Frugality

My father’s father was a farmer and a frugal man. One year it got so hot that his corn started popping off the stalks right out in the field. They popped with such force that the kernels blasted holes into the sugar cane crop in the next field. His sugar cane then started to leak sap at a steady pace. He was in a quandary. Crows were feasting on the corn, but in the time it would take him to gather up the corn, his cane field would become a mass of syrup. Which crop should he save? He couldn't afford to lose either one.

He solved his problem by sweeping all the popped corn into the cane field and then rolling the corn in the syrup. It gradually formed a sphere the size of a barn. Folks came from miles around to gawk at the giant popcorn ball, and he began to charge a fee for samples. He finally sold the thing to a circus sideshow for twice what the separate crops would normally bring.

From this he taught us two valuable lessons:

• Never overlook the possibilities for any product, and
• Never walk through a corn field on a very hot day without some kind of head protection.

(Some of my family call my grandfather “granddad”, but to me he’ll always be “grandpop.”)

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Chased by Indians

I was chased by Indians once, and found another use for Wizard Water^©. I discovered that I could use it to dilute my shadow to such a degree that it turned into a thick fog. The fog slowed my pursuers down for a while and I almost escaped. They were persistent though, so I tried to fool them by running backwards. That didn’t do the trick, and in desperation I finally started picking up my tracks as I went. The tracks got heavy though -- as you might imagine -- so I dumped them in the first creek I came across. My footprints washed up all along the shore for several miles downstream. This threw them off the trail and I got away.

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Thoughts on Economics

One way to save tax money – fire Congress. There’s three-quarters of the government budget right there. We have enough laws as it is.

For instance, there is a national law that prohibits the printing of money by any agency other than the federal treasury. Now what kind of law is that? If every man could print his own money, there would be no poor people. Everyone would be a millionaire.

Another ridiculous law – individuals cannot make their own treaties with other nations! If you should want to export Wizard Water^© to Moose Jaw, Canada, for example, and drew up a document exempting your elixir from United States export tariffs on medicine, the federal border patrol agent who inspected your elixir would not recognize your treaty. He would charge you the full export tax, AND fine you for impersonating a government treaty-making agency! This is a serious impediment to international trade.

Another law we can do without -- the federal tax on alcohol. Proponents of the temperance movement believe this discourages drinking. In fact, some members of Congress have the dangerous idea that all forms of liquor should be outlawed. This will never pass, however, because without beer and whiskey, how can you influence votes? The people of Moose Jaw, I might add, entertain no such impractical notions.

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If we can’t do away with Congress entirely, it should only meet every ten years, just to make sure we don’t need any more laws like the ones I’ve mentioned. Or they should only meet during the hottest months. This would encourage our representatives to deal with the most important issues, like reelection, and then quickly adjourn.

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If I was in Congress, I would only concern myself with one issue: the gold standard versus the silver standard. There are good arguments on both sides, but our lawmakers cannot reach agreement.

To break the deadlock, I propose that neither gold nor silver be used. Instead, the national treasury should back our currency with Wizard Water^©. Like gold and silver, it has practical applications apart from that of currency. What’s more – and what can’t be said of those so-called precious metals – Wizard Water^© improves the health and well-being of its owners without delay. You must take gold or silver to a doctor to pay for his examination, then take more gold or silver to the pharmacist who fills out the doctor’s prescription. With Wizard Water^© you need neither doctor nor medicine, for you have both at hand in one bottle. This saves tremendously on travel and medical costs.

I am willing to help the nation establish a more sensible and economical monetary standard by providing the government with enough Wizard Water^© to replace the metals currently stored in the federal treasury. As a patriotic gesture, I will even replace them with Wizard Water^© myself. I will only do so, however, if there is no export duty on transporting gold to Moose Jaw.

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Words of Advice for the Fourth of July

It is a well known fact that here in the North Georgia mountains we celebrate our country’s founding with the blasting of a blacksmith’s anvil into the air – the higher the better. I have witnessed many an anvil shoot and so give the following advice:

It is not wise to drink beer or any other alcoholic beverage when loading gunpowder into the base of the anvil. Drinking more than one pint of beer, certainly if followed by more than a glass of whiskey, weakens one’s judgement and makes it easy to miscalculate the amount of powder required to elevate this heavy implement. Celebrating our much-valued freedom with a toast or two is appropriate, but do not join your friends in individually toasting every signer of the Declaration of Independence. Such patriotism can cause you to think that filling just the hollow base of the anvil with black powder and lighting a fuse could not possibly provide enough power to lift a 100-pound cast iron weight. You may be tempted to make certain that an impressive height is reached -- and proper tribute is paid to our Founding Fathers -- by instead setting the anvil on a 100-pound keg of powder partially buried in the ground. Do not give in to this temptation. If you do, do not plan to return the anvil.

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