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Welcome to the Watering Trough Home
for the Hopelessly Silly
Little Dalton Roberts Cruise Director
(Caretaker)
Rev. Dalton beseeches you to enjoy life and not
take it too seriously.
Baby Dalton in the Kiddie Kare Nursery
When all else fails, turn to Marriage Counselor
Dalton
Ole
Rubber Face never saw a microphone he didn't love.
MY
POSSUM PEACE PLAN
by
Dalton Roberts
It
had to happen. In this age of unbridled violence with nuclear bombs
pointing toward every place on the planet where two or more are gathered
together, someone just had to come up with the perfect way to end human
killing and bring peace to humankind. I just never thought it would be
me.
So many great men and women have tried – some whose shadows I would be
ashamed to stand in. Gandhi, Bunche, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa,
the Dalai Lama, St. Juicy, Grandfather Fluke -- too many to list. Yet,
the surprising, simple truth is that I have come up with the perfect
plan to bring peace to Earth.
I am humble as hell about it and take no credit. It was given to me -- a
"eureka" that came one day as I contemplated the hidden beauty
of the under-appreciated possum.
The plan is not complicated. It requires only two commitments from world
leaders. It will not only stop wars and homicides in a short while, it
will stimulate the planetary economy, improve muscle tone among the
people and speed up weight loss.
Who would have thought the lowly possum, one of the oldest and least
esteemed life forms on Earth, would end up saving us from a horrible
end?
Anthropologists say the possum was one of the few animals to survive the
awful catastrophe that destroyed all the dinosaurs except Strom
Thurmond.
Best they can figure it, a huge terrestrial body collided with Earth,
making a cloud of dust that closed off the sun for weeks, sloshed the
oceans over the land and wiped out all the green stuff.
In case you question the scientists or just can't picture this
happening, imagine an ant sitting on a tennis ball traveling 570,000
miles an hour crashing into a basketball going even faster. The
dinosaur's who weren't slammed to death against trees and rocks died of
starvation or were hurled out beyond Earth's gravitational field and are
still zooming through space mumbling, "Somebody put something in my
drink!"
Think about it: the possum survived that mind-boggling event! He just
kept turning over garbage cans, eating coffee grounds and potato peels,
and stayed
fat during and after the worst cataclysm this Turkey Farm has ever
experienced.
As a small lad roaming primitive downtown Watering Trough with other
juvenile delinquents like Bowser Belvin, Goose and Little Britches
Adams, Clem Sliger, and Zeke Porter, we often carried a case
of Oertel's 92 Beer (the only kind we could afford) down to Sterchi's
pasture, iced it down, and listened to the dogs chase possums. Once they
had one treed, we'd go try to shake it out. No way. Someone would
finally have to climb the tree and twist him loose. Nothing matches the
possum's tenacity.
Most of this has little to do with the Inter-planetary Possum Peace
Plan.
It's just an effort to instill in you a little more respect for this
primaeval creature that has stood up to everything the Universe can
throw at a species. It's been here millions of years more than homo
sapiens erectus will ever see.
Point one of the Possum Peace Plan is to get a UN commitment that every
nation lay down arms of all kinds and use nothing but wet possums to
attack other persons or nations or to defend themselves or their
territories. The
NRA will become the NPA, lobbying all over the world for people's right
to
carry as many possums as they can feed. Possum breeders will come up
with
longer snouts and more teeth -- higher caliber assault possums. Pick-up
trucks will no longer have gun racks. Possum cages will be standard
equipment.
Let's face it friends. It's much too easy to shoot someone or drop a
missile down their chimney with a computer. People are inherently
lazy. They are
killing each other off simply because it is so easy. Force them to go
get a possum and dip it in a tank of water before they beat someone to
death and the prospects for peace brighten dramatically. We're looking
at a new planetary paradigm.
Yes, there will still be some killings. Even a few wars. The Middle East
will
be a major possum market for a while. Sitting here thinking back over my
troubled life, I can think of a few people I might possum to death. But
I know how severely lazy I am and how much I hate strenuous physical
activity. By the time I uncaged a possum, avoided his efforts to
curl around my arm and sink his little razor-sharp teeth into my tender
flesh, the hate would dissipate. Even the Serbs, Albanians, Hutus and
Tutsis will get sick of it.
Point two is that every person who whacks a wet possum to death in
battle or any homicide, has to cook and eat it. If you've ever
eaten one, you know it
will not take long for this policy to eliminate violence.
When I was a lad, I was visiting the home of a neighborhood widower
whose two sons were Oertel-sucking buddies. Entering the domicile, my
nares revolted on an aroma I had never come across. A possum was cooking
on the kitchen woodstove and there was at least a solid inch of grease
gurgling atop the possum and sweet potatoes.
As lack of luck would have it, it was one of the few times he ever
invited me to join them for dinner. I mixed large globs of sweet
potatoes with tiny pieces of possum meat in an effort to get through
this earthly trial. It went fairly well until the sweet potatoes petered
out.
A few years ago I underwent a year of psychiatric counseling over being
whacked in the heart with a wet possum, romantically and
financially
speaking. Toward the end of it I asked the kind doctor if he could
do anything to help me get over the memory of eating that possum in my
tender teens and he said, "Freud postulated that the memory of the
taste of possum was more intractable than being thrice-dipped in a
boiling cauldron of used motor oil." I got over the woman but the
possum is still hanging on the nipple of my brain stem.
Let's look at the promised economic benefits. Possum farming will be the
hottest ticket around. Just to handle all the people on Death Row will
keep 'em humming. Possum farms will become mega-conglomerate
international corporations and possum stock will spiral in value as long
as the violence
continues.
Think of the number of water-boys it will require to service the front
lines in a full-scale war. . Unemployment will be unknown for even the
least skilled can dip a possum (if they are quick). Behind the lines,
chefs will be cooking the possums who have given their all for their
country. The demand for huge military mess hall cooking pots will keep
Wearever on three shifts a day. Pepto Bismol will be sold in five gallon
cans. Get you some stock now.
"But what about the suffering of the poor possums?" you may be
thinking.
Hopefully, we can agree it is better they suffer than the crown jewel of
creation, this advanced being and cute little thing said to be
"just a little lower than the angels" (now doesn't that make
you worry about angels?).
Yes, friends, I care about possums but the Possum Peace Plan is
predicated on
the conviction that possum suffering will not last long. The perfection
of the plan is the way it will sicken everyone with violence. Guns and
bombs are cold and impersonal killing tools but a wet possum in your
hand, smashing repeatedly into an enemy, cannot be depersonalized.
If this plan does nothing else, it will cause people to care about the
feelings of possums for the first time in human history. The Human
Society has never, ever raised hell over anything anyone has ever done
to a possum. As our roadways show, no one brakes for a possum.
No organization turns backflips over men, women and children being
slaughtered by guns and bombs. Wars are kept surgically clean in news
accounts, much like a TV commentator would describe a gall bladder
operation.
But when people see hundreds of thousands of dead possums stacked up
waiting to be thrown in boiling pots half full of sweet potatoes, the
Humane Society will shift into overdrive. Little sterling silver possums
will show up on
lapels and dangling from ribbons wrapped around trees. Billboards will
scream, "STOP THE KILLING NOW!"
Violence will become too much hard work, too much trouble, too hard on
the
palate, too time-consuming. In a word, too much hassle.
In case I am under-estimating the inherent violence of the human animal,
you can still bet your "save the whale" pins on the animal
rights groups. Have no doubt, they'll stop the possum killing. The
animal kingdom status that's always eluded the possum, will become a
wondrous reality.
When all the peace treaties are signed, for the first time since Earth
came spinning out of the Big Bang, it will be pretty nice to be a
possum.
The
Day I Preached at Falwell's College
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Another side of Dalton Roberts--in retirement.
The Ringer and
the Dogs
If you don't enjoy this page, you
will be sent a hex COD.
Dalton, the friendly brother of the Wicked Witch of
the West
Go outdoors and don't hug a tree--be one.
Result of Cell and Hormone Therapy. (Confession:
Dalton in high school)
The Great Swami Dalton sees nothing, knows all.
Bird Man of Watering Trough
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Editor's note: Any viewer not at least smiling
after viewing this page is entitled to a free copy of Joe Miller's Joke
Book--if we can find one and it doesn't cost anything.
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