thursday in May, when she was watching him get out of a car, the tree she was standing under was struck by lightning, killing her instantly. The story recounted her years in the house. How her children were taken away and how the house changed hands. Then came Roger.

The short story comes to a culmination when Roger is killed in an automobile accident the same Thursday in May that she was struck by lightning. Then Marilyn watches as his family comes, collects his son, and sells the house. Faced with Roger gone, Marilyn has no reason to remain and as the story goes, she leaves the property and walks off into whatever.

As she moved through the kitchen into the garage she did not look back. She walked out into the yard. She still didn’t look back. Finally, as she stood at the very spot where her spirit had been taken from her body she realized what she was about to do. The fear within her increased to the point where she was almost changed her mind.

Then she thought about it. She remembered her pain and her loneliness. Was she prepared to stay for another eighteen years? Would she stay forever?

It was only the thought of Roger that made her continue.

She paused at that spot only a moment. Before continuing she wondered where she would go? She wondered if Roger would be there? Then she took that first step.

She took it and she took another. As she progressed she went beyond the property limit and across the street. She waited. Nothing seemed to happen. There wasn’t any bright light or even the searing heat. There were no cry of anguish or musical accolades. There was nothing. And as she continued Marilyn passed into that icy cold moment of eternity.

Years passed. The house exchanged hands many times. Gary, the brilliant young attorney had just turned sixty-eight. He had just left court when he had a heart attack and died in his driveway. The house had been for sale several months. A nice young couple and their eleven month old baby moved in and set up housekeeping. On the first Thursday in the month of May, which coincidentally was their second wedding anniversary, they carved in a heart on the old elm by the street. It was simple and it was sweet. It read: "Roger loves Marilyn."

The story was finished by eleven that morning,  just in time for me to go to lunch with a few of my co-workers. I mailed it to Edna that day and forgot about it. I forgot about it until spring when Geoff got out and began playing with the neighbor children. That was when I met Dee and Charlie Anderson from two doors down.

We became friends almost immediately. We had a lot in common. Charlie and I both drank beer and hated to work in our yards.

One Saturday evening while sitting in my living room drinking beer and discussing my writing, Dee asked to read something I had written. Since Edna like Marilyn so much, I dragged it out and gave it to her. Charlie and I kept drinking beer while Dee read. When she gasped and said: "Oh my God!" I stopped cold.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Who told you all of this?" she asked. "How did you know?"

"What?" I asked.

Then she began to read for her husband's sake so he would know what she was talking about.

When the initial shock wore off Dee began telling me about a woman named "Carolyn" who was the image of the woman I described.  Ironically, she was killed when she was struck by lightning while on a camping trip. There were too many similarities for it to be a coincidence. And they continued. During the years that I lived in the house things would happen, I would say things, and Dee, who had been her close friend, would ask how I knew that. I wasn't into that sort of thing and really drew the line when someone suggested a seance.

Finally it was time for me to leave Rockford. I listed the house on a Saturday morning and took Geoff with me to go grocery shopping. When I came home, a very sturdy wall rack behind a bar I had in the dining room was ripped from the wall. Again, ironically, nothing, not one of the glass objects that was on the rack, was broken.

Weeks later, on the Thursday in May I wrote about in the story, just after leaving the golf course and on my way to the bar, a woman pulled out in front of me and I was in an automobile accident that proved to be more serious to me later than at the time. (I had blood clots in my neck and they had to be dissolved before they moved.)

Anyway, with all the coincidences and the presence that I felt when I did live in the house, Marilyn in now becoming a book. I finished Chapter Eight yesterday. Have a nice day.

FEBRUARY 2, 2K

What else but Groundhog Day!

Good morning. It is 12.6 degrees at 6:15 A.M. I would have been on earlier but I had to change credit cards for my outstanding Amazon.com orders. I guess since I got the new DVD player I have been going a bit overboard. I must have gone over my limit on the card I was using.

Today is Groundhog Day and rather than tell you about Phil down in that town I will have trouble spelling, I want to tell you about Marshburg Mack.

Mack has been a long time resident of the grassy area just behind and toward the firehouse on the Rainbow Inn property. He has a network of tunnels dug and he enjoys eating the flowers and anything else that grows back there.

February 6 is the anniversary of the Great Marshburg Fire. It happened in 1990 one winter night. Even with the fire house right next door and a 100,000 gallon water truck in the fire house, the local volunteers came up short. It seems that after a summer of filling swimming pools and mock fire exercises like burning down old Blackie's trailer on my property, they forgot to re-fill the tanker. Apparently it sat empty from October until it was needed that February night.

What started as an electrical short on the outside wall of the old Ranch Restaurant (originally a railroad station in 1898, then Ben's Place in 1934, then the Rainbow Inn in 1946, and finally the Ranch in 1984.) without the aid of water, quickly turned into a full fledged blaze that burned for three days. It ended only when the late Terry Shirey (RIP) walked out of his room in the motel and shot the smoldering remains with his .44 Magnum.

On April 1, 1990 we began to re-build, taking over the motel and converting it into the structure it is today - The Rainbow Inn, which soon will be the site of a new full length feature movie entitled Biker Bitches from Mars Invade Marshburg (copyright). Shooting begins June 1 of this year!

Through the rebuilding we planted a potato field. We planted the potato field back where Marshburg Mack was living and he didn't seemed to mind much because it became very obvious he was of Irish decent and loved potatoes. That was when the trouble began.

The new Rainbow grew every day. The old motel that had eight rooms on the second floor of  a two story structure was rapidly being turned into a local bar and restaurant. To accommodate easy access, three decks were constructed on the south and west sides of the building, each 12 feet wide then descending three steps to another 12 foot wide deck   and then to another until finally reaching the ground. An ingenious concept, even if I must say so myself.

As we built, Mack ate. As we sweat our butts off, he got fatter and fatter. Each morning I would add up my losses in the garden  It was then that I decided to take matters into my own hands and deal with this freeloader.

One afternoon while he was munching on potatoes, I stood on the newly constructed deck that looked out toward the garden. With my trusty .38 in my hand everyone began to bet on the chances of me hitting the little fat beast who was out there about 50 to 60 yards.

As he munched away I fired the first shot. The dirt flew up only inches to his right. He moved left. I fired again. The dirt flew up once more, this time only inches to his left. As he froze I fired a third time. The dirt flew up directly behind him. Mack didn't know which way to move. I fired a fourth time and the bullet struck directly in front of him throwing dirt in his face. Mack fell over backwards and everyone began to laugh.

"Finish him, Bud," everyone said, believing that  I had hit him.

I knew I hadn't and we watched as he stood up on his hind legs as if to surrender to us. It was as if he was saying, "If it's so important to you, go ahead and shoot. Finish me."

I didn't have the heart. The poor old ground hog was already shell shocked, and from one shell shocked vet to another, I put the gun away.

"He's earned his right to stay," I said. And with that, Marshburg Mack became a permanent fixture. He's still out there. He's gotten a little gray, just like me. And, even though he doesn't predict weather or perform any special function except eating whatever we plant, he is part of the Marshburg crowd. Happy Ground Hog Day, Mack!

And this came from one of our readers.

Your comments are welcome at rdhedbud@penn.com.

FEBRUARY 1, 2K

Beautiful women and dirty old men

Good morning. It is 17.6 degrees at 6 A.M. Now that the Super Bowl is over, we settle in for the rest of the winter.

I had occasion to call over the Court House yesterday. The elected official I was speaking to gave me my laugh of the day.

"Harold," the person said. "We fought from time to time about how to do things, but you were an excellent commissioner," the person told me.

"Thank you," I said back to the other elected official.

"Why didn't you run against Slocum?" the person asked. "You would have made a great State Senator."

I laughed. "I'm out of politics," I said. "I'm done. Now I am going to pursue other interests. Haven't you read the paper?"

The person to whom I was speaking commented on the stories about the nude club I am linked to on Main Street, Bradford.

"All the years I have known you, you have always been a perfect gentleman with all the women here in the Court House. Some people may disagree, but I have never seen you out of line or even the least bit improper. And I have never been to Busty Hearts, either," the person told me.

So what is my point?

I really didn't know what to write about this morning. I seldom do, and maybe that is the appeal this column has to so many. Maybe it is the extemporaneous nature of the deal. One day we talk to Red Jacket. Another, we talk to Jimmy Swaggart and the boys. And the Bradford Hotel is always fun. But its the feedback that I get from you that gives me my material.

There's Amy in Texas and now Wolfie in Pennsylvania. Both beautiful young women! I like getting e-mail and response and knowing that beautiful young women are reading me. Maybe that certain elected official was wrong about me. Maybe I didn't act improper, but just maybe I am improper in my heart!

Think of it. Me and Jimmy Carter! Both of us Democrats, lusting in our hearts!

The tie in to the nude club is an obvious one. Linda believes that I am looking upon women as sex objects and she has corresponded with me many times since that infamous Error headline read: Beck and partner plan nude club for Main Street. Old women confront me in the grocery store.

"You just like to cause trouble," they say to me.

Even my postmaster asked me why we aren't putting it up in Marshburg.

Heck! When you consider all the taxes I am paying on the property in Marshburg, I would if anyone would come to it. I would do it in a heartbeat!

But you know what? Too many things around here are put outside of town and town is left to be the run down vacant area that it has become. Nice homes are converted into four and eight unit apartments that become subsidized housing for the part of our society that refuses to become productive. With subsidized housing and subsidized income by us, the taxpayers, the residents generally have 3.9 children, join the recreational drug crowd, become a statistic in domestic abuse, and add to all the problems that are getting county taxes so far in the stratosphere that they will never return to earth.

Will a nude club change all that?

No, it certainly won't, but won't exasperate it, either. But even more, at the same time, saying that a nude club will make it worse is like saying that if we allow more attorneys in town, crime will increase. If you think about it, it is more likely with the attorneys than with a nude club.

There used to be a Christian Book Store on Main Street. What ever happened to that business? And there was a shoe store on Main Street. What happened to it? And what about the dress shops and the other businesses? Do you think they will return? Is that what we are saving our Hysterical District for? The return of the Christian Book Store?

I don't know about these people. I really don't.

I do like knowing that pretty girls are reading me. I do like that they even disagree with me. That tells me I am still having a normal relationship with women. I have never been able to agree with any woman for any extended period of time. But isn't that what the war of the sexes is all about? So, when I get a note like this from a beautiful woman:

"Anyway, I wanted you to know that I am out here, reading, laughing, enjoying, hating and dismissing what you are writing. I'm also sure that you understand that those of whom you sometime write are people that I really respect and hold in high regard and that we will never agree....so on those subjects, we can agree to disagree."

I am truly flattered. And, for a dirty old man, that is a whole lot. Having a nude club might be a little like having your own column or maybe even your own newspaper. I think I will ask John Satterwhite about that the next time I run into him at the Bradford Hotel.

Comments are welcome at rdhedbud@penn.com.

JANUARY 31, 2K

The Push

It was just past eleven last night when the doorbell rang. Fortunately, Sharyn didn't hear it. I did and so did Rocky. I got out of bed, grabbed my .45, and went to the front door. When I turned on the outside light, I was greeted by a familiar face. It was Chief Red Jacket. I opened the door and invited him in.

"How are you doing?" I asked.

He didn't answer me. Instead he sat down and had a puzzled look on his face.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"It's this betting business," he said to me. "I am having trouble understanding it."

"What's the problem?" I asked. "Maybe I can help."

"I bet on the Super Bowl," he said to me. "And now I want to know whether I  won or lost. I think I won, but my book says I lost. I don't understand all of this. I got straightened out when you fixed me up with Sal and the boyz out in Vegas, but since I've been using this local guy, I have been all messed up."

"Who are you using?" I asked.

"The Snitch," he answered.

"Who?" I asked.

"The Snitch. You call him the meatball."

I immediately knew who he was talking about. Mark the Snitch was a name I gave him when he turned over one of my buddies (Les the Loser) on some minor drug offense to save his own butt. He was in the county jail at the time on a DUI charge and he couldn't do the time. He got his big brother to go to the DA, at that time it was The Tuna, and they made a deal.

Les was riding in a car with another guy. They had some marijuana with them and the cops came in on them from all directions. They arrested both of them, took them to the magistrate, and then released them on nominal bond. When Les got home his apartment had been searched and The Snitch was named on the Search Warrant as the Confidential Informant. Ironically, several years after that incident, the meatball conveniently pops up in the drug task force investigation for allegedly dealing cocaine. Also, ironically how choices are made, when the big setups started, he was left out for some reason. Was that a payback for prior services? Who can say!

"Why are you doing business with him?" I asked. "Didn't I tell you not to use these local people? Didn't I get you fixed up with real, honorable people who wouldn't jerk you around?"

Red Jacket looked down. He knew he had messed up. He knew I was right in the questions I was asking him. "Yes," he said. "It was at the last minute and I want to make a bet. I wanted a piece of the action," he told me.

"Who did you have?" I  asked.

"The Titans," he answered.

"The Titans and what?" I asked.

"Seven points," he answered.

"Then you won," I said. "You got the Titans and seven points. The final score was 23-16. Seven points difference. You won."

"He said it was a tie. He said I had to win by more than seven points. He called it a push."

Funny, I thought to myself. I seemed to remember a similar thing with him in the past. He welsched on a bet of a sizeable amount with people you shouldn't do that with. As far as I knew, that marker was still out there at interest. Supposedly, that was an unsettled score. I had heard he had a plate glass window in his future.

"You won," I said. "And don't let him tell you otherwise. Go back and collect your money. And don't let him give you anything else but money. Don't take anything in place of the cash. It will come back on you, if you get my drift. Get the cash."

With that Red Jacket went looking for the Snitch, determined to collect his money and I went back to bed.

As I lay there waiting for sleep, I wondered why things had to be like this? What a place, I thought. This guy has been protected for years and why? I felt sorry for him. Red Jacket was no one to mess with. Maybe this time he would really pay. Oh well.

Your comments are welcome at rdhedbud@penn.com.  

JANUARY 30, 2K

Superbowl Sunday

This was passed along to us by one of our loyal readers:

And you think Bradford has problems?????
***************************************************
Crime Among NFL's
Super Bowl Players
How Serious Is the Problem?

Jan. 25, 2000

By Jim Edwards

ATLANTA (APBnews.com) -- When the
Tennessee Titans and St. Louis Rams take
the field for Super Bowl XXXIV on Sunday,
a wide receiver convicted of drug charges
will line up against a convicted
girlfriend-beating cornerback.

There will also be a convicted thief playing
running back, a prostitute's john in the
defensive backfield, a drunken driver on the
field and a man convicted of negligent
homicide patrolling at linebacker.

In fact, according to an APBnews.com study
of the criminal histories of the 116 players
in the National Football League
championship game, there will be 13
players on the field Sunday who have been
charged with a total of 20 crimes, ranging
from minor criminal violations like Yancey
Thigpen's failure to pay a speeding fine to
Leonard Little's involuntary manslaughter
conviction in the alcohol-related killing of a
woman.

And we think that the Republican associates of the Attorney General get away with murder ( or at least environmental crimes)!

JANUARY 29, 2K

Just Babbling By TOM CLARK

A few idle thoughts to get us through the weekend:

I was ten minutes behind the robbery that occurred at the Uni-Mart on Bolivar Drive this week. There were six police cars in the parking lot when I passed. It seems to me that one cop could have got the details from the clerk and the other five should have been out looking for the guy. There must have been fresh coffee and donuts at the store.

Have you seen Dan Ross lately? My good friend and business associate has dropped 70 pounds on a doctor-prescribed diet and is looking mighty svelte as of late. If Dan, who's favorite exercise used to be pushing himself away from the dinner table, has the willpower and determination to get himself in shape, there is no excuse for anyone else to remain obese. If not for yourself, do it for your loved ones and friends who worry about your health. And, congratulations, Dan, keep plugging away!

The National Transportation Safety Board recently divulged they had
covertly funded a project with the U.S. auto maker Ford for the past
five years, whereby the auto makers were installing black boxes in
four-wheel drive pick-up trucks in an effort to determine, in fatal
accidents, the circumstances in the last 15 seconds before the crash.
They were surprised to find in 47 of the 50 states the last words of
drivers in 61.2 percent of fatal crashes were, "Oh, Sh$%!" Only the states of Mississippi, Louisiana & Alabama were different, where 89.3 percent of the final words were: "Hold my beer and watch this!". No, not really.

Impotence is natures way of saying no hard feelings. Everything looks good for the Space Shuttle Endeavour to launch on Monday, January 31, at 12:47p.m. This mission, STS-99, is radar topography related with a scheduled duration of 11 days and four hours. Do whatever you do to wish someone good luck and think of our brave astronauts around lunchtime on Monday. As with all launches, CNN will televise it live. Come down to Gino's DeSoto on East Main Street and watch it with me on the big screen.

I'm dreading the thought of what Atlanta will come up with as a Super Bowl celebration. Remember the embarrassing opening ceremony for the Summer Olympics a few years back? They had a bunch of brain dead inbreds in 4x4 trucks spelling out "Hi Ya'll" on the playing field. At least the bomb distracted from this lame attempt at "southernizing" the Games. Fortunately, the rest of the world didn't tag our whole country as a bunch of rednecks. Also, I'm sure Atlanta will parade some nasal twangin' country bimbo out to sing the National Anthem. If only the city could catch on fire before that happened...

When you go out to start your car in the morning, please take your snow brush and clean the whole car off. Nothing pisses me off more than to see some mental midget peeping through a small hole on their windshield as they are trying to drive down the road. Run into me because you can't see and, male or female, I'm going to put your lights out. Run over a kid or old woman crossing the street and you can live with the fact that you killed an innocent person just because you were too damn lazy or cold to clean off your car.

And, finally, one for the single guys, like myself. "Remember, no
matter how good-looking she is, some guy somewhere is tired of putting up with her crap." That ought to get me some points with the ladies, eh? Til next week...

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