Two Barrels

copyright 2014   Rick Fisher

Happy Birthday My Love

Happy Birthday to you

Happy Birthday to you

                                                   Happy Birthday Crazy lady

                                                        Happy birthday to you

Happy Birthday to you

You love me more than I love you

no wait...I got that one backwards

You love social media

you love our dogs more than I do

ok..that's not really true 

OMG our dog's drowning.

Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday to you

Red Mill burgers taste good

(though you are eating an onion ring or fries)

Happy birthday to you

I'm blessed because you love me 

Happy birthday to you !!!!!!!!

Skateboarder at the Skateboard Park at Venice Beach - June 8, 2014

Photograph by Rick Fisher Copyright 2014

DIFFLE COUNTY UPDATE: East Greenville Sues East Greenville and Wins!

Historian Randall O'Rourke 

DIFFLE COUNTY UPDATE

East Greenville  held a referendum on the city name after their Town Constable, Johnny “Bearhug” Bartlesky made an amazing discovery. He was driving to Quakertown to pick up a prisoner from the county prison when he got lost, with the help a gas station attendant or two.   He ended up in East Greenville- in Montgomery County!    When he returned home with this revelation, the Town Council was furious and wrote a letter to the imposter East Greenville demanding they change their name.

Since the Montgomery County town was established over one hundred years before the Diffle County town, there was no way they were changing their name.  Instead East Greenville, Montgomery County sued East Greenville, Diffle County to force a name change.

In the course of discovery, it was revealed  that a significant number of tax bills were being sent to the wrong town by a somewhat confused US Postal Service.  Since the homes in Montgomery County were higher in value than the homes in  Diffle County-  our County tax fund greatly benefited.

   “You don’t look a gift horse in the mouth”,  testified Diffle County Chief Tax Assessor Randall O’Rourke at the Superior Court Hearing last April.

That was a sticking point with State Judge Anthony Grube, a former Montgomery County Prosecutor who ruled that Diffle County's East Greenville would be audited, the monies returned to the right and proper East Greenville, and a binding referendum on a new name placed on the ballot in November. Then Judge Gruber sealed the court record.

Diffle County Council formed a Name Committee and by September three names were added to the referendum:  Greenvale, PA ;  East Greenvale, PA , and Westgreen, PA.   The third name was chosen when it was pointed out to the Committee  by the town historian, Randall O’Rourke that the Diffle County seat is located on the West side of the creek, and not the East side as previously thought.

The winning vote was East Greenvale.  There were a few write-ins that gained traction but fell a few votes short. The top write-in three vote-getters   East Greensucksville;  Gruberville,  and West Easterly.

West Easterly actually won the most votes, if you count the two absentee ballots sent in by the Sean and Maggie O’Rourke. They were vacationing in Ireland at the time of election, and asked their son Randall to drop their absentee ballot off at the post office.   He forgot.

~~~

In other news -  Barry Stettler was plowing snow part-time for Grinold Township when he fell and broke his leg.

 Last October  Barry put up a shed right on the property line and his neighbor Jim Catinera filed a complaint with the zoning office.   Barry had to rent a skid-steer to move the shed five feet beck from the line. That cost him a hundred and seventy five dollars for the machine rental and permit fee. Barry was not a happy camper.

When winter arrived and it came time to plow the roads, Barry was assigned to plow Caterina’s street.  Big Don warned Barry beforehand.   “Don’t even think about doing damage to Catinera’s mailbox. “  Barry politely nodded.

After four sweeps of the street, each time pushing snow closer and closer to the mailbox, finally Barry took one last swipe.  The heavy, wet snow flew, the post cracked, but the mailbox did not fall over.  Furious at this, Barry drove for a fifth time at the mailbox, opened the truck door and gave the box a good hard kick. Then he lost his grip on the steering wheel and fell out of the truck.  His leg hit the step rail awkwardly, then his own weight slammed down and snapped his femur like a big ol' pine branch getting whacked by a chainsaw.

The Truck continued on plowing without him, rolled down an embankment and pinned itself between two oak trees.  Big Don had to rent a crane to remove the fully-loaded salt truck  from its woodland perch.  Barry was fired and Jim Cantinera received a brand new mailbox and half a pound of  deer sausage.

Three weeks later,  Barry’s shed blew up. “Must have been a Meth lab!” Big Don said with a big-ol’ grin.  Breaking Bad - right here in Diffle County.  You just never know.

Diffle County Update: How to Catch a Killer in Diffle County - Chapter 4

Family History

They were third cousins once removed when they met at a family reunion in Dalton, Georgia- spittin' distance from Tennessee's southern border.   She was a fifteen year old raven-haired beauty with a wide mischievous smile, a small pointy nose that gave her mouth an even larger exposure. Her teeth were perfect in order, perfect in placement, and perfectly white.  She was tall for her age, standing flat footed at five feet, ten inches, small-breasted and slim- which made her head seem slightly too large for her body.  She perfectly coiffed her hair to provide a maximum amount of wavy coverage down the small of her back. She was the girl next door, with a bit of an edge because she was also an All-American brat.

Her parents were convinced that she would be a big star one day. In the Spring of her 15th year they packed up and moved to Los Angeles, California- land of swimming pools and movie stars- and pushed her towards their destiny and million dollar paychecks.  With summer smog in the L.A. basin reaching critical levels, she and her mother drove back to Georgia to stay with family for the season.. Her father remained behind to manage the blossoming career of Linda Malone.

He fell in love with her at first sight.   He was twenty-seven at the time, unemployed and high on pot every day from breakfast to bedtime.  He was tall and lanky, his straight brown hair pulled back into a pony-tail, with a few stray whiskers on his face staking claim as a mustache.  He looked younger than his age and he often acted that way too.

He had a few other faults.  He was raised in the North by his mother and step-father - a harsh, bitter man who never liked him and sold him on that truth every drunken day. When he was younger and more impressionable, his mother- Maria was her name-  insisted he take his step-father's name and he did so, but deeply regretted that decision later.  Between the age of twelve and eighteen, he was beaten and spit on more times than he could remember As soon as he turned legal age, exactly 12 hours after his 18th birthday, Mark Westin Jones left home and moved to the Southern side of the Mason-Dixon line. He landed a job in the maintenance shop of a  West Virginia Strip Mine.

He had never met his biological father but he had heard the stories.  Three dead in a  hotel room in Knoxville and his father found guilty of the crime. The crime scene was one of the "worst I've ever seen in my 25 years on the force" said the homicide investigator at the trial.   

Tequilla and LSD will do that to a man if he isn't careful.  They executed his father on an antique electric chair. It took five shots of current and 18 minutes to completely kill him. Johnathan Matthew Marcus Jones, on the morning of his execution, shouted a few short comments for the press.  "We come from a proud family of righteous killers!"  was one comment.  "I wish I had taken out a few more of them cowardly Coles!" Then he swore long and loud making sure everyone would hear him long after he died.  

His last statement was hard to understand with a his head covered in a hood and foam filling his mouth, but some witnesses insist they heard him say, "Make me proud son!"  Johnathan Matthew Marcus Jones knew long before he was removed from Earth that his son was the apple that dropped near the tree.

A Summer Affair

And so they met, at a picnic table with all the fixin's, burgers, dogs, chips, rolls, soda, and her priceless, emerald eyes.  Before long, they were united in purpose as they shared a mocking view of their families, shared a hamburger, shared a joint behind an old Beech tree, shared a soft kiss along the nature trail, and then shared their bodies in a field of high grass.  

The cousins met every day after that and made love, small talk, and future plans.  They found their common bond, the cruel world was against them because of his age, her age, their shared family history, and anything else that didn't seem fair or inconvenient.   It was the greatest summer of his life.  By the time she was packing to return to Los Angeles, his love had evolved into obsession.

Back in L.A. after a torrid summer with her older cousin, Linda Malone soon found friends and work to keep herself occupied and by November her love letters to Mark had dwindled down to one of two a month. Meanwhile he had built a shrine to honor his lover and prayed for her safety and deliverance to him.

Diffle County Update: Tracking The Great White Buck (Part 2)

Story by Rick Fisher  All characters and places are fictional. Any resemblance to real folks we know is purely intentional  coincidental; Copyright 2013 All Rights Reserved.  NSA file No. 2314566780000999330000.1302df 

Big Don (or Country Dave if you prefer) walked Jesse Kern through the garage to a flight of stairs that led to Don's office above the town's meeting room. Big Don had a Pepsi in one hand and a legal pad filled with numbers in the other hand. Jesse Kern stood for a moment in the hallway outside of of Don's always-open door.

 "Come in and plop yourself in a chair" said Big Don as he dropped his own large frame into his Staples-discounted 99-dollar black-plastic-fake leather office chair.

Jesse sat down in one of two provincial chairs that clearly belonged in the home Mrs. Carolyn Dorshimer,  President of the East Greenville Garden Society.  Jesse hadn't noticed that the chairs were completely out of place in a municipal office.  He did notice they were rather uncomfortable.   Perhaps that is why Big Don liked them so much.

"That chair you're sitting in we pulled out of the dumpster on clean-up day,"  said Country Dave (or Big Don if you prefer) who smiled broadly, his grayish-blue eyes twinkling with mirth.  "The Dorshimers drove in with a truck full of furniture. They pretended to be Township residents. Larry asked them what road they lived on and she politely said, 'We live right off Main Street on a private lane."  We helped them dump their furniture and then I told them, 'Now If you come back with more junk be certain to bring someone who lives on Main Street'  They didn't come back.   You know she is President of the Garden Society."

Jesse nodded.

 Big Don went on, without barely taking a breath.  "I hear you have been tracking a white buck.  I remember when me and my pop, God rest his soul, saw a white buck.  We had been hunting all day and hadn't seen a single deer.  We had just gotten back to the cabin and had sat down on the front porch with a few refreshments.  Our guns were leaning against the wall just outside the front door.  We may have been onto our second or third refreshment when down the lane trots a white buck. He stops 30 feet from the porch, directly in front of us and stops to nibble on some grass. We sat in our porch rockers watching him for about two or three minutes.  He was a 10 pointer with a fine rack. What a trophy.  I quietly reached over for my gun."

Big Don took a sip of his Pepsi as he got up from his chair, which groaned and cracked from the loss of his weight.    Big Don held the soda can like a gun, pretending to point it at a deer.

"So I leveled my rifle and took aim. I was about to release the safety when Pop yells 'HA!' jumps out of his chair and slams the palms of his hands down hard on the porch railing several times. He even scared me. The buck leaps into the air with a snort and was gone before I could fire.  I turned to Pop and said, 'Why the hell did you do that?   I had him perfect in my sights!'

Big Don looked Jesse right in the eyes.  "Pop looked at me straight in the eyes.  'There's some things you don't kill. It's bad luck to shoot a white deer."

Then Big Don grinned that old just between us grin he was famous for.  "So what can East Greenville Township do for you?

Jesse Kern paused briefly then replied, "I don't believe in luck and I want that deer on my wall.  I've been tracking him for quite a while now but he's vanished these past two weeks.  Do you know anyone who has seen him?  Al Jacobs thought he saw the Albino last week across the pond."

Big Don shook his head .  "I don't know anyone who has seen your trophy in the past few weeks, Jesse. Did you check down at the Legion?  "Jesse nodded his head.  Don paused in thought for a moment and then broke into another smile.  "I have just the thing for you. We have a GameSpy camera you might be able to use. Diffle County Waste Management gave it to us. We had folks dumping at the dead end on Shale Pit Lane.  We used the camera to try to catch them in the act."

Don got up and walked over to tall file cabinet, pulled out the bottom drawer, and removed a camouflage-covered plastic box.  He set the box on the desk, opened the face of it, and pulled out a camera.

"This is a motion sensor camera.  After it is activated by movement, it will film for 15 seconds.  It has night vision too.   You place it in this protective box, lock it in,  and secure the box to a tree.  This camera does an excellent job of filming deer. That's a fact we learned on Shale Pit Lane."   They both chuckled. Big Don handed the camera and box to Jesse.   "Try it out for a few weeks but our zoning officer will want it back so try to remind yourself to return it.."

Jesse stood up and thanked  Big Don. "I will try to remind myself. And I know exactly where I want to place this camera." Jesse looked down at the camera in his hand.

"Good!" Big Don Exclaimed, "Now I've got to get through these numbers before the State Auditor arrives.  Don't let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya!"

Jesse stood motionless for a moment in front of Don's desk. Don sat back down in his groaning chair, grabbed a pencil off the desk and adjusted his adding machine.

"Don, why don't you use a computer to add those numbers?" asked Jesse Kern.

"Don't trust computers," Don replied, "Never did and never will. I can add just fine on my own. Then I know it's right."  Big Don waved Jesse towards the door.  "Now go catch your great white buck and don't bring any bad luck back into this office!"

A few hours later, Jesse Kern was ten feet high in an old oak tree pointing the Township camera down a woods path on the State Game lands directly behind his farm.  He had seen enough buck rubs high up on the smaller trees to know there was a buck with a big rack moving through these woods.  Maybe he would get lucky and make a great discovery.

Chapter 1 of This Story Here

Diffle County Historical Society Note:  Big Don is a Grinold Township Supervisor.  There is no Main Street in Grinold Township, Diffle County.  Mr. and Mrs. Martin Dorshimer are residents of East Greenville Borough, Diffle County, PA They reside on Carolyn Lane. Mrs. Dorshimer has been President of the East Greenville Garden Society for over 24 years.

~/~

The Ghost of Mrs. Mitchell

Not Our Mrs. Mitchell

We can't seem to avoid ghosts.  As our strange life adventure continues- my wife and I have moved 5 times in 3 years- we have discovered there may be more ghosts floating around us than anyone ever thought possible. I blame it on the old houses and properties in the Northeast United States.

I may also have to blame those prescription meds I take for RLS.  There are serious side effects to the drug Mirapex such as the ability to sense the presence of ghosts or to believe your hallucinations actually are ghosts. I was leaning towards the drug side effects as the source of my problem.  Then we moved into Mrs. Mitchell's house on East High Street in Bangor, Pennsylvania.  Mrs. Mitchell is dead.  Kinda.

The Pastor's House

Let's review the history of our ghosting experiences before we discuss Mrs. Mitchell.. We lived for three years in a Methodist church parsonage that was built in 1890.  It was used as a home for the clergy, a school for children, a makeshift church, and a rental home.  We don't know if anyone died in the house and we did not research its history beyond what the locals told us. The house is located on Division Street in Portland PA.

One late night, sometime after midnight, Waterbunny wakes me up.  The room smells like coffee. Our bedroom is upstairs in the front of the house.  The kitchen is downstairs at the rear of the house. There is no coffee maker in our bedroom. This isn't the Holiday Inn.
  "Are you making coffee?" she asks.
  "No."  I reply.
  "Why does it smell like coffee in here?  Did you leave the Keurig on?"   she asks.
  "I don't think it's possible to leave a Keurig on."  I reply.
  "Go check the kitchen. The smell is really strong," she suggests.
  "Okay"  I reply.   The kitchen is fine.  No new coffee in the keurig. No smell either. By the time I crawl back into bed the odor is rapidly fading into nothing
   "Nothing happening in the kitchen." I tell her.
   "That's weird." she states. The next time the odor was ham. Then it was potatoes.  The Methodist ladies are very busy with church dinners in the afterlife.

I had other experiences there and the believers call them residuals. I would wake up and think I saw several shadow shapes running around the bedroom. They were kid sized and would be gone in seconds. Then one night, a truly dark shadow spirit arrived who started following me from house to house.  That ghost is menacing, stands at the foot of my bed, a tall dark shape.  I do not like this one at all.  This ghost wants me dead.  He or she has tried to smother me in my bed.  Or it's my sleep apnea. Or Mirapex.  Getting older is not for the faint of heart, Waterbunny says.

The Hamilton House

When we moved to a newer ranch house in Sciota, we noticed a bedroom door with the lock on the outside, not the inside.   Then my dark spirit arrived to greet me again.  And she continued to visit me every morning at precisely 3 am.  I could hear her coming down the hall, dragging her chains, or bones, or something ugly that scraped the floor.  Then the room would drop 10 degrees.  Then she would get very close to me.  A few times I slept past the 3 am visit and she would come into my dream and tell me that she was waiting for me to die.  Sweet lass.

One time I woke as she entered the room and I saw her!  The white rags of some sort of lab coat hung off her frame, she was translucent and she was ghoulish to the core.  She was reaching out to me when I woke up and yelled and she vanished without a trace- not even a bone left on the floor.

This became a nightly event.  I would wake up within 5 minutes of 3 oclock am and wait for her to drag her crap down the hall to our bedroom.  One night I had my phone set up to record sounds, an IR meter, and video camera and a laptop waiting for her..when she arrived in the room and the temperature dropped 10 degrees I made my announcement:
  "And now I am coming for you, with all the technology I can find to catch you and end this haunting!"

 I swear I could feel the cold air suck right out of the room.  A good friend later came over and burned sage and smudged stuff up and then gave me crystals and herbs to carry around in a pouch.  It's all good.

Before we moved out my friend suggested I leave a shirt behind to keep the spirit focused on my scent. My scent?  I use Axe deodorant.  My scent matches every man whose family shops at Walmart.  I hung a sleeveless tee in the closet.  I bet the new renters were wondering why we left one shirt hanging in the closet. Ghosts aren't very smart if an old shirt in an empty house can fool them.

We learned the house was once a farmyard where something really bad happened. No one seems to know what that bad thing was.  As for the bedroom door with the lock on the wrong side.  According to locals in the know, the previous owner had a teenage daughter who liked to sneak out at night and get into trouble.  So he switched the doorknob around and locked her in her room every night.  Rapunzel Rapunzel let down your hair about two feet and I will rescue you from the ranch-style house in Sciota, PA.

Our Seattle Apartment

Not a thing. Zilch. Zero. Nada.   I think my spirit follower got confused by the time zone change.  Or maybe the Continental Pass was too high.  I know I didn't appreciate that part of the trip very much. It might have been the shirt.  Although I swear that spirit followed us a far as Wyoming.  Something was outside our door in that hotel at 3 am and it was sniffing for my scent. Our dog Tashi growled for the next 2 hours.  Creepy.

The Robinwood Shadow People

When I returned from Seattle alone, I spent several months with relatives. Mom and Dad actually.  It was a wonderful experience re-connecting with my parents. Mom has been spectacular and helpful in ways I will be forever thankful.  The entire upstairs is empty now and more than one nephew or niece warned me about the ghost in the cubbyhole.   Bah.  I've fought off a demon who followed me to Wyoming.  The cubbyhole is behind a door too small for a three foot child.  Bah. 

I didn't expect the Shadow people.   I contracted pneumonia around Christmas time and was given a nebulizer and told to take breathing treatments every 4 hours.  More often than not, I would drop into a light sleep during the treatment and the shadow people would show up to visit.   Mostly they would stand around and talk at me, sometimes four or five at the same time.  I didn't recognize any of their faces.  The shadow people were strangers to me.  

But they always were talking at me in loud rude voices.  One night a gentleman appeared. He looked like a cross between Danny Kaye, the Artful Dodger, and that comedian who starred in the series about firemen.

"Hey, hey, how are you there?" he half-yelled.  Maybe shadow people think we are deaf in this world.   

I never answered back that I remember.  At that moment a young brunette woman walked into the room and turned and walked down a hallway that suddenly merged with the bedroom.   

"Follow her. Follow that one. She has the answer. Follow that one."  said Danny the Dodger Leary.

Then he smiled and tipped his top hat, threw back his scarf and I woke up staring at the wall where Dennis the Leary Kaye had just been.

Fifty Ghosts in the Upstairs Hall

One night the hallway outside the bedroom filled up with ghosts.  There were so many that they couldn't get past each other into the room. When one made it, another grabbed him and pulled him back.  It was an epic battle of ghosts, shape shifters, and dark spirits that I knew I had to record it on film.  I kept the lighting super low to get the best shot of the ghostly battle.  I think this house is sitting on top of an underworld entrance, or a Native American burial ground, or this is what happens to a video when there isn't enough light obtain a decent picture.  I believe the correct word is digital degradation.  I prefer to think of a ghostly battle at the entrance to my bedroom door.

Circles of Light Shoot From My Eyes

 The first night I was at my folk's house, my 85-year old father fell in the living room and injured himself to the point where he couldn't get up and he couldn't yell loud enough for anyone to hear him..  It was 4 am.

Could have been from a Starship 

At the same time, a white circle of light entered my bedroom from the window,  travelled down the wall and entered the inside of my eyes! Everytime I opened my eyes, circles of light shot out from both my eyes like smoke rings  and travelled down the wall in both directions.  The feeling of this light in my eyes was of complete calm and serenity.  I didn't understand.  I blamed it on the drugs.  I believe in Angels now.

Mom called for me an hour and a half later when she found him and we called an ambulance.  He's fine. But I will never forget the message that was being sent from an Angel and how badly I misinterpreted what it meant.  My dad doesn't believe in God.   He is in for a huge surprise one day.

Mrs. Mitchell's House

Since we moved into the East High Street house, Mrs. Mitchell has pinched us, run her fingernails up and down the blinds while we lay in bed with the light on, shook my Pappy's sleigh bells, stuck a sliver of glass into my big toe, scared the dog so badly she climbed up on Waterbunny's head and relieved herself, added beats to the minute on my dj mixer when there is no music playing (in fact she is doing it again at 77 bps),  banged pipes, knocked on walls, and spoke to Waterbunny in a male voice and hummed for me in a sweet female voice.

The first few nights she was so active we thought we wouldn't be able to stay. Then the landlord told us how Mrs. Mitchell  was seen by previous tenants who described her perfectly.    Ugh.

She likes to open a bedroom door at the end of the hall. Finally, I closed it so securely it may never open again.  Since the door has been closed she has been much quieter.

After everything else Mrs. Mitchell isn't very scary at all.  On a hot night when she enters the bedroom, her chill cools the room- air conditioning without the electric bill.

I told my mother about Mrs. Mitchell and mom said, "if she gives you any trouble, you just call Nanny down on her head.  Your Nanny won't put up with that.

I've threatened Mrs. Mitchell with that.  She hummed an old wive's tale as soon as I turned my back.
  

Diffle County: Murder on Fletcher Pond: Chapter 3, Part 1 - Killer Dreams

~1~

Days fly by like rain falls down. It seemed like a long time ago when the sun shone but after the sun sets the nightmares begin and it all happens again only a few hours ago, a few minutes ago, a few seconds ago. The smell of her, the scent of her, her laughing smile, then her eyes filled with terror, her pleadings muffled by the tape across her mouth, then the fury of jealousy and revenge, until all that was left was the smell of her rotting corpse.

The smells come alive at night and taunt him, laugh at him- stupid boy, rapist, killer.  Smell this!  The images arrive next, as real as her standing here or sitting there, or lying tied to his bed and then her eyes dead open and following him everywhere.  Some nights long after the moon would rise her murdered body rises up from beneath him on the bed and she flies around the room shrieking "Dead, Deader, Deadest, Dead, Deader, Deadest" until he screams at her to stop and shoots bullets into empty walls.  The room returns to normal in silent witness to his guilt, he believes.

"Am I awake? Am I asleep? " he asks himself over and over.  Reality sets with the sun and there is nothing he can do but witness this cruel hallucination over again.  He squeezes his eyes shut hard. The vision behind them runs like a horror movie marathon on a million projectors.  It is dark and the movie lights flicker again...  

His shirt is worn thin, with small holes fraying around the bottom seam and soaked in sweat and blood.  It is glued to his thin frame like the duct tape that binds her ankles and wrists. She is much heavier dead than alive.  When she was alive, he bounced her up and down on his lap like a little doll.  Now he could barely get her tarp-wrapped, lifeless body on the back of his ATV.  He drives slow, keeping the 4-wheeler geared down in second, until he reaches the far side of Fletcher's pond.  Again he removes her body from the vehicle and carries it, half drags her to an old rowboat he sometimes uses for fishing.  

He carefully places his dead lover in the boat and begins row to the center of the pond. She is talking to him through the duct taped mouth, through the tarp, through her death and beyond, she is taunting him.  "I will come back for you, take you with me. You killed me.  You murderer.  See you in hell, bastard."

He dumps her body overboard and as she sinks to the bottom she is singing,  "Babe, I got you babe."

Target: Waterbunny Goal: Marriage

A short film by Rooster the Fish Crow about love and marriage.

The Diffle County Report - Jesse Kern and the Great White Catch (Part 1)

Jesse Kern led a rugged life. He didn't know much else and by his own reckoning, he never needed to know.   He was raised poor in a one room cabin on the H.Kern Farm. His property overlooked a small valley along Potter Creek. The land had been in his family's name for over two hundred years.

Jesse's dad taught him to track, hunt, fish, raise chickens and then chop off their heads. Bill Kern also taught his son how ferment black raspberries.   That was over 33 years ago.  Jesse's mom died when he was near enough to seven to spit at it.  His dad never re-married. Bill Kern died of prostate cancer about three years ago or so.

For Jesse, days and years sort of blended together and he rarely would remember an anniversary or birthday.  He preferred the timeless movement of the woods- the snort of a deer, growl of a bear, and the scream of a rabbit were sounds he remembered and dates he studiously kept track of in a small black, leather-bound journal.

Jesse Kern was single.  It seemed to him that women wanted a reward for leaving him. He paid a price every time he fell in love.  Lately, he was more concerned about shooting a deer goodnight than saying goodnight dear.

A few days ago Charlie Ross had spotted a 12-point White Buck lying low under a stand of hemlocks. Charlie lived  about a half-mile North of Jesse Kern on County Road 319.  The white buck or albino buck is one of the rarest of deer and to have it's head stuffed and hung on the rec room wall was a Diffle County source of pride.

Within a few hours of lying quietly under a forest canopy, the white buck was talked about at Church Bingo, at the Masonic Lodge, at the Knights of Columbus, at the local Elks, the Moose, the VFW, the American Legion, and every other bar and tavern in Diffle County.  By the time Jesse Kern heard about the white buck, it had grown to State record size with at least 18 points of sheer white antler divinity.  

Jesse pushed his stringy blonde hair back behind his ears and smiled. He knew that stand of hemlocks sat on the border between his property and the state game lands.  For the past two days Jesse walked all the familiar paths in the woods near his cabin.  He looked for signs of buck rub on the higher branches, where only a prize buck in his prime could reach. He studied the tracks on the deer trails and paths.  He sat in his favorite deer stand and watched the forest underneath. He listened for the buck that might be nearby, moving through the thicker brush with quiet respect for the man watching from the trees.

Jesse Kern walked these trails nearly every day, setting traps and  blinds, and fixing deer stands. Kern knew Diffle County better than Google Earth.  He adjusted his backpack and rifle as he began tracking the elusive white deer.

In 1945, Jesse's Grandfather Harold and Great Uncle Paul divided the 150 acre farm where County Road 319 ran through the center.  At least Harold Kern thought the road divided the land in half.  A few years after the papers were signed, Harold hired a surveyor.  He owned 47 acres. His scoundrel of a brother owned 103 acres.  Harold Kern had trusted his brother and learned a bitter lesson in vocabulary: Without the word betrayal, the word trust would cease to exist.

Now through a stroke of luck, bad for Paul's side of the family and good for Jesse- the entire farm was going to become whole again. Great Uncle Paul and his wife Viola only had three children, Maggie, Ruth, and  Johnathan.  Naturally, Paul left his entire estate to Jesse's Uncle Johnathan- who married a frail woman from the city named Cecile Robuster. She promptly died of cancer on her 24th birthday and left Johnathan childless.  He never remarried (some say John preferred the company of men anyway) and recently passed away from an "unknown disease". The sole heir of his estate? Jesse Kern.  Great Uncle Paul was rolling over in his grave. Paul's sisters sued for their fair share of the estate and lost in court over the very clear handwriting in Great Uncle Paul's last Will and Testament.

The words were written like this:

    ( "...as for my two thieving gossiping, man-killing sisters I leave each one dollar of monopoly money.  I won't have my hard earned cash tossed into one-armed bandits and drunk down with fancy drinks.  There isn't a bank in hell that would take my money but Maggie and Ruth would sure as hell try to deposit it there.  I also leave nothing for their children or their children's children.  I'd rather give my money to a clan of gypsies. I'd rather leave it to my bastard brother's grandson. Leave them nothing and don't let a judge tell you otherwise. I am of sound mind and body and this is my last request.  Signed  Paul Kern"

Since the land transfer wasn't yet complete, Jesse Kern stayed off his Uncle's farm.  Besides the deer was Jesse's main concern and he was focused on that stand of hemlocks  near the game lands. Despite several sightings from residents all over Diffle County,  Jesse Kern hadn't caught the slightest scent of this world record buck.  He decided to talk with the best hunter in Diffle County and get some tips on how to catch the great white deer.  Big Don opened the door to the Township building and smiled broadly from ear to ear as Jesse Kern stepped inside.

"You've come to the right place!" Big Don exclaimed as they walked through an interior doorway that led to the Township garage..

END PART 1

40th Anniversary Ziggy Stardust Released Today

David Bowie's 'The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars' (40th Anniversary Edition) Released Today (via PR Newswire)

HOLLYWOOD, Calif., June 5, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The remastered 40th Anniversary Edition of David Bowie's groundbreaking and hugely influential 1972 album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars, was released today by EMI Music. Remastered by original Trident Studios engineer…