The Grumpy Bachelor Starts a Newspaper (Part Duh)

(12/31/00)

LAKE VERNOR, Ohio --
      Everybody at the Grumpy Bachelor International Cartel and World-Wide Mega-Monopoly, Ltd. was very excited about starting the first daily newspaper ever in Lake Vernor, Ohio ("The Sleepiest Little Town North of the Rio Grande"). That is until Mack Murphy brought up the fact that none of us knew anything about running a newspaper, much less starting one.
     "Boss, we don't even got any pencils or paper," is the way Mack put it.
     " A minor detail, Mack. We can buy some pencils and paper. In fact, I'll even go so far as to buy pens." I was trying to be cheerful about it but I had some nagging doubts.
      "That stuff is a minor problem. At least we all know how to write, right?"
      Everybody looked at each other uneasily, then at me.
      "You know, take words and place them end to end in such a way that they mean something," I said, hoping to clarify things a bit.
      "Oh, I getcha Boss, You means we puts them words down on paper like what the way we talk. I unnerstand what ya means now. A-zackly!"
      I looked at Mack for a few seconds while my mind tried to translate what he said into English. Finally, I made sense of it, but it didn't really help.
      "Close enough, Mack," I said making a mental note of yet another bridge to cross.
      "Hey listen, Grumps. I got a radical idea." It was Blondie Westtham, Foot Editor. "Why don't we find somebody who knows something about a newspaper. It doesn't have to be much, 'cause I can see now that it isn't going to be much of a paper with this crew."
      "Well, IS there anybody here that has written anything?" I asked.
      Lois Playne, Life and Death Editor raised her hand. "I wrote an encyclopedia once. And to top it off I wrote a dictionary as a sidebar. Does that count?"
      "I should say it does! Do you still have the dictionary? We can use that as a do-it-yourself writing kit." I said.
      More blank looks.
      "Well, it has all the words you need. All you gotta do is assemble them!"
      Suddenly, the clouds parted from Cujo Mike's face.
      "I see now! It's easy. Just put them together like a model car! Hey Boss, it's a cinch! This paper will catch on like wild fire!"
      With those words everybody in the room ducked for cover. You see, Cujo is a reforemed pyro-maniac who still gets misty eyed whenever somebody lights a cigarette.
      "Come on out. I've got all the matches." I assured everybody. One-by- one, pairs of eyes peered out over the edge of the kitch ... uh ... conference room table. When they saw that everything was, so to speak, cool they all returned to their places.
      Now it was West Sandusky Fred's turn to add his 2 bits to the discussion.
      "Uhmph mumph fump," was what came out.
      "OK Fred, try it again but this time take your head out of your hands.
      "What I said," said Fred, "Was that we got the writing part licked, but a newspaper is a business. We still need somebody that knows how to run it on a day-to-day basis."
      What Fred said made sense, so it took a while for all of us to digest it. Finally, somebody broke out the mental floss and it sunk in.
      "Well," I said, "Does anybody here know somebody with that kind of experience?"
      Everybody shook their head and the rattling sound was deafening. We seemed to be back to square one when suddenly there was a knock at the kitch ... that is .. conference room door. Blondie yelled, "Come in dammit!"
      Slowly the door opened to reveal the figure who had opened the door. A hushed silence fell over the assemblage. In fact, Cujo was so overcome that he just fell over. Then the figure spoke.
      "My name is Aunt Ida and I'm an out of work newspaper publisher. Does anybody want to buy a hand-made quilt?"

NEXT WEEK: Well, that's just one more bridge to cross.