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Boom Goes The Fireworks!
Once Upon A Time In A Town Named Jackson
Once upon a time there was a town named Jackson. All the animals lived together in peace and harmony there. Cows lived next to carnivores. Anteaters were neighbors with elephants. Dogs went to church with cats. It was a beautiful little town.
It had beautiful homes, beautiful parks, beautiful schools, and beautiful churches.
It was -- in a word -- beautiful.
It was so beautiful that the town's official slogan was "City of Beautiful Homes, Parks, Schools and Churches."
But something was amiss in Jackson and Larry the Lion could sense it. Larry had lived in Jackson all his life and he cherished his town's beauty.
But Larry could tell that Jackson was not quite as beautiful as it could be.
One day Larry the Lion decided that fireworks of any kind marred the beauty of his beautiful town. Selling them. Shooting them. It didn't matter to Larry. Their existence spoiled the peace and tranquility of his beautiful city.
So Larry decided to do something about the fireworks.
Larry the Lion was on the Board of Alderanimals for Jackson. The Board made the rules for the whole city and all the other animals who lived there had to abide by their decisions. It was the law.
So towards the end of the next meeting of the Board of Alderanimals, Larry the Lion called for a vote to ban fireworks.
His vote passed by a narrow majority.
Alderanimal Larry the Lion puffed up his chest and roared at his success. Jackson would be a little bit more beautiful thanks to his proposal.
Larry the Lion was very proud of his accomplishment. He went home that night and thought about what other things were staining the beauty of his beautiful town.
Larry the Lion thought and thought and he started a list of other things the Alderanimals could ban to make Jackson even more beautiful.
Beer, wine and tobacco products topped that list. Any vices don't go well with beautiful churches. And no one likes to see a drunk animal at the park, especially not at parks as beautiful as the ones in Jackson. And smokers were always flicking their butts out at intersections trashing up the city's beautiful roads. No, these vices all had to go.
He then thought about fast food restaurants. Most of the fare from those places can clog your arteries and make you fat. Fat animals didn't fit into Larry the Lion's vision of a beautiful Jackson.
Plus those fast food places all had garish signs. They weren't beautiful at all. They too were added to his list.
He then remembered all the traffic his town has on the weekends. Most of it wasn't from animals going to the beautiful churches or the beautiful parks or to other animal's beautiful homes.
They were going to businesses.
Businesses aren't very beautiful, Larry the Lion mused. They weren't part of his town's slogan. And they bring all this traffic and noise to the city on the weekend. Businesses were not welcome, Larry decided.
And at the next meeting of the Board of Alderanimals, Larry the Lion made his case for banning all these things. Larry was very persuasive. The other Alderanimals agreed and the ordinance was written.
When the other animals in town heard what Alderanimal Larry the Lion had done, they became enraged. The anteaters were angry, the elephants were incensed and the Angus practically had a cow! How dare Larry the Lion stomp on their freedom!
The animals of the town formed a lynch mob and went looking for Larry.
It was a very beautiful lynch mob.
However, Larry was a Lion so he could run a lot faster than most of the mob.
As soon as he heard about them, he ran towards the neighboring city. Cape, it was called. It wasn't as beautiful as Jackson, but when you have a lynch mob on your tail, you take what you can get.
Larry made it to the highway that formed the boundary between Jackson and Cape. He paused for a second, out of breath from sprinting.
And that's when a south-bound semi with a trailer full of fireworks going to Boomland in Benton hit poor Larry the Lion, killing him instantly.
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