In the old days the parade was a big deal in the village. The Brock County Turnip Festival was the biggest thing to hit this shithole all year. There were all sorts of goin’s on. There was the Turnip eating contest to see who could eat the most turnips (raw) and the Turnip baking contest to see who could make them taste the best. And there was always a passing carnival at that time of year that stopped and set up a midway with a Big Dipper and a Ferris Wheel and Dodge ‘Ems. One year - that year, the last one - we even had a Scrambler.
Every year was the same, come the end of harvest time they opened the festival with the crowning of the Turnip Queen. A local young girl who got to wear the tiara carved from a specially grown turnip. By the end of the week, during the parade that turnip tiara would be fair stinkin’ with the rot and the Queen herself would be surrounded by flies and wasps all buzzin’ on her head. But it was a privilege and a joy to be picked as the Turnip Queen and many’s a young girl in this town was jealous of the one what wore the crown. P’raps the most jealous of all was young Toby Wilkins. At the time she was one of the prettiest young things in the town, ever’whar she went the boys would be slobbering and cat calling after her and the men would cast an eye over her shapely bottom pulled high and tight by her mini shorts.
She knew they was a lookin’ at her, felt their eyes on her as she sashayed down the street in her plimsoles. She also knew that she was pretty much a shoe in for the crown that year. All her friends told her so, and she laughed and told them not to be so simple, looking at them from under her eyelashes with false modesty. All the while in her heart the fire burned long and slow.
They say that the turnip festival would still be running today if the accident hadn’t of happened.
Young Toby Wilkins, the sweetest little peach of the town, was crowned Turnip Queen that year. She wore the crown like it was made of gold and jewels and not some stinkin’ piece of vegetable. Ever’one who saw her jes’ thought she was the best Turnip Queen ever and this would be the best festival ever. Better even’n the time young Buckie Jasper had won the Turnip eatin’ contest by eatin’ 7 raw turnips in 10 minutes.
The day of the parade dawned bright and sunny, weatherman said we’d be havin’ an Injun summer that year and so far he wasn’t wrong. The crowds started fillin’ the sides of the road, sittin’ on makeshift bleachers and curbs along the route. Ol’ Man McDermott had brought along a piece of 2 by 4 and a couple of crates to let the kiddies stand up higher to see. The floats were all ready to go, linin’ up outside the town, and on the last float, with a garland of turnip leaves strung round her neck and her hair all knotted up in a pile on her head was Toby Wilkins, our Turnip Queen.
There were people selling hotdogs and turnip burgers and fresh squeezed turnip juice and there was kiddies runnin’ and playin’ and laughin’. Toby Wilkins sat on her float waiting for her turn to stand and wave at the town. She was wearin’ her purtiest white cotton frock and her bare legs were lightly tanned. On her head the crown was moulderin’ and a meltin’ in the late summer heat and the flies buzzed around her head. But Toby Wilkins was a professional and she sat with the grace God give her not mindin’ the stink and the mess. Finally the float in front of the Turnip Queen moved off and Toby set hersel’ on her throne which wobbled twenty feet above the ground designed so’s all the crowd could see her. As she moved closer to the judgin’ stand she waved bigger and smiled bigger ‘n’ showed more teeth. Her arms were movin’ so much that it disturbed the flies and the wasps nestin’ on her crown and they got angrier and angrier. The wasps were buzzin’ and the hornets singin’ their high nasty song. Toby didn’t realise her actions wuz causin’ the insec’s so much grief and she jes kep’ on wavin’. The wasps flew round her head getting’ angrier and they did whats come natural to a wasp.
Folks say they won’t never forget the sound of Toby Wilkins screams as the wasps and hornets bit and stung at her pretty face and through her light cotton dress. She slapped at herself, crazy with the pain and stumbled off her throne and down, down to the hard curbside where her brains was dashed out on the tarmac. Her blood oozed along the cracks and crevices and her white dress was torn and ripped.
After that day the Turnip festival was cancelled. All the turnip fields was ripped up and replanted with corn and barley.
Folk round here don’t celebrate the corn and barley harvest. No one can rightly figure out how to fashion a crown from a corn cob.
3/04/2009
2/24/2009
Back
I've been over posting on blogsome for the last while.
Think I might resurrect this blog for more creative pursuits and leave SJD for the weird stuff.
Think I might resurrect this blog for more creative pursuits and leave SJD for the weird stuff.
Labels:
resurrection
4/29/2005
4/04/2005
2/21/2005
Gonzo is Dead
I'm pretty sure there are about seventy bazillion bloggers out there wearing black armbands and covering their mirrors.
I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas a few years ago and I didn't really get it at the time. I'm ashamed to say that I had to watch the movie to catch the humour, then I reread the book and lo I was seeing the bats.
Hunter S Thompson, RIP.
But how old was he really?
The NY Times says he was 65:
Hunter S. Thompson, the maverick journalist and author whose savage chronicling of the underbelly of American life and politics embodied a new kind of nonfiction writing he called "gonzo journalism," died yesterday in Colorado. Tricia Louthis, of the Pitkin County Sheriff's Office, said Mr. Thompson had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his home in Woody Creek, Colo., yesterday afternoon. He was 65.
And the Guardian says he was 67:
ASPEN, Colo. (AP) - Hunter S. Thompson, the hard-living writer who inserted himself into his accounts of America's underbelly and popularized a first-person form of journalism in books such as ``Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,'' has committed suicide.
Thompson was found dead Sunday in his Aspen-area home of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, sheriff's officials said. He was 67.
I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas a few years ago and I didn't really get it at the time. I'm ashamed to say that I had to watch the movie to catch the humour, then I reread the book and lo I was seeing the bats.
Hunter S Thompson, RIP.
But how old was he really?
The NY Times says he was 65:
Hunter S. Thompson, the maverick journalist and author whose savage chronicling of the underbelly of American life and politics embodied a new kind of nonfiction writing he called "gonzo journalism," died yesterday in Colorado. Tricia Louthis, of the Pitkin County Sheriff's Office, said Mr. Thompson had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his home in Woody Creek, Colo., yesterday afternoon. He was 65.
And the Guardian says he was 67:
ASPEN, Colo. (AP) - Hunter S. Thompson, the hard-living writer who inserted himself into his accounts of America's underbelly and popularized a first-person form of journalism in books such as ``Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,'' has committed suicide.
Thompson was found dead Sunday in his Aspen-area home of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, sheriff's officials said. He was 67.
2/09/2005
Dog Gone
It appears kids, that I have a stalker.
So bold in his pursuit is he, that he actually followed me up to the door of my house yesterday evening. I mistook him for Patch the neighbours dog and then realised he wasn't. He looked more like a dog and less like the resemblance of a dog like thing which is Patch.
'Sorry boy, go home' I said and then shut the door in his face.
That was at 8 o'clock last night.
This morning I opened the front door and found him still sitting there. He then walked down the road with me to the train station. Now the morning walk is a good mile or so downhill, which I prefer to walk in silence. It's the middle of the country and there isn't a sound.
Well, most days anyway.
This morning the dim dawn light was filled with the sound of my witty ripostes.
'Fuck off you damn mutt!'
But he just turned big brown eyes on me, stuck his tongue out and continued to pad along beside me. It's partly my own fault of course, what I should have done was kicked him soundly and let him hobble off to some corner to lick his wounds. But I'm not evil like that (evil in other ways, yes, but not evil-to-dogs evil) and so instead of larruping him so he ran away afraid, I threw a few half hearted imprecations and curses his way.
'I'm not your owner muttley, now get out of my way!'
When I tired of that I engaged him in conversation. As we crossed through the park I told him to be careful:
'You sir are the type of mangy dog that would be throttled in a place like this, and your body thrown down into the river. And I sir, am the type of person to do it.'
His didn't answer, instead ran five paces ahead, checked that all was safe and came back to lead me down the darkened path.
I lost him on the station platform, thank god. I don't know how I would have explained to the ticket inspector why there was a drenched mutt sitting on my lap.
I expect he is still on the platform howling for me, and will, when I alight this evening walk the long walk back up the hill. Sniffing out terrorist squirrels, and checking that the rabid beetles don't get me.
So bold in his pursuit is he, that he actually followed me up to the door of my house yesterday evening. I mistook him for Patch the neighbours dog and then realised he wasn't. He looked more like a dog and less like the resemblance of a dog like thing which is Patch.
'Sorry boy, go home' I said and then shut the door in his face.
That was at 8 o'clock last night.
This morning I opened the front door and found him still sitting there. He then walked down the road with me to the train station. Now the morning walk is a good mile or so downhill, which I prefer to walk in silence. It's the middle of the country and there isn't a sound.
Well, most days anyway.
This morning the dim dawn light was filled with the sound of my witty ripostes.
'Fuck off you damn mutt!'
But he just turned big brown eyes on me, stuck his tongue out and continued to pad along beside me. It's partly my own fault of course, what I should have done was kicked him soundly and let him hobble off to some corner to lick his wounds. But I'm not evil like that (evil in other ways, yes, but not evil-to-dogs evil) and so instead of larruping him so he ran away afraid, I threw a few half hearted imprecations and curses his way.
'I'm not your owner muttley, now get out of my way!'
When I tired of that I engaged him in conversation. As we crossed through the park I told him to be careful:
'You sir are the type of mangy dog that would be throttled in a place like this, and your body thrown down into the river. And I sir, am the type of person to do it.'
His didn't answer, instead ran five paces ahead, checked that all was safe and came back to lead me down the darkened path.
I lost him on the station platform, thank god. I don't know how I would have explained to the ticket inspector why there was a drenched mutt sitting on my lap.
I expect he is still on the platform howling for me, and will, when I alight this evening walk the long walk back up the hill. Sniffing out terrorist squirrels, and checking that the rabid beetles don't get me.
12/17/2004
Christmas Parties are so much fun. There I am looking dazzling, fish tail skirt and heels strapped into a corset doing my damndest to look witty, vivacious and stunning. And I get stuck sitting between the two company bosses. Correction, between the two company bosses wives
Oh joy.
This then is hell. My work 'mates' went to the bar first, I stupidly went directly to the ballroom thinking that as I was running a bit late everyone would be there. No such luck. So as we are ushered into the ballroom, I look vainly for anyone at all who isn't a boss or related to one. There's no one though, so I trail in behind the bosses. Just after we get settled everyone else arrives. But it's too late I am now stuck beside wifey 1 who doesn't appear to know how to make small talk and wifey 2 who makes too much. Given the fact that I am deaf due to too many years dancing against sub woofers in dank and dangerous night clubs back in the day, my conversation skills do not range much above the 'Sorry? Pardon?' levels.
Dinner itself by the way, was manky. The food was disgusting, the stuffing could have been used as cement and the turkey wasn't real. Afterwards three screaming dervishes er sorry, 'supreme divas' came on stage and got everybody up and dancin'.
Our company exited stage left to the bar. En Masse.
Par for the course really as the rest of the night involved getting as pissed as possible, in as quick a time as possible. How we weren't thrown out or at least banned from ever stepping over the hotel threshold again I don't know.
I have vague memories this morning of dancing with the drunkest bloke there, or rather being spun (and spun and spun) around the dancefloor by the drunkest bloke there. After that it gets a bit hazy. I do remember leaving the hotel, although I don't remember why I thought it would be a good idea to walk out into the rain and wait for a taxi rather than asking the nice concierge to order one so that I could sit in relative heat and quiet until it arrived.
Stories today are that the others tried to get into the residents bar. Some succeeded. Most failed.
Oh joy.
This then is hell. My work 'mates' went to the bar first, I stupidly went directly to the ballroom thinking that as I was running a bit late everyone would be there. No such luck. So as we are ushered into the ballroom, I look vainly for anyone at all who isn't a boss or related to one. There's no one though, so I trail in behind the bosses. Just after we get settled everyone else arrives. But it's too late I am now stuck beside wifey 1 who doesn't appear to know how to make small talk and wifey 2 who makes too much. Given the fact that I am deaf due to too many years dancing against sub woofers in dank and dangerous night clubs back in the day, my conversation skills do not range much above the 'Sorry? Pardon?' levels.
Dinner itself by the way, was manky. The food was disgusting, the stuffing could have been used as cement and the turkey wasn't real. Afterwards three screaming dervishes er sorry, 'supreme divas' came on stage and got everybody up and dancin'.
Our company exited stage left to the bar. En Masse.
Par for the course really as the rest of the night involved getting as pissed as possible, in as quick a time as possible. How we weren't thrown out or at least banned from ever stepping over the hotel threshold again I don't know.
I have vague memories this morning of dancing with the drunkest bloke there, or rather being spun (and spun and spun) around the dancefloor by the drunkest bloke there. After that it gets a bit hazy. I do remember leaving the hotel, although I don't remember why I thought it would be a good idea to walk out into the rain and wait for a taxi rather than asking the nice concierge to order one so that I could sit in relative heat and quiet until it arrived.
Stories today are that the others tried to get into the residents bar. Some succeeded. Most failed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
