As most of you don't know, I live in the country. I'm a rural person. Because I live where there are trees and vegetation, we are visited every autumn by city people. They come to see the colours and buy our fresh fruit and veggies.
They also return around Christmas. It's like a picture postcard then too. Everything is blanketed in brilliant layer of clean, white snow. We're used to the visits, but these folks are strange. They are an odd blend of old hippies in hair shirts and young metrosexuals driving BMWs. It's as freakish as a bowl of licorice all sorts melting in the sun.
I thought I'd tell you what happened last fall. Hippy Thanksgiving!
Tree Huggers!
Copyright 2015 by Murphy
It was fall. The time of rolling year when we get invaded by tree huggers. We figured they either got loose from the nuthouse, or was from Toronto. They come every year to worship our local timber – we got lots of maples, pines and birches around.
There's also a second wave that appears at Christmas. This group dances around naked to welcome the winter solstice. Yeah, it's strange, and I just figured they was stupid. Only an idiot would run around without clothes on when it’s -30 outside! I figured nobody was that dumb. Apparently, I was wrong.
Heck, I didn’t know what a solstice was until Father Bob dropped by the house and explained it to me and Ma. He told us that the solstice happened twice a year – when the sun is at its lowest or its highest point in the sky...or somethin’ like that. Them tree huggers come here to celebrate, and even brought some goats! Well, they used to bring them. They took off runnin’ when the townsfolk started pokin’ them with cattle prods...and ate the goats.
Anyhow, the fall colours started, which brought the tourists and the hippies.
Last October, this fellow come into the general store and announced to everyone – that would be me, Ma and James – that Chief Ellis or Chief LS or somethin’ like that, was here to save us from meat. That anger-vated James Arness, the owner of the store. After all, he sold turkey, beef, and pork by the pound – despite Canada makin’ laws about usin’ only the metrical system.
I told James to relax. LS probably stood for ‘Loose Stool’, and he was just passin’ through.
But you know, it got me thinkin’. What’s better than a good steak BBQ, or a turkey, roasted golden brown for Thanksgiving? I don’t give a rat’s patoot if you don’t eat meat, but don’t go pokin’ your nose into other people’s affairs, right? I told Chief LS that this was cattle country. He said he knew. In fact, that was why he come here! He told us,
“Eating animals is cruel and clogs your arteries.”
James told him lead poisonin’ would kill him faster, but Chief LS didn’t get the hint.
The Chief said he was goin’ over to the restaurant for a fresh garden salad and a tomato juice. As he was headin’ out the door, James phoned the restaurant and talked to Edna. I didn’t know what they was cookin’ up, but I was gonna be there to see it.
We was right behind the Chief, and heard him order a tomato juice. Edna responded, lookin’ kinda sick, and said,
“You want me to go into the back and squeeze the life out of a tomato? Mister, I cannot abide the high pitched wailin’ of a ripe, red tomato bein’ put in a blender! But if that’s what you want, I’ll tell Fernley to put a couple in the juicer. You’ll have to excuse me. I can’t stand the screamin’. And Edna walked out the front door.
The Chief turned to us and asked what was wrong with her. I couldn’t resist.
“Ain’t you never heard a tomato squeal, mister? It’s kind of a high pitched cry. They does it twice. Once when you cut them in half, and a second time, when you put them in the blender.”
Chief LS give me a disgusted look and said,
“That is ridiculous! Plants are not living creatures like you and me!”
I just shrugged and said that I didn’t know nothin’ about that. I just knew that they screamed. I told that fella,
“Father Bill at the church talked to me about it once. He called it, um, ‘plant sentience’, I think...”
The Chief shook his head and said something very unkind about Father Bill. Right about then, we heard a shrill, muffled scream from the kitchen and Fernley, the cook, started yellin’.
“I don’t care what you want! You is a vegetable! I’m cuttin’ you up and puttin’ you in the blender. We got a customer that wants fresh squeezed tomato juice!”
He barely finished sayin’ that when half a tomato flew out of the kitchen and smacked against the glass door at the front.
Fernley come runnin’ out of the back, yellin’ at the tomato, “You ain’t gettin’ away that easy!”
The Chief sat there dumbfounded.
Fernley had a big cuttin’ knife in his hand. He ran to the front door and speared the tomato right through its middle. He scooped it off the floor, wiped the juice from the window with his free hand and began lickin’ it off. Then he turned to the Chief and said,
“I’m sorry about that, mister. Them tomatoes don’t usually get away from me like that. He made a run for it when I reached for the blender lid. Lucky for you he knocked himself unconscious hittin’ the glass. I’ll get him puréed and have your juice here in a minute!”
The Chief run full tilt out the door and down the road.
Fernley laughed so hard, I think he peed himself.
We never seen that fellow again.
They also return around Christmas. It's like a picture postcard then too. Everything is blanketed in brilliant layer of clean, white snow. We're used to the visits, but these folks are strange. They are an odd blend of old hippies in hair shirts and young metrosexuals driving BMWs. It's as freakish as a bowl of licorice all sorts melting in the sun.
I thought I'd tell you what happened last fall. Hippy Thanksgiving!
Tree Huggers!
Copyright 2015 by Murphy
It was fall. The time of rolling year when we get invaded by tree huggers. We figured they either got loose from the nuthouse, or was from Toronto. They come every year to worship our local timber – we got lots of maples, pines and birches around.
There's also a second wave that appears at Christmas. This group dances around naked to welcome the winter solstice. Yeah, it's strange, and I just figured they was stupid. Only an idiot would run around without clothes on when it’s -30 outside! I figured nobody was that dumb. Apparently, I was wrong.
Heck, I didn’t know what a solstice was until Father Bob dropped by the house and explained it to me and Ma. He told us that the solstice happened twice a year – when the sun is at its lowest or its highest point in the sky...or somethin’ like that. Them tree huggers come here to celebrate, and even brought some goats! Well, they used to bring them. They took off runnin’ when the townsfolk started pokin’ them with cattle prods...and ate the goats.
Anyhow, the fall colours started, which brought the tourists and the hippies.
Last October, this fellow come into the general store and announced to everyone – that would be me, Ma and James – that Chief Ellis or Chief LS or somethin’ like that, was here to save us from meat. That anger-vated James Arness, the owner of the store. After all, he sold turkey, beef, and pork by the pound – despite Canada makin’ laws about usin’ only the metrical system.
I told James to relax. LS probably stood for ‘Loose Stool’, and he was just passin’ through.
But you know, it got me thinkin’. What’s better than a good steak BBQ, or a turkey, roasted golden brown for Thanksgiving? I don’t give a rat’s patoot if you don’t eat meat, but don’t go pokin’ your nose into other people’s affairs, right? I told Chief LS that this was cattle country. He said he knew. In fact, that was why he come here! He told us,
“Eating animals is cruel and clogs your arteries.”
James told him lead poisonin’ would kill him faster, but Chief LS didn’t get the hint.
The Chief said he was goin’ over to the restaurant for a fresh garden salad and a tomato juice. As he was headin’ out the door, James phoned the restaurant and talked to Edna. I didn’t know what they was cookin’ up, but I was gonna be there to see it.
We was right behind the Chief, and heard him order a tomato juice. Edna responded, lookin’ kinda sick, and said,
“You want me to go into the back and squeeze the life out of a tomato? Mister, I cannot abide the high pitched wailin’ of a ripe, red tomato bein’ put in a blender! But if that’s what you want, I’ll tell Fernley to put a couple in the juicer. You’ll have to excuse me. I can’t stand the screamin’. And Edna walked out the front door.
The Chief turned to us and asked what was wrong with her. I couldn’t resist.
“Ain’t you never heard a tomato squeal, mister? It’s kind of a high pitched cry. They does it twice. Once when you cut them in half, and a second time, when you put them in the blender.”
Chief LS give me a disgusted look and said,
“That is ridiculous! Plants are not living creatures like you and me!”
I just shrugged and said that I didn’t know nothin’ about that. I just knew that they screamed. I told that fella,
“Father Bill at the church talked to me about it once. He called it, um, ‘plant sentience’, I think...”
The Chief shook his head and said something very unkind about Father Bill. Right about then, we heard a shrill, muffled scream from the kitchen and Fernley, the cook, started yellin’.
“I don’t care what you want! You is a vegetable! I’m cuttin’ you up and puttin’ you in the blender. We got a customer that wants fresh squeezed tomato juice!”
He barely finished sayin’ that when half a tomato flew out of the kitchen and smacked against the glass door at the front.
Fernley come runnin’ out of the back, yellin’ at the tomato, “You ain’t gettin’ away that easy!”
The Chief sat there dumbfounded.
Fernley had a big cuttin’ knife in his hand. He ran to the front door and speared the tomato right through its middle. He scooped it off the floor, wiped the juice from the window with his free hand and began lickin’ it off. Then he turned to the Chief and said,
“I’m sorry about that, mister. Them tomatoes don’t usually get away from me like that. He made a run for it when I reached for the blender lid. Lucky for you he knocked himself unconscious hittin’ the glass. I’ll get him puréed and have your juice here in a minute!”
The Chief run full tilt out the door and down the road.
Fernley laughed so hard, I think he peed himself.
We never seen that fellow again.
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