Funny Country News from Hogspore Arkansas 12-2010

Here is the December 2010 News from Hogspore Arkansas brought to you by its leading citizen, Clet Litter:

12-01-2010

Ebben Flow’s brother out of Nashville has a new CD that come out the end of October. One of the hit tunes on Ober Flow’s album is called “This Year, I’ll be Eating Thanksgiving Dinner at the Waffle House.”

My wife, Punkin, is looking after the neighbor’s cat fer a couple of weeks. Mr. Whiskers only eats canned fancy fish and has to have cat treats every night. I’m coming back as a cat next time.

We been buying 6-ounce treats fer $4.00 fer this critter for 2 weeks and it looks like it’s gonna be another couple of weeks. I’m one of them guys what reads all the food labels and you won’t believe what’s in these treats: 

Brand name XXX, Salmon Flavor Treats. Crunchy outside, soft inside (This works for a lot of good stuff). The label has a cat holding a salmon in his mouth. The salmon’s got a look in his eye like things are about to get real bad. The cat coming out of the water is wearing a swimming mask and a snorkel. 

Here’s what the words on the back say to get you in the mood to buy kitty treats: “The ocean. Home to tens of thousands of species of tasty succulent fish. The most delectable among them, the salmon. Oh coral-fleshed foe, heed my lure! Come hither, fishy, fishy, fishy … swim to the kitty’s famished fangs (How come they didn’t say Feline’s instead of Kitty’s) Or rather, land me some XXX’s already!”

The ingredients are Chicken By-Product Meal, Ground Corn, Animal Fat, Dried Meat By-Products, Rice, Wheat, Natural Flavors, Brewers Yeast, Dried Yeast, Potassium Chloride, Choline Chloride, Salt, and finally some Salmon Meal. The rest of the list is 5 more lines of chemicals, and then Shrimp Meal. That Kitty Cat on the front of the bag, wearing a face mask and a snorkel, should a been in New Jersey wearing a white lab coat.

12-08-2010    

The city coffers are a might low this year. There ain’t enough money left for powering the city’s Christmas tree lights in the town rectangle. Junior Bickums loaned some solar power panels fer running the lights, but the traditional tree lights don’t have the same sort of seasonal excitement fer the Hogspore folks and their children, when the sun is still shining.

Morton Trubletoof suggested that the City run blinking lights on the tree. Most folks at the City Hall meeting felt like that wouldn’t save much money until Morton went ahead and finished his idea. “We’ll have the lights come on for 5 seconds and then turn em off for an hour … and repeat that all night long.”

A new drug store opened up near City Hall and it’s got one them old fashioned soda fountain counters. Larry Cohen’s son, Buff, just moved back with a full sized college degree in drug storing, including being able to fill prescriptions.

Larry and his wife, Mabelle, are helping Buff run the soda fountain till Buff can hire on some help. The first week they was open they didn’t sell many prescriptions but they shore sold a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches and hot dogs and ice cream sodas.

I was in there yesterday and all three of the Cohen’s was handling the crowd at the soda fountain. They don’t have the sign up yet for the store but when it gets put up, it’s gonna say “Three Cohen’s in a Fountain Drugstore.” 

12-15-2010    

My old dog Slump brought home a dead possum last week and left it in the barn for me. We been having so much company over fer visiting and suppers that I didn’t get a chance to bury the passed-on critter right off.

Well Morton Trubletoof come over fer supper last night and we cooked up some roast beef and mashed taters. Morton was out back playing with the dog whilst we was making up supper. He come in with a sack of something and said he was going to make the gravy fer the taters and we could go grab some couch time. It weren’t but bout 15 minutes and Morton calls out to say that everything was ready.

We sat down to a feast that looked like everybody round the table was fully employed and bringing home a paycheck every week. Nobody was counting the number of helpings we all had. At least if Punkin was counting, she was perlite enough not to say anything while we had company.

The gravy reminded me of something from my boyhood days when the family lived more off the land than we do now. Morton’s gravy-making expertise right well guaranteed that there weren’t a drop of gravy left in the gravy boat. I don’t remember who wiped the inside clean with that last biscuit.

I got up early this morning to catch up on my chores. First thing on my list was to get out to the barn to give that old dead possum a proper burying. You know I couldn’t find that possum this morning. I figure he might a been playing dead and ran off. He sure smelled like he were dead when Slump first dragged him home last week.  

The rest of today turned out right good enough. I kept burping up last night’s supper, but it just give me good memories. Fer certain, that sure was good gravy.  

12-22-2010    

The Widow Fenster has self-published another book. She dug up some new info on Leonardo Da Vinci’s private life and health. The story tells bout his lifelong battle with sinus and post nasal drip, finally leading to his death from Terminal Sniffle Syndrome. The Widow is calling her new book The Da Vinci Cold. 

Jerry, the town’s computer geek, has a new baby in the house. Jerry ain’t getting much sleep in the mornings. He’s hoping the baby won’t cry or poop until 8:30 AM, so the town’s computer geek is trying to find a way to wake the baby up in safe mode.            

Morton Trubletoof’s had a string of bad luck with his latest pet fad. He always wanted a gold fish but every time he brings one home, it dies. He told me, “I just don’t understand what’s going on. I brung home 12 guppies over the last month and nigh on everyone of em died just as soon as I got home. I’m gonna have to find another kind of pet to keep in my old hamster cage.”

Here’s Tony the Barber’s thought on success: “A feller is a true success when he finally stops bragging about it.”

The Methodist Church of Lower Hogspore has a live nativity scene every night. The Church has been trying to go green so the Star in the East is a 100 watt compact florescent bulb. The Baby is wrapped in a reusable canvas grocery bag.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday wishes are being sent from the residents of Hogspore to the fine folks of Mena Arkansas and beyond. Worship as you wish. Eat as much as you like but don’t fight with your kinfolk, cause they are really all you got.

12-29-2010    

Hogspore is celerbrating Michael Reisig’s birthday this Thursday December 30, 2010. Every year on his birthday we celerbrate Mena’s famous author. He lived here back in the 80’s whilst he was working on his writing. Even though he’s gone on to bigger things in Mena, we still celerbrate the time he was here, sorta like Key West celerbrates when that Hemmingway guy lived there.  

If you don’t know what to get Reisig fer his birthday, I know he needs a new pair of readers fer his eyes and a Paul Harvey Lumbar Support Pillow fer his office chair.

Hope you all had a right nice Christmas. Me and the Mrs. headed on over to Mother Litter’s house fer a Christmas family supper. There weren’t no arguing or family bickering, so when we got home I checked the calendar again to make sure it really was Christmas Day.  

Hogspore Cat Hospital always has a funny saying on their sign out front. Something like “Cats are Purrrfect Pets.” They finally run out of good ideas cause the one they had up last week said, “We wish you a Meowy CatMouse.”

The good people of Hogspore wish all you folks a Happy New Year. I got to take this space to thank Bob Simpson fer helping me all year with this here column. We talk once a week fer bout an hour. He sends me back the wrote-up news of what we talked about and it always looks good. 

It’s great to have such a smart feller helping me with the News every week. I hear he’s a right handsome guy too. His wife and family are lucky to have him.