Another Story From The MJC Hard drive.
Mar. 9th, 2004 12:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mojocattAnother old story. This on a complete rip-off of the intro to a Bloom County book.
THE SUMMER OF 1988 DESCENED on Pine County much as it had for each of the previous eighteen years of my life; humid and without hint of the chaos ahead. We needed no hints, however, for calamity always rode shotgun with Pine County summers. Each spring, bored boys awaited the hot months with the giddy anticipation normally reserved for the imminent approach of Nazi motorcyclists. Things were going to happen. Wonderful things. catastropic things. And if that meant, say, that my dad’s new Dodge Caravan were to be dynamited by Japanese antiprotectionist guerrilla, so be it. This was summer after all, and such thing simply happen. Confident in the knowledge that soon the June sun would fry most of the common sense out of everyone’s noodle, Don and I would kick back in the St. Croix River and wait for thing to generally fall apart. As I said, this summer was to be no different.
These were contented times for me, being at age eighteen, still safely ignorant of what my adulthood would bring (namely, a position in a roofing factory, full of deer huntin’ truck driving, grunting, farting, male chauvinists. See chapter 11, “Rednecks and Nausea”) These were in fact, generally contented times for everyone. A presidential election was approaching, but it would be another sixteen years before Clint Eastwood reached the White House and stirred things up, so for the moment, life was tranquil. This I figure, helps explain the exaggerated behavior of Pine County residents over what happened that summer.
The great Buchannan Toad-Frog Massacre, as it became known, had its roots in two entirely separate and unrelated events: a conspiracy of happenstance which was to test the civil defense preparedness of an entire American community and forever alter the Eco balance of the pond.
On June 21, 1988, the following item appeared on page 3 of the Pine County Beacon, sandwiched between “News of the Weird” and “Dear Abby”:
COMMUNISTS AT
U.S. DOORSTEP
By Greg Limbager
Today it was discovered that after
Years of aggressive expansion,
The Soviet Union has stretched its
Borders to within a mere 12 miles
of American soil. The State
Department has no immediate
Comment.
…Which wasn’t particularly surprising since the State Department had been aware for some time that the easternmost tip of Siberia comes within a polar bear’s whisker of Alaska, but who cares since it’s too damned cold to worry about. But the vast bulk of the Beacon’s readership had no such knowledge and a subdued rumble of patriotic consternation coursed through the local population like some frightening new flu virus. The consensus was that something ought to be done. “SOMETHING,” bellowed Conandammit at a hastily call meeting, “SHOULD BE DONE!” He pounded the table, looking properly drunk with nationalist fervor. Sherry suggested CIA assassinations of most of the Kremlin, but she was soundly overruled in favor of a more moderate response. A letter would be dispatched to the President informing him of the crisis. (Years later, Casper Weinberger would write in his memoirs that he had been sent to the White House to reassure Mr. Reagan that it wasn’t necessary to send the Seventh Fleet to investigate this new business. We were pleased our letter had attracted the attention it deserved. The President was a fave-rave in Pine County.
A high level of media-inspired hysteria and paranoia having now been generated, the stage was set for the second minor incident to complete the general breakdown of order that lead to The Great Buchannan Toad-Frog Massacre. And it happened early Sunday morning, deep within the Pine County Volunteer Fire Departments wiring system. Several errant electrons jumped when they shouldn’t have at a place they shouldn’t have, resulting in what shouldn’t have happened. In short, a short. The air-raid siren came to life for the first time in history.
It must have started about 6:00 in the morning and, it being Sunday, caught everyone asleep. At least everyone in the house, where we got utterly bombed every summer. Bolting upright in bed, eyes wide open, I listened to the wail outside and knew immediately that this day was to be dealt a perfectly proper dose of pandemonium. The Nazi motorcyclists had, so to speak, arrived. A nuclear missile attack was not safe but it was certainly NOT boring.
“Get under the door frames!” yelled Ken, huddling beneath his as I emerged from my room. I told Ken standing under door frames was usually something done during an earthquake and that he might have been mixing up his catastrophes – but by then the rest of the tenants had emerged and were milling around the kitchen a peering up a the ceiling. These, I later thought, are the many foolish things people do while waiting for Russian missiles.
Standing there in our various forms of undress, nobody had to say what we were all thinking. That newly discovered twelve-mile gap between our peace-loving people and the Soviet hordes and been just too tempting and the Bolsheviks had decided to get the jump on us. “I TOLD you all that something should have been done!” said Conandammit, who was pounding the wall wearing only Fruit of the Loom briefs. This being of greater concern than the missiles, we wrapped him in a sheet and feed him coffee beans.
The siren still screamed in the distance and Don and I quickly took control of the situation. “Okay!” he said, “Where’s our Civil Defense Coordinator?” This was a good question, since Caveman, who held that office, was missing…….A quick search found him sitting in the outhouse with the Saturday funnies. The late night of questionable activities had apparently taken their toll, for he was asleep with the comics draped over him like a quilt. Our Civil Defense Coordinator was awakened rudely and dragged, struggling in a half nelson, to the porch.
I should digress to explain that the more unsavory positions of the officials within the house bureaucracy were given to those members who made the unfortunate mistake of being absent for house meetings. Thus Caveman, much to his eventual horror, had been given the honor of being voted Official Trash Coordinator, Official Wasps Nest Remover, Official Rain Gutter Clearer, Official Chimney Sweep, and Official Handler of my socks – positions he earned by being off somewhere in the meadow picking his nose when the nominations were made. These were underhanded actions and complaints were lodged. But this – this Official Civil Defense Coordinator business was something all together different. That awful Sunday morning in June was the first Caveman had heard of the new office. “ME?” he cried. “ME? Nope! No way. No no no! Uh-uh! ME?” He started to hyperventilate, so we wiped his brow with a cool rag and got him some beer and pancakes, witch calmed him down some.
With the collapse of the only official leadership, the situation began to deteriorate. Thermonuclear bomb were due at any moment, things had to be done. Panic had to be averted. Conandammit realized what he needed to do and returned to he room while the rest of us regrouped outside on the lawn. Caveman, dazed and faint with anxiety, was propped up and federal civil defense instructions were shoved into his hands. Ken, Patrick, his sister and the neighbors, all came to attention and awaited instructions. The sirens wailed on. Obviously only minutes remained.
“`First,’” said Caveman, reading from the government manual, “`gather shovels.’” We dispersed quickly and looked for shovels, returning with several. “`Second, quickly and without panic, take refuge in the countryside.’” Shovels in hand, we formed an orderly line and proceeded to march behind our hyperventilating leader into the wood, passing other who were clearly reacting to the threat of thermonuclear annihilation with less self-control than ourselves. We after all, had taken the precaution of procuring not only an official federal civil defense handbook, but an official – if reluctant – Civil Defense Coordinator as well.
Upon reaching the meadow, well removed, we supposed, from ground zero, we stood at attention and awaited further instructions. “`Dig shallow trenches’” Caveman continued. “`Lie down in trenches, cover self with wooden door or like object and await blast. After shock wave passes, emerge and go to nearest emergency Civil Defense Center and fill out emergency change of address forms.’”
With this, we seized the handbook and hacked it to pieces with our shovels. Caveman was officially decommissioned and we quickly adopted a favorite stand-by approach to a approaching holocaust – hysterical panic. This was always fun to watch, so Don and I settled back into the grass to savor the confusion, our own fates apparently sealed. Chris Anderson wrung his hands and wondered what radiation would do to his complexion.
Conandammit jogged by, dressed in Zuba fatigues and wearing an extraordinarily full backpack. “JOIN ME IN THE HILLS!” he yelled in passing. “ONLY THE PROPERLY EQUIPPED WILL SURVIVE!” Or the lawyers, we thought. “JOIN ME AND WE”LL CRAWL FROM THE RUBBLE AND LIVE TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY. TO THE HILLS! ONLY THE WEAK WILL PERISH!” This was no comfort to a nearly shattered Chris Anderson, who had no illusions as to where he stood in the weak/strong classification. Watching Conandammit disappear into the woods dressed like Rambo proved the finial decisive blow to an already critical frame of mind and he plopped over unconscious. Lying serenely among the clover, Chris was blessedly unaware of Mike and Ron marching up the hill with fully automatic Ruger 7.62 Mini –14 rifles with extended clips, apparently intent upon massacring the imminent hordes of Communists in groups of fifty or more. “We’re gonna massacre ‘em!” bellowed Mike, waving the weapon that had obviously been recently borrowed from the shelves of the local sport shop. Don and I, concluding that the general scheme of things just couldn’t handle THIS much fun, tried to dissuade Mike and his fellow conspirator from their patriotic mission. They would not hear of it. These after all were a punk and a Native American, two of the most excitable critters to be found in modern meadows and wont to excessive behavior. “We’ll go out blasting!” they said.
Down we went, following these two warriors, to the north end of the pond, were invading Russians were suspected. Caveman got his bearings and trailed this dangerous procession, rubbing his stomach, for nuclear war had upset it. If he was to die in a fireball, he though, it would be nice to go to heaven without gas. This was obviously not to be and the crushing reality pushed further into a deep funk. He was nearly to the point of tears when Mike, aiming into the water of the pond where the communists were hiding in their scuba equipment, pull the trigger of his massacre machine. “I CAN SEE THEIR EYE! YAAAAAAAAA!” he screamed, or something like that. For a full minute, automatic weapon fire tore into the little pone, turning it into a horrible, savage, boiling froth of hot lead and foam. We hit the ground as the spray of bullets continued, tearing up trees, rock, sod, an old inner tube – oh, it was simply horrific. Order was restored when the ammo was exhausted and we picked ourselves off the ground. Caveman had , at the first blast, collapsed in cardiac arrest and was briefly thought to be shot, but after thorough and prolonged CPR, was brought back to full consciousness, walking away from the incident with only minor emotional troubles.
Back at the battle scene, we survivors checked for bullet holes in our clothing. Mike sat on his rump, the gun in his lap smoking. He surveyed the sight in front of him and quietly exhaled a low, sliding whistle, much as one might do when passing a terrible car wreck.
There, floating facedown in the turbid water, were hundreds, no, THOUSANDS of corpses…legs wide apart, arm spread, tongues extended their full eight or ten inches. It was plain as pie that there wasn’t a single toad-frog remaining in that pond. The overwhelming magnitude of the crime grew on us as we stood around, eyes bulging and mouths agape. “Look at Mike,” I whispered to Don, for indeed, the crushing realization of guilt at what he’d done came across his face like a shadow, and he slumped in shame. These tragic victims were clearly not Russians, although he could have sworn they WERE when he first saw their gleaming eye in the morning light.
Don, realizing that Mike’s emotional stability was at stake, went to his side and explained that while, admittedly, the likelihood of those toad-frogs being Communists, or even liberals, was not great, there was no reason to assume that he had wiped out supply-side Republicans instead. In fact, there was a excellent chance that the vast majority were Buchanan Republicans, who, of course, were better off dead.
This revelation appeared to cheer Mike, and the entire party headed into town for Egg McMuffins, the air raid siren having long since been silenced and the general domestic tranquillity restored. The newspapers recorded Mike’s excesses that pandemonious day as The Great Buchanan Toad-Frog Massacre, an honor which won him some brief celebrity and a quick appearance, via satellite, on “Nightline.” Things settled down soon after ward and , except for the frequency of frog legs served at dinner, normalcy return to haunt the remaining summer.
I neglected to mentioned, however, that Conandammit was eventually discovered by a small and unenthusiastic search team several days after the Massacre, lying spread-eagled and dazed among the summer hyacinths and surrounded by the remnants of his survivalist base camp, now in a state of higgledy-piggledly. A blow-dryer, blender, toaster, pina colada mix, microwave oven and other essentials of survival lay scattered among the barbed wire and camouflage netting. His formerly impressive fatigues were no were to be seen. The shocking truth is that all he was wearing was an argyle sock and a bad sunburn. Caveman bent down and put an ear to Conandammit’s mouth just in time to hear him whisper, “The horror…..the horror….I….Forgot…the…..French….press.” We took him home and rubbed Noxzema all over him and put him to bed, where he remained for the better part of the week stuck to the sheets.
THE SUMMER OF 1988 DESCENED on Pine County much as it had for each of the previous eighteen years of my life; humid and without hint of the chaos ahead. We needed no hints, however, for calamity always rode shotgun with Pine County summers. Each spring, bored boys awaited the hot months with the giddy anticipation normally reserved for the imminent approach of Nazi motorcyclists. Things were going to happen. Wonderful things. catastropic things. And if that meant, say, that my dad’s new Dodge Caravan were to be dynamited by Japanese antiprotectionist guerrilla, so be it. This was summer after all, and such thing simply happen. Confident in the knowledge that soon the June sun would fry most of the common sense out of everyone’s noodle, Don and I would kick back in the St. Croix River and wait for thing to generally fall apart. As I said, this summer was to be no different.
These were contented times for me, being at age eighteen, still safely ignorant of what my adulthood would bring (namely, a position in a roofing factory, full of deer huntin’ truck driving, grunting, farting, male chauvinists. See chapter 11, “Rednecks and Nausea”) These were in fact, generally contented times for everyone. A presidential election was approaching, but it would be another sixteen years before Clint Eastwood reached the White House and stirred things up, so for the moment, life was tranquil. This I figure, helps explain the exaggerated behavior of Pine County residents over what happened that summer.
The great Buchannan Toad-Frog Massacre, as it became known, had its roots in two entirely separate and unrelated events: a conspiracy of happenstance which was to test the civil defense preparedness of an entire American community and forever alter the Eco balance of the pond.
On June 21, 1988, the following item appeared on page 3 of the Pine County Beacon, sandwiched between “News of the Weird” and “Dear Abby”:
COMMUNISTS AT
U.S. DOORSTEP
By Greg Limbager
Today it was discovered that after
Years of aggressive expansion,
The Soviet Union has stretched its
Borders to within a mere 12 miles
of American soil. The State
Department has no immediate
Comment.
…Which wasn’t particularly surprising since the State Department had been aware for some time that the easternmost tip of Siberia comes within a polar bear’s whisker of Alaska, but who cares since it’s too damned cold to worry about. But the vast bulk of the Beacon’s readership had no such knowledge and a subdued rumble of patriotic consternation coursed through the local population like some frightening new flu virus. The consensus was that something ought to be done. “SOMETHING,” bellowed Conandammit at a hastily call meeting, “SHOULD BE DONE!” He pounded the table, looking properly drunk with nationalist fervor. Sherry suggested CIA assassinations of most of the Kremlin, but she was soundly overruled in favor of a more moderate response. A letter would be dispatched to the President informing him of the crisis. (Years later, Casper Weinberger would write in his memoirs that he had been sent to the White House to reassure Mr. Reagan that it wasn’t necessary to send the Seventh Fleet to investigate this new business. We were pleased our letter had attracted the attention it deserved. The President was a fave-rave in Pine County.
A high level of media-inspired hysteria and paranoia having now been generated, the stage was set for the second minor incident to complete the general breakdown of order that lead to The Great Buchannan Toad-Frog Massacre. And it happened early Sunday morning, deep within the Pine County Volunteer Fire Departments wiring system. Several errant electrons jumped when they shouldn’t have at a place they shouldn’t have, resulting in what shouldn’t have happened. In short, a short. The air-raid siren came to life for the first time in history.
It must have started about 6:00 in the morning and, it being Sunday, caught everyone asleep. At least everyone in the house, where we got utterly bombed every summer. Bolting upright in bed, eyes wide open, I listened to the wail outside and knew immediately that this day was to be dealt a perfectly proper dose of pandemonium. The Nazi motorcyclists had, so to speak, arrived. A nuclear missile attack was not safe but it was certainly NOT boring.
“Get under the door frames!” yelled Ken, huddling beneath his as I emerged from my room. I told Ken standing under door frames was usually something done during an earthquake and that he might have been mixing up his catastrophes – but by then the rest of the tenants had emerged and were milling around the kitchen a peering up a the ceiling. These, I later thought, are the many foolish things people do while waiting for Russian missiles.
Standing there in our various forms of undress, nobody had to say what we were all thinking. That newly discovered twelve-mile gap between our peace-loving people and the Soviet hordes and been just too tempting and the Bolsheviks had decided to get the jump on us. “I TOLD you all that something should have been done!” said Conandammit, who was pounding the wall wearing only Fruit of the Loom briefs. This being of greater concern than the missiles, we wrapped him in a sheet and feed him coffee beans.
The siren still screamed in the distance and Don and I quickly took control of the situation. “Okay!” he said, “Where’s our Civil Defense Coordinator?” This was a good question, since Caveman, who held that office, was missing…….A quick search found him sitting in the outhouse with the Saturday funnies. The late night of questionable activities had apparently taken their toll, for he was asleep with the comics draped over him like a quilt. Our Civil Defense Coordinator was awakened rudely and dragged, struggling in a half nelson, to the porch.
I should digress to explain that the more unsavory positions of the officials within the house bureaucracy were given to those members who made the unfortunate mistake of being absent for house meetings. Thus Caveman, much to his eventual horror, had been given the honor of being voted Official Trash Coordinator, Official Wasps Nest Remover, Official Rain Gutter Clearer, Official Chimney Sweep, and Official Handler of my socks – positions he earned by being off somewhere in the meadow picking his nose when the nominations were made. These were underhanded actions and complaints were lodged. But this – this Official Civil Defense Coordinator business was something all together different. That awful Sunday morning in June was the first Caveman had heard of the new office. “ME?” he cried. “ME? Nope! No way. No no no! Uh-uh! ME?” He started to hyperventilate, so we wiped his brow with a cool rag and got him some beer and pancakes, witch calmed him down some.
With the collapse of the only official leadership, the situation began to deteriorate. Thermonuclear bomb were due at any moment, things had to be done. Panic had to be averted. Conandammit realized what he needed to do and returned to he room while the rest of us regrouped outside on the lawn. Caveman, dazed and faint with anxiety, was propped up and federal civil defense instructions were shoved into his hands. Ken, Patrick, his sister and the neighbors, all came to attention and awaited instructions. The sirens wailed on. Obviously only minutes remained.
“`First,’” said Caveman, reading from the government manual, “`gather shovels.’” We dispersed quickly and looked for shovels, returning with several. “`Second, quickly and without panic, take refuge in the countryside.’” Shovels in hand, we formed an orderly line and proceeded to march behind our hyperventilating leader into the wood, passing other who were clearly reacting to the threat of thermonuclear annihilation with less self-control than ourselves. We after all, had taken the precaution of procuring not only an official federal civil defense handbook, but an official – if reluctant – Civil Defense Coordinator as well.
Upon reaching the meadow, well removed, we supposed, from ground zero, we stood at attention and awaited further instructions. “`Dig shallow trenches’” Caveman continued. “`Lie down in trenches, cover self with wooden door or like object and await blast. After shock wave passes, emerge and go to nearest emergency Civil Defense Center and fill out emergency change of address forms.’”
With this, we seized the handbook and hacked it to pieces with our shovels. Caveman was officially decommissioned and we quickly adopted a favorite stand-by approach to a approaching holocaust – hysterical panic. This was always fun to watch, so Don and I settled back into the grass to savor the confusion, our own fates apparently sealed. Chris Anderson wrung his hands and wondered what radiation would do to his complexion.
Conandammit jogged by, dressed in Zuba fatigues and wearing an extraordinarily full backpack. “JOIN ME IN THE HILLS!” he yelled in passing. “ONLY THE PROPERLY EQUIPPED WILL SURVIVE!” Or the lawyers, we thought. “JOIN ME AND WE”LL CRAWL FROM THE RUBBLE AND LIVE TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY. TO THE HILLS! ONLY THE WEAK WILL PERISH!” This was no comfort to a nearly shattered Chris Anderson, who had no illusions as to where he stood in the weak/strong classification. Watching Conandammit disappear into the woods dressed like Rambo proved the finial decisive blow to an already critical frame of mind and he plopped over unconscious. Lying serenely among the clover, Chris was blessedly unaware of Mike and Ron marching up the hill with fully automatic Ruger 7.62 Mini –14 rifles with extended clips, apparently intent upon massacring the imminent hordes of Communists in groups of fifty or more. “We’re gonna massacre ‘em!” bellowed Mike, waving the weapon that had obviously been recently borrowed from the shelves of the local sport shop. Don and I, concluding that the general scheme of things just couldn’t handle THIS much fun, tried to dissuade Mike and his fellow conspirator from their patriotic mission. They would not hear of it. These after all were a punk and a Native American, two of the most excitable critters to be found in modern meadows and wont to excessive behavior. “We’ll go out blasting!” they said.
Down we went, following these two warriors, to the north end of the pond, were invading Russians were suspected. Caveman got his bearings and trailed this dangerous procession, rubbing his stomach, for nuclear war had upset it. If he was to die in a fireball, he though, it would be nice to go to heaven without gas. This was obviously not to be and the crushing reality pushed further into a deep funk. He was nearly to the point of tears when Mike, aiming into the water of the pond where the communists were hiding in their scuba equipment, pull the trigger of his massacre machine. “I CAN SEE THEIR EYE! YAAAAAAAAA!” he screamed, or something like that. For a full minute, automatic weapon fire tore into the little pone, turning it into a horrible, savage, boiling froth of hot lead and foam. We hit the ground as the spray of bullets continued, tearing up trees, rock, sod, an old inner tube – oh, it was simply horrific. Order was restored when the ammo was exhausted and we picked ourselves off the ground. Caveman had , at the first blast, collapsed in cardiac arrest and was briefly thought to be shot, but after thorough and prolonged CPR, was brought back to full consciousness, walking away from the incident with only minor emotional troubles.
Back at the battle scene, we survivors checked for bullet holes in our clothing. Mike sat on his rump, the gun in his lap smoking. He surveyed the sight in front of him and quietly exhaled a low, sliding whistle, much as one might do when passing a terrible car wreck.
There, floating facedown in the turbid water, were hundreds, no, THOUSANDS of corpses…legs wide apart, arm spread, tongues extended their full eight or ten inches. It was plain as pie that there wasn’t a single toad-frog remaining in that pond. The overwhelming magnitude of the crime grew on us as we stood around, eyes bulging and mouths agape. “Look at Mike,” I whispered to Don, for indeed, the crushing realization of guilt at what he’d done came across his face like a shadow, and he slumped in shame. These tragic victims were clearly not Russians, although he could have sworn they WERE when he first saw their gleaming eye in the morning light.
Don, realizing that Mike’s emotional stability was at stake, went to his side and explained that while, admittedly, the likelihood of those toad-frogs being Communists, or even liberals, was not great, there was no reason to assume that he had wiped out supply-side Republicans instead. In fact, there was a excellent chance that the vast majority were Buchanan Republicans, who, of course, were better off dead.
This revelation appeared to cheer Mike, and the entire party headed into town for Egg McMuffins, the air raid siren having long since been silenced and the general domestic tranquillity restored. The newspapers recorded Mike’s excesses that pandemonious day as The Great Buchanan Toad-Frog Massacre, an honor which won him some brief celebrity and a quick appearance, via satellite, on “Nightline.” Things settled down soon after ward and , except for the frequency of frog legs served at dinner, normalcy return to haunt the remaining summer.
I neglected to mentioned, however, that Conandammit was eventually discovered by a small and unenthusiastic search team several days after the Massacre, lying spread-eagled and dazed among the summer hyacinths and surrounded by the remnants of his survivalist base camp, now in a state of higgledy-piggledly. A blow-dryer, blender, toaster, pina colada mix, microwave oven and other essentials of survival lay scattered among the barbed wire and camouflage netting. His formerly impressive fatigues were no were to be seen. The shocking truth is that all he was wearing was an argyle sock and a bad sunburn. Caveman bent down and put an ear to Conandammit’s mouth just in time to hear him whisper, “The horror…..the horror….I….Forgot…the…..French….press.” We took him home and rubbed Noxzema all over him and put him to bed, where he remained for the better part of the week stuck to the sheets.
