Fifty-one percent of the American people lacked information (in this election) and we want to educate and enlighten them. They weren't told the truth.--Mikey Moore

No, he's plum wrong, damn flammit! They just don't know what to make of us God-fearing folks out here in the red states. We got the right infurmation and whatnot during this here Hatfield and McCoy scrum they call elections. But, to hear the growing sissy army of those pretty folks on the television tell it, we're just too dag gum simple to figure any of it. Iffin' they're right, it's just not our fault, though. And iffin' the darned furnace doubling as a still would stop goin' on the blink everytime it rains, we wouldn't be so busy with trying to heat an aging and rusted double wide by burning empty Kodiak cans in that landin' strip of an ashtray Uncle Hoot stole from the yard sale down at the Hooper's farm. And if cuzzin Marylou would stop wearing those cut-off shorts stuck so far up in her friggin' inerds, maybe I could get over on that 'portant stuff like electing the right guys. Starin' at her bottom half is kinda like lookin' at those swanky travel posters in town and dreamin' 'bout what it'd be like to visit such a beholding place. I tell ya, child rape oughta be legal in these parts. It just oughta be. Sez me. I don't need no stuffed-shirt city slickers tellin' me what I can and can't hump, provided that it ain't got the same dern reperducktive parts as I done got. Why, I'd strap that on lickety split and get her to howlin' at the moon faster than ants can pounce on a dried out earthworm. Yeehaw!

I got fargin' kids poppin' up everywhere sorta like the way those homeless folks do down yonder in the big city when ya pull yer pack of Marlboros out of yer huntin' vest pocket. Some of them there kids might even be mine and all. Never know. Stranger things have come about. Did ya ever go skinny-dippin' and have a crayfish clamp on to yer Jones? Hurts worse than anything those damned pansy judges could ever do to ya. Ah, guess it dun matter. I reckon I could try to pay closer attention provided that those damned relief checks would come on time. No check means no beer and no beer gets me to gettin' all kinds of stirred up and lookin' for a rumble or two. When the mailbox down yonder goes empty on check day, I get so riled I just gotta hit the woods with my twelve gauge and let off a lil' steam by killin' a few 'coons and squirrels. Killin' always cheers me up. That and makin' fun of those damned colored folk. Mama sure whips up one kick-ass 'coon pot pie, I'll tell ya for sure. Maybe I should get all gussied up and head down to one of those high-fallutin' libraries and fetch me a copy of that County Fair-in-height 9/11 video contraption and educate my ignorant self. That'd sure beat tryin' to read those fancy schmancy ten dollar words they put in them there pricey books written by those big city homasexualls. And after dat dere videogram tells me it the way it is and the way it ought to be, by Jesus, I'm gonna quit the damn whittling club and get after fixin' this commie, pinko Fedrule Govmint of ours.

Sh*tttt. I plumb gotta go. Time sure does fly when ya get yerself all wrapped around in this here confusin' politization stuff. My Daddy's Confederate flag sure needs stitchin' and the pick-up sounds like one of dem dere sons-a-bitchin' Natzi tanks and all. Junior went and ran over somethin' er uther while the county sheriff chased his dumb ass tru the back roads for somethin' as innocent as beatin' up on some folk only 'cause they look and sound odd. Don't need no goll danged, sumbitchin' foreignars in these here God-fearin' parts. They dun speak the language none too good, and that makes 'em bad in my Bible.

You know, the sheriff set about pickin' on Junior ever since he took a liking to lockin' himself alone in the school john with pumpkins. I'll get that no good sumbitch soona er later.

And now I gotta go and plug the danged hole in the muffla pipe by wrappin' still another empty Campbells soup can around that bastard and clampin' it off. I'll tell ya, a man's work is just never over. But this much I do swear on my Grandpappy's life, I will do my dangdest as a citizen of this heya U-Nited States and help ya'll to fix this damned Fedrule Govmint of ours. Ya'll can count on my dead ass. It's as good as money stuffed in ma piss-stained mattress of mine.

Opal, you hot lil' no good, cuzzin of a bitch!!! Fetch me another goll derned beer and shoo those friggin' flies offa my freakin' squirrelloaf sandwich, will ya? And git yer fat ass off of my pick-up truck! Go skin somethin', will ya?. Jesus H. Christ! The sh*t I gotta put up with. Bitches: Ya can't live with 'em, and ya can't drain the pipes without 'em. I just plum knew I shoulda married my younga sista.

That's 'bout it fer this here red-blooded, God-fearin', Commie-hatin' Dubya clansman. Lonesome Redneck Mark done went and got it all off of his flannel-clad, tattoed chest and I sure as hell hope it didn't get yer feelings too hurt. See ya'll at the rodeo.

God bless America.

Things...were just a whole lot simpler when I was a kid. We didn't fear any strangers, peer pressure hadn't been invented just yet, and being away from home all day long was of no particular concern to our parents unless we were not washed and planted at the table for supper on time.

We didn't have access to 1,200 television channels, we didn't have any expensive electronic gagetry at all, and we didn't care which of the three brands of sneakers our parents made us wear. Having been a kid growing up in the sixties makes me wish on occasion that my kids could have grown up so care free and less encumbered with peripheral nonsense that means nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Back in the day, it was playing baseball, playing an occasional football game, whirling the playground puke machine, placing coins on the railroad tracks, swimming in the local water treatment facility, flipping baseball cards, piling on during a game of Buck Buck, pulling the fireboxes on the telephone poles and waiting for the fire engines to respond, trying to kill ourselves on home-made skateboards and go-carts, shooting B-B guns at innocent animals, crushing tin-friction cars, collecting every Matchbox ever made, having our G.I. Joes rape up on our sister's Barbies, and collecting anything Beatles that occupied just about all of our time.

The worse thing I was ever forced to deal with was my step-dad's constant brutality. They say that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, so, in effect, living with him was no different than if I had been named Sue at birth. Thankfully, he assigned that name to my sister. As kids growing up in those slower days, we didn't have to worry about child molesters, drive by shootings, serial killers, goofball Jihadists, elementary school teachers trying to seduce us, Just Saying No, or just about everything else that dominates our mostly troubling headlines these days.

Other than my step-dad's always lurking fist, the worst things I can remember happening to any kids were very minimal by today's scary standards. Karen was run over by a drunk driver while we were two happy-go-lucky fourth-graders just out riding our bikes. It took her a while, but she bounced back. Tubs got herself bumped ass first into a char-pit at Kettletown State Park. She walked funny for a spell. And my best friend, Anthony, fell in the shower one Friday night, fractured his smallish skull and never regained conscienceness. I will never forget the looks on the faces of his mom and his sisters after I banged on his front door early the next morning.

"Call for Anthony! Chips on the bat!"

Still, I can only imagine that dealing with the loss of a child under those circumstances has to be easier (for lack of a better word) than knowing that your small child was raped and mutilated by a deranged serial killer, killed an errant bullet in a drive-by, or duped to death by the friendly, local drug dealer. When I was a kid, even getting hurt or worse made more sense than it usually does for young kids growing up today. We did plenty of stupid and dangerous things, but we didn't have to look over our shoulders all day long. And our parents worried about us a whole lot less than parents are forced to do today. It's really sad that we find ourselves where we currently find ourselves.

But with all of that "Good Old Days" reminiscing having been said, I was not your average kid during the sixties. I had questions. I had many questions about my real dad. And being that he was an aerospace big shot, I was compelled to read anything I could find about that industry, which wasn't much. And without a glut of aerospace info to read, the logical (perhaps) next step for me was reading science fiction. There were plenty of rocket ships flying all over the pages of Arthur C. Clarke's spell-binding books. And there were plenty of 50's black-and-white B movies to be had. And there was no shortage of all sorts of creatures crawling out of the oceans and making sophistry of man and all of his not so important bullspit. Way cool!

And herein lies the only thing that scared the hell out of me with any consistency when I was a kid. Sure, we had the promise of nuclear war hanging over our heads for the entirety of our very short lives, but we also knew that when it finally came down we'd all be instantly vaporized. What's to fret? Death in a fleeting nanosecond? Nah, believe it or not, during these days of high-tech Aliens, Predators and Terminators, can you even imagine a kid being scared to death by the thought of Godzilla stomping on his house in Direnzio Heights, Derby, Connecticut. Can you appreciate what it was like to have to enter your bedroom after dark while knowing full well that he, or it, might be staring back at you through your bedroom window? Do you have any idea how terrifying that was until I could yank the shade down and then turn the bedroom light on? Do you? Go ahead, laugh. You weren't there, man. I was.

Sleeping in the top bunk of a bunkbed on the second floor didn't make matters any better. If Godzilla decided to smash through the roof, I was first in line to feel his rath. Blankets might have protected me from say Gort, or maybe even a Triffod, but blankets just weren't going to cut it when the big Zilla lizard finally came a calling on me. Gulp. Being in the bottom bunk would have offered much more protection from the all but inevitable attack, but my sister already laid claim to that lower bunk and she was just too small to climb into the top bunk. Rats!

And after I would fall asleep, Godzilla quite frequently chased me in my dreams. He was stomping on my school while I wailed from under my desk. Duck and Cover? Nope. Duck, scream, and kiss your small ass goodbye. Mr. Inzero, save me! He stomped on the local Stop 'n' Go while we were shopping for some cold cuts. Where the heck are you supposed to find adequate shelter in a super market? Once, while I was swimming in Zoar Lake, he smashed the dam into smithereens and I was swept by the torrent of rushing water all the way to Shelton. That was a close one. One time, while we were watching a black-and-white horror movie at the Derby drive-in, I crawled up in the rear window of our gigantic Hudson and fell asleep. Guess who? He came smashing right through the drive-in's screen where a McDonald's now stands. He was relentless. He stalked me at Bradley School. And he crushed Aunt Vickie's house and all three of her pain-in-the-ass rats pretending to be dogs. He even tried to kill me while touring the Mars candy plant in Naugatauck. And he knew when I was visiting some folks in Beacon Falls. He tried to stomp on me while at the beach in Milford. And he tried to flatten me at the Sikorsky aircraft factory. Purely due to chance, I missed Pearl Harbor. But the Japanese surely had my number during the sixties.

And to make matters worse, we drove down to Milford to see Bambi at the Milford drive-in. Around the time it was just getting dark, a transformer on the edge of the drive-in exploded and the movie previews came to an abrupt halt. It was surmised that some sort of rodent known to climb trees had made the mistake of rubbing against the transformer one too many times. Back to Derby we sped. But have no fear brave kiddies, step-dad promised we would return the following Friday night and take in some other amazing cinematic adventure. To this very day, I have never seen Bambi. Oh, well.

And as he had promised, we returned to the scene of the rodent carnage exactly one week later. He told us the name of the movie we were about to experience, but I had never heard of it before and I wondered aloud why we couldn't see Bambi. The threat of a single fist made me forget all about the animated character/future road kill and I was ready to take in whatever it was that we were about to take in. After a few hoddogs and with the popcorn and Coca Cola at the ready; the previews rolled. I don't remember what the heck they were. You tell me. The Love Bug? The Satan Bug? The Guide for the Married Man? (The Turtles? Cool) I don't remember. But I'll never forget what was to ultimately follow the previews.

GORGO!

A giant lizard monster? Much like Godzilla? Again, gulp. Yeah, this was exactly what I needed to see. Gorgo. Great.

And then the movie started. And it was much more creepy and much more well done than the two or three Godzilla movies I had seen, which really isn't saying much. But, what the hey! This was the sixties, folks. Bare with me here. They can't all be Aliens vs. Predators. So Gorgo ate a few fisherman from some wayward island. And then his much larger Mom stomped on the island looking for him and then proceeded to take a very large cab to London and stomped on all of London. This was not exactly what I needed while being reduced to defending myself from giant man-stomping lizards with only my two bare hands and a couple of blankets. The movie ended, we drove home and now I forced to wonder whether Godzilla or Gorgo; or possibly both were lurking near one of my two bedroom windows.

Abject cruelty has many forms.

Why did I share this with all of you? Because you should all be made aware of the inherent dangers we face from Godzilla and Gorgo should they ever decide to come out of retirement? Not really. Catch this from the Citizen's Voice' own Mike McGlynn. I guess he's beat up on Dubya about as much as one man possibly could, so it's about time that he beat up on someone else of a Republican stripe. Take it away, Mike!

Schwa-chan is going Shinjuku, according to a Los Angeles Times report.

"Schwa-chan" is the term the Japanese use to identify Arnold Schwarzenegger, who, if you've just been thawed out after some time in cryogenic suspension, now is the governor of California. Never mind. The Japanese are quite familiar with Schwa-chan, as he makes the type of film they really like. Remember that, in the 1950s, the Japanese raised the bar for really dumb monster/horror/sci-fi films to a new level of "camp." Godzilla, Gorgo and Rodan broke up a lot of sushi bars in their day. Who knows? If any of this famous trio had moved to California, he might very well be governor by now. After all, Ronald Reagan made it - and so did Schwa-chan. If the Japanese refer to Schwarzenegger as "Schwa-chan," what do you suppose they called Ronald Reagan?

This drivel comes from a man who dares to continually insult us based solely on party affiliation and little else.

Unfortunately for him, the man who dares to point out our so obvious faults can't even get his giant man-stomping lizards straight. Trust me. I am a battle-tested veteran of the long ago giant man-stomping lizard wars. Thrice decorated. Excuse me, Mikey, but Gorgo was a British nightmare in the making. Yup. Gorgo was written in Britain, filmed in Britain, acted by Brits and Gorgo stomped on the good folks of Britain. And I seriously doubt there were many sushi bars in Britain pre-1970. Heyna?

If you must continue to point out how dumb those of us commonly referred to as being "the unwashed masses" really are, please try to get your giant man-stomping lizard facts straight while doing so. Journalistically speaking, you're no Godzilla. And you're no Gorgo either.

There was a time when I feared the giants. Luckily for me, I somehow escaped their grasp and then grew up to some minor degree. And these days, thanks to years of therapy, I chuckle at the folks in the rubber suits pretending to be giants. Mikey, judging by your most recent inaccurate scribblings, those rubber suits still serve a purpose for some of us.

Aye, mate? Now off to the sushi with ya. Ya bleedin' wanker! Toss off, aye?

Sweet dreams.

Later

Lonesome Redneck Mark 10-7