Folks,

C51:

I agree with you regarding Dux and Eliot. Did you say JRT is a literary giant or an illiterate giant? I beg to differ with you on the former and I could not quarrel with the latter.

I had no idea that Hyacinth Bucket, wife of the long suffering Richard, pompous sister-in-law of bone idle Onslow was a figment of Eliot's delightfully inventive mind. I'll drag out the HWH Handbook tonight and read his entire works. I believe they start with Volume 42 on page 13,765. Lucky for me they have been painstakingly translated by SNAFU from the original Pig Latin.

Honesty must prevail amongst friends so let me say with all due modesty that I did write that entirely off the cuff, off the record and pretty much off my mind. The word "shame" springs readily to mind when I think of having to own up to having written such unadulterated poo. If you could scrape that stuff off your screen you could take it to your garden and grow championship roses in that mess.

I am a southerner born and bred so frying turkey comes second nature to me. I received a southern fried chicken leg before mom gave me my first milk bottle. We love to fry turkeys. It is a tradition. I once nearly burnt the house down doing it in the house. Now I have a purpose built turkey cooker that by wifely edict I only use outside. Just to be safe, the Lizard Lick Volunteer Fire Department and Marching Brass Band are on special alert anytime when I'm frying.

That cooker is also great for preparing other foods, especially with my genuine Chinese wok (hand-hammered under 12 feet of water). The propane burner is far hotter than what the average home stove can manage. Cooking something like Kung Pao chicken in it comes quite close to restaurant quality if I do say so myself. Though the top is often left off during cooking, no Bluejays, Cardinals or other wild birds have fallen into pot so far. Only careless chickens and suicidal turkeys who wandered into my clutches have been fried to date.

Tar and feather? We no longer tar and feather anyone in Dixie. The Federal Environmental Protection Agency has ruled that there are carcinogens in tar that might be hazardous to health and those chicken feathers have been found to contain heavy metals and itch causing residue from all that crap they feed chickens today to fatten them up and ready them for market just three short pecking days out of the egg.

Now we use the more environmentally friendly and infinitely more viscous STP oil treatment and skunk fur. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on whether you're a skunk crossing the road at the time, drivers are driving more cautiously these days or perhaps skunks are running faster. At any rate it has become damned hard to find suitable roadkill. Not only that, the Wildlife Resources Commission in this state frowns upon shearing and releasing wild skunks into the germ laden environment where they might become chilled and sicken. There have been several hefty fines.

The firing squad is also out. Right, lead poisoning is far too much of a risk. Even drowning is out, the water supply is so polluted no one can get a permit to swim much less drown anyone. The prisons in the south are over-flowing with murderers, rapist and dog beaters. Even down in Texas officials are not allowed to euthanize convicted criminals sentenced to death by lethal injection because doing so may be cruel and unusual punishment. Here in NC a physician is required to be present at all state executions. The AMA frowns on the practice so doctors have refused to do it. It is an impasse. No one is being put to death until the Supreme Court rules. What is the world coming to when even dastardly dog beaters can't be put to death?

Dux:

We were also taught to refer to that righteous gentleman as Thomas a Becket. "Who will rid
me of this meddlesome priest?" Given the shameful record of the church in recent years, it might easily be a sentiment shared by quite a few abused quire boys since then....