A letter from my Cousin

Dear Cousin Red,

I just thought I’d drop a line to let y’all know how things are here in Gunkel Holler. Y’all probably remember that the Holler is a small place. Well, okay, it’s a really small place. But just ‘cause we have our “You are now entering”, and the “You are now leaving” signs one above the other on the same pole doesn’t mean there ain’t smaller places.

And we have our excitement; just last year we had a small circus come through. Well, all it really was was two fellers and an albino goat, but they called it a circus. And three years ago we repainted the barbershop, and got to watch haircuts and paint dry for the same quarter! It seemed like a big deal at the time, but lookin’ back it may have just been the fumes.

We do our level best to stay up with the times. The town council bought a traffic light ‘bout 2 years ago, but we canceled the order when our entire police force pointed out that we didn’t have any cross streets. You probably remember that our entire police force holds their meetings in the front seat of the patrol car. Well, actually it’s not a car as such, but an old three-speed bike with a siren on the front, but we call it a patrol car. We are plannin’ on getting’ a patrol car any time now, just as soon as the chief gets his driver’s license back. (He swears he didn’t know that them parking tickets from the Big City were bad news, he thought they gave him permission to park, you know, like a ticket to a ball game.)

Y’all probably remember that we have our own school system, including a high school. My eldest boy is proudly the class of 2008; not a member of the class, but the whole thing. Since he graduated as class dictator (or somethin’ like that) he had offers from places like Harvard and Yale. He took the job in Harvard. The guy at Yale wouldn’t let him drive the tractor.

Anyway, the reason I took pen in hand is ‘cause I got a new job. I’m now officially the Gunkel Holler Water Commissioner. It’s not much of a job, but it’s the only one my uncle, the Mayor, had left. He made my brother the dogcatcher. He always did like my brother best.

Best wishes from all of us in the Holler,

Throckmorton Q. Sheisseschnitter