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NSNC Will Rogers Writing Contest – First Place Winner

A 21st Century Rope Trick

By George Waters

I read in the papers where they have jobs now in what they call the "technology sector," where a fellow can sit at a desk all day, not do anything that any reasonable workingman would call "work," and get paid top dollar for it. Kinder like a Congressman. What I want to know is what these technology birds do at that desk all day, so I can do it too.

I got one of 'em to show me his computer gadget, which he acted mighty proud of, like he'd just hatched it himself. These computers just seem a lot like typewriters to me, but with all the soul siphoned out, sort of like the Democratic Party these days. But what do these computer boys actually do to get paid better'n a dentist? At least with a dentist, he hands you the tooth he just pulled and you have something to show for what you paid him.

So I went down to that Google company to poke around a little bit and figger out what these gentlemen consider work. One fellow told me he "codes" all day. I felt a little better then, because I know a little something about encryption. The wife practices it on me every time she talks to one of her lady friends on the telephone inside my earshot. Next thing you know, I'm signed up to go to somebody's wedding.

These Google boys tell me that they've had a lot of success with what they call their "algorithm." The wife learned me about that too. So now every time I go to one of these weddings, I have to demonstrate mine out on the parquet floor. But mine don't net me $400 per share like theirs do.

I ain't one to criticize, mind you, but a sap who lays out $400 for one tiny piece of a company that don't produce nothing is on a collision course with what we call in Oklahoma a "life lesson." You just look at the price of Google stock and you wonder whether P.T. Barnum was being conservative regarding the birth rate of suckers.

Modern technology is a mighty fine game, but the problem with it is, as soon as you buy a fancy contraption, like one of these cellular telephones, you just know next week they'll make one that's cheaper and smaller. The way technology is headed, eventually that phone will cost a nickel, but you won't be able to see it.

I heard a speech last week by this fellow Bill Gates. You might know him as the comedian who started up a company that's famous for making windows that cause people to pull out their hair. Now that's what I call a real 21st Century rope trick. Any man who can sell like that ought to be in politics. Well, Bill said that pretty soon your computer and your lamp and your toaster will all talk to each other and your life will be as easy as pie. That gag got over pretty good with the crowd, but I ain't biting. I figure the day I see my toaster talk is the day I walk right down to the Capitol and ask them to reinstate prohibition.

I've been around the block enough times to know that folks pretty much get what's coming to 'em, though. If it's high technology they want, that's what us red-blooded capitalists will give 'em, until the next great fad comes around, like farming, or voting Libertarian. Speaking of which, the November elections is just around the corner, and Thanksgiving too. The first is almost enough to ruin your appetite for the second, but I guess we'll muddle through like always. Politicians talk a good game, but they're mostly harmless. The incumbents, anyway. They'll tell us all the great shakes they are that the other scoundrel ain't, and you can believe 'em too. About 10 percent worth. It's like anything else in life. Ten percent is about all you can get your rope around for sure. The rest is just a whole lot of applesauce.

mailto:george@georgewaters.net

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NSNC Will Rogers Writing Contest – 2nd place winner

Sick of Germs

By E. Mitchell

It seems you can’t open up the papers nowadays without reading about some new disease they discovered somewhere out there. Crazy kinder mysterious germs floating around that you never heard of before. You’d think doctors had nothing better to do than spend all their time thinking up ailments to scare folks with. Now if they would just spend a little more time coming up with the remedies, in particular, the kind where the cure ain’t worse than the condition.

In the meantime what expert advice do the docs give? Stay away from the germs. Where do the little pests live? I mean the germs, now, not the docs, and it turns out they just live in the food we eat and the air we breathe, that’s all. So stop eating and breathing and you’ll be fine.

Of course, these new germs have the darndest names. West Nile virus is one. You’d think we live in Egypt. How about a good old fashioned Middle-West Mississippi virus? Maybe if they would discover an American disease then we could treat it with chicken soup and leave the doctors out of it altogether.

Now, Lime tic disease is a new on me. Who knew limes could carry tics? I thought that was just for dogs. The next thing you know they’ll be telling us you can catch citrus from old Rover. It turns out man’s best friend is just a ticket to the hospital. Maybe the doctors ain’t making enough dough off the taxpayers so they’re hoping to get their hands on the rest of Mother Nature too.

Well, Mad Cow disease was a devilment. I don’t know who was madder, the cows or the folks who had to cancel their barbeques. I always figured cows were crazy anyhow, the way they stand around in the rain eating grass. Now that they got a special disease named after ‘em they’ll probably demand spinach.

Of course you can’t eat spinach anymore either without risking your life. Pretty soon they’ll be nothing left on the dinner table but the empty plates. They’ll probably find a way to make that dangerous too. China disease, they’ll call it.

Bird flu is raising quite a flap. I guess our feathered friends were jealous of all the press the cows and tics were getting and decided to stand up and be counted. They’re easier to count than the tics but just as dangerous.

Who thought the day would come when a fellow would be chicken of a chicken? Makes you feel like a dumb cluck. And with all the tasty new ways to get sick it’s hard to choose. Now you can get your disease served up Southern fried or oven roasted. I’ll have a helping of both with some mad cow and corn bread on the side.

If the chickens and cows don’t look out, pretty soon the pigs will be hollerin’ for some attention too. Old fashioned trichinosis won’t be good enough anymore and the doctors will discover something worse like bubonic hog jowls.

Funny how the fancy new diseases never showed up on the ark? I’ll bet poor Noah never dreamed he’d be sending us off to the hospital when he was rounding up those animals out of the rain. Now we’re the ones getting soaked, by the health insurance companies. With tainted meat and the high cost of health care, only rich folks can afford to eat steak these days – ten dollars for the steak, ten thousand for the hospital visit. That’s progress for you. If you ask me, if city slickers hadn’t muscled into the farming business we wouldn’t be in this mess.

In the good old days cows roamed the range, chickens scratched in the dirt and pigs rolled in mud. Nowadays you can’t tell a farm from a maximum security prison. In the old days animals lived in pens now they live in a penitentiary. All locked away behind bars with no possibility of parole. Even criminals get time off for good behavior but not those poor cows and chickens. No wonder they’re getting sick. Serves us right if we turn our backs on Mother Nature she’s bound to turn her back on us. I suppose it’s something we ought to take up with the politicians but those hams are already spending our money on pork.

maxshulman@aol.com

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NSNC Will Rogers Writing Contest – 3rd place winner

Happy Trails

By Marie Hawk

Sometimes the public needs a little honest information. Take this spinach deal that has hit the papers. Nasty bacteria on spinach leaves has made some folks pretty miserable, and killed an elderly woman who some knew as Mother. This is a sorry state of affairs and calls for some investigation into the crops raised down on the farm, and a good conversation between farm and city folk.

These ecoli bacteria and other miscellaneous threats to health didn’t start with spinach. Well, no, back up and start earlier. You could start with the undercooked hamburger deal that was in the papers awhile back Or you could go a lot further back, and start with the Jurassic age. The food chain has always a dangerous place.

The experts are onto the recent problems with the food chain, and thankfully they are, because the bald truth is that farm crops can kill you quicker than you can holler uncle, and no-one knows this better than a farmer.

The cow and this e-coli are a case in point. Cows are plumb dangerous. Just try to steal a newborn calf from mother long enough to give it measles shot, a polio booster and an ecoli test. Actually, it’s not measles and polio, but who can spell humoufolous, and the scours or pneumonia. You’d be lucky if you came within a mile of the pair to sing them to sleep with a guitar rendition of Happy Trails with a syringe in your hand. Mama cow knows how to make a cowboy do the overhand on the barn rafters fast enough to pass Marine Corps basic training without having to swim.

The most dangerous thing you can do around cows is to bring a dog along. In theory, a cowdog does the work, and the cowman is along for the ride. Actually, when a cow charges the dog, the dog is already headed straight for the cowboy. The average cowboy or farmer doesn’t want to admit it, but there are a million and one ways to die on the ranch and the farm, without eating spinach.

What does this have to do with plant crops? Nobody shopping in the bread aisle in the supermarket knows it, but there is bravery in bread. Combine jockeys are the unsung heroes and heroines of our nation. They reap wheat on pretty steep side hills along the edges of deep coulees. It is a dangerous job. Farmers, fishermen and delivery men are three out of the top ten most dangerous occupations in our country. And what about spinach? Just don’t order a spinach pizza with anchovies. You will put the fisherman, the farmer and the pizza delivery guy in more peril than you can imagine. Join the farmer in a chorus of Happy Trails, while you raise your own dinner in your own back yard. Have fun driving the tractor, but try not to roll it.

aka_MarieHawk@hotmail.com

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		. NSNC Will Rogers Writing Contest Winners



		NSNC Will Rogers Writing Contest – First Place Winner A 21st Century Rope Trick By George Waters I read in the papers where they have jobs now in what they call the "technology sector," where a fellow can sit at a desk all day, not do anything that any reasonable workingman would call "work," and get paid top dollar for it. Kinder like a Congressman. What I want to know is what these technology birds do at that desk all day, so I can do it too. I got one of 'em to show me his computer gadget, which he acted mighty proud of, like he'd just hatched it himself. These computers just seem a lot like typewriters to me, but with all the soul siphoned out, sort of like the Democratic Party these days. But what do these computer boys actually do to get paid better'n a dentist? At least with a dentist, he hands you the tooth he just pulled and you have something to show for what you paid him. So I went down to that Google company to poke around a little bit and figger out what these gentlemen consider work. One fellow told me he "codes" all day. I felt a little better then, because I know a little something about encryption. The wife practices it on me every time she talks to one of her lady friends on the telephone inside my earshot. Next thing you know, I'm signed up to go to somebody's wedding. These Google boys tell me that they've had a lot of success with what they call their "algorithm." The wife learned me about that too. So now every time I go to one of these weddings, I have to demonstrate mine out on the parquet floor. But mine don't net me $400 per share like theirs do. I ain't one to criticize, mind you, but a sap who lays out $400 for one tiny piece of a company that don't produce nothing is on a collision course with what we call in Oklahoma a "life lesson." You just look at the price of Google stock and you wonder whether P.T. Barnum was being conservative regarding the birth rate of suckers. Modern technology is a mighty fine game, but the problem with it is, as soon as you buy a fancy contraption, like one of these cellular telephones, you just know next week they'll make one that's cheaper and smaller. The way technology is headed, eventually that phone will cost a nickel, but you won't be able to see it. I heard a speech last week by this fellow Bill Gates. You might know him as the comedian who started up a company that's famous for making windows that cause people to pull out their hair. Now that's what I call a real 21st Century rope trick. Any man who can sell like that ought to be in politics. Well, Bill said that pretty soon your computer and your lamp and your toaster will all talk to each other and your life will be as easy as pie. That gag got over pretty good with the crowd, but I ain't biting. I figure the day I see my toaster talk is the day I walk right down to the Capitol and ask them to reinstate prohibition. I've been around the block enough times to know that folks pretty much get what's coming to 'em, though. If it's high technology they want, that's what us red-blooded capitalists will give 'em, until the next great fad comes around, like farming, or voting Libertarian. Speaking of which, the November elections is just around the corner, and Thanksgiving too. The first is almost enough to ruin your appetite for the second, but I guess we'll muddle through like always. Politicians talk a good game, but they're mostly harmless. The incumbents, anyway. They'll tell us all the great shakes they are that the other scoundrel ain't, and you can believe 'em too. About 10 percent worth. It's like anything else in life. Ten percent is about all you can get your rope around for sure. The rest is just a whole lot of applesauce. mailto:george@georgewaters.net ##### NSNC Will Rogers Writing Contest – 2nd place winner Sick of Germs By E. Mitchell It seems you can’t open up the papers nowadays without reading about some new disease they discovered somewhere out there. Crazy kinder mysterious germs floating around that you never heard of before. You’d think doctors had nothing better to do than spend all their time thinking up ailments to scare folks with. Now if they would just spend a little more time coming up with the remedies, in particular, the kind where the cure ain’t worse than the condition. In the meantime what expert advice do the docs give? Stay away from the germs. Where do the little pests live? I mean the germs, now, not the docs, and it turns out they just live in the food we eat and the air we breathe, that’s all. So stop eating and breathing and you’ll be fine. Of course, these new germs have the darndest names. West Nile virus is one. You’d think we live in Egypt. How about a good old fashioned Middle-West Mississippi virus? Maybe if they would discover an American disease then we could treat it with chicken soup and leave the doctors out of it altogether. Now, Lime tic disease is a new on me. Who knew limes could carry tics? I thought that was just for dogs. The next thing you know they’ll be telling us you can catch citrus from old Rover. It turns out man’s best friend is just a ticket to the hospital. Maybe the doctors ain’t making enough dough off the taxpayers so they’re hoping to get their hands on the rest of Mother Nature too. Well, Mad Cow disease was a devilment. I don’t know who was madder, the cows or the folks who had to cancel their barbeques. I always figured cows were crazy anyhow, the way they stand around in the rain eating grass. Now that they got a special disease named after ‘em they’ll probably demand spinach. Of course you can’t eat spinach anymore either without risking your life. Pretty soon they’ll be nothing left on the dinner table but the empty plates. They’ll probably find a way to make that dangerous too. China disease, they’ll call it. Bird flu is raising quite a flap. I guess our feathered friends were jealous of all the press the cows and tics were getting and decided to stand up and be counted. They’re easier to count than the tics but just as dangerous. Who thought the day would come when a fellow would be chicken of a chicken? Makes you feel like a dumb cluck. And with all the tasty new ways to get sick it’s hard to choose. Now you can get your disease served up Southern fried or oven roasted. I’ll have a helping of both with some mad cow and corn bread on the side. If the chickens and cows don’t look out, pretty soon the pigs will be hollerin’ for some attention too. Old fashioned trichinosis won’t be good enough anymore and the doctors will discover something worse like bubonic hog jowls. Funny how the fancy new diseases never showed up on the ark? I’ll bet poor Noah never dreamed he’d be sending us off to the hospital when he was rounding up those animals out of the rain. Now we’re the ones getting soaked, by the health insurance companies. With tainted meat and the high cost of health care, only rich folks can afford to eat steak these days – ten dollars for the steak, ten thousand for the hospital visit. That’s progress for you. If you ask me, if city slickers hadn’t muscled into the farming business we wouldn’t be in this mess. In the good old days cows roamed the range, chickens scratched in the dirt and pigs rolled in mud. Nowadays you can’t tell a farm from a maximum security prison. In the old days animals lived in pens now they live in a penitentiary. All locked away behind bars with no possibility of parole. Even criminals get time off for good behavior but not those poor cows and chickens. No wonder they’re getting sick. Serves us right if we turn our backs on Mother Nature she’s bound to turn her back on us. I suppose it’s something we ought to take up with the politicians but those hams are already spending our money on pork. maxshulman@aol.com ##### NSNC Will Rogers Writing Contest – 3rd place winner Happy Trails By Marie Hawk Sometimes the public needs a little honest information. Take this spinach deal that has hit the papers. Nasty bacteria on spinach leaves has made some folks pretty miserable, and killed an elderly woman who some knew as Mother. This is a sorry state of affairs and calls for some investigation into the crops raised down on the farm, and a good conversation between farm and city folk. These ecoli bacteria and other miscellaneous threats to health didn’t start with spinach. Well, no, back up and start earlier. You could start with the undercooked hamburger deal that was in the papers awhile back Or you could go a lot further back, and start with the Jurassic age. The food chain has always a dangerous place. The experts are onto the recent problems with the food chain, and thankfully they are, because the bald truth is that farm crops can kill you quicker than you can holler uncle, and no-one knows this better than a farmer. The cow and this e-coli are a case in point. Cows are plumb dangerous. Just try to steal a newborn calf from mother long enough to give it measles shot, a polio booster and an ecoli test. Actually, it’s not measles and polio, but who can spell humoufolous, and the scours or pneumonia. You’d be lucky if you came within a mile of the pair to sing them to sleep with a guitar rendition of Happy Trails with a syringe in your hand. Mama cow knows how to make a cowboy do the overhand on the barn rafters fast enough to pass Marine Corps basic training without having to swim. The most dangerous thing you can do around cows is to bring a dog along. In theory, a cowdog does the work, and the cowman is along for the ride. Actually, when a cow charges the dog, the dog is already headed straight for the cowboy. The average cowboy or farmer doesn’t want to admit it, but there are a million and one ways to die on the ranch and the farm, without eating spinach. What does this have to do with plant crops? Nobody shopping in the bread aisle in the supermarket knows it, but there is bravery in bread. Combine jockeys are the unsung heroes and heroines of our nation. They reap wheat on pretty steep side hills along the edges of deep coulees. It is a dangerous job. Farmers, fishermen and delivery men are three out of the top ten most dangerous occupations in our country. And what about spinach? Just don’t order a spinach pizza with anchovies. You will put the fisherman, the farmer and the pizza delivery guy in more peril than you can imagine. Join the farmer in a chorus of Happy Trails, while you raise your own dinner in your own back yard. Have fun driving the tractor, but try not to roll it. aka_MarieHawk@hotmail.com #####



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