Wednesday, February 12, 2025

Mrs. Bilcoe Questions Local ‘Role Models’

Mrs. Bilcoe’s “I Have Thoughts” column originally ran in the weekly Heritageville Observer from Stratum XXIII-XXIV and was much beloved in the community. Selected columns are reprinted here for your edification.
I think it’s quite worrying that today’s youth are so quick to emulate our local foolhardy fraternals and their dangerous dares.
  Just last year some neighbourhood boys were grievously injured imitating those ΦΟΚ fellows with their sinister metal-teeth contraptions.
  I have thoughts.
  Where are today’s role models?
  We need more people like that nice Booth fellow who sells medicine to the needy down on Holeman Avenue. Or that lovely Qarinah lady down on Springrock Street who keeps lonely older men company out of the kindnesss of her heart. We all get the ‘lonesomes’ as we get older, let me tell you!
  These are the true ‘influencers’ who take steps to better our community in the eyes of our youth! Not those furley college ruffians cavorting with goats and drinking beer and drugs!
  C’mon, people — be better role models!

Sunday, February 09, 2025

Fraternals Continue to Let the Unfit Cull Themselves

The ΦΟΚ Brethren, who evolved out of the Furley Frosh of Reid III, certainly took social niceties to a new level in their joie de vivre after Stratum XIII.
  Skippy, Scotty G, and of course the eponymous Keef himself often held soirées that explored such cultural frontiers as plaid goat rodeos, prawn precipitation parties, and most famously, the Bear Trap Socials at their stately residence on the Classic City Community College campus.
  These young men and their future prospects continue to seek out new challenges. Indeed, they better mankind by allowing Darwin Award contestants the opportunity to cull themselves from a mindful and productive society — all without shattering any Overton windows.
  Let’s hear it for ΦΟΚ!

Wednesday, February 05, 2025

Sunday, January 26, 2025

Hayseed 3.0

What an improvement: Tha 2043 proles a’ faicinn an mì-ùidh aca ann an leasachadh air a chuir a-steach do raon a’ mheacanaigeach...

Thursday, January 23, 2025

Saudade de cativante deusa de Montego

Stoddard sat quietly with his elbow resting in the open window of the passenger car as the train slowly made its way up into the hills. He watched the sun stream through the lush jungle canopy as the scant breeze did little to quell the island heat.
  Stepping off the train, he gazed incredulously up at the massive heaps of harvested sugar cane, each the size of a two-storey house.
  The distillery tour was unremarkable — a dry explanation of boilers and fermentation tanks in the guide’s thick patois soon lost Stoddard’s interest. Maybe it was the air, the sun, the heat — the cloying stickiness of the sugar cane that suffused every breath taken in the humid tropical clime.
  Even in his discomforting pique, his mind drifted back to the sands of Montego.
The goddesse layde, beckonende bihofþe the man
as the billows did crash upon the strand
  Stoddard stepped back outside but even there every draw of air tasted of hot, syrupy thickness. He again marveled at the mountains of sugar cane.
  “Young man! Take! Bless up!” The tour guide was suddenly beside him proffering a paper cup. “Di rum punch ours,” he pointed at the drink.
  Stoddard stared at the pink liquid. What furley young man would turn down free alcohol in a tropical setting, let alone anywhere?
  In his mishmash of queasiness and longing, Stoddard politely declined and headed back to the train.
Sche basketh in the sonne, and alle is wel
sche clepeth to me, and I desyre to answere...