Christmas Stories You Won't Hear on the News: Coal

We always hear about Santa and presents. Seldom do we hear about Santa and coal, other than as a threat. But what is the reality?

Once upon a time there was a boy in Tumbleweed, New Mexico who was so bad that Santa filled his house with coal. But that wasn't enough. Santa called in an air strike and millions of tons of coal were delivered to this tiny town in the desert.

Shortly after Santa left sparks from the fireplace set it on fire and the house burned down. Winds fanned the flames, and the mountains of coal covering thousands of acres burned as well. (Thankfully the rest of the town was out of town.) Due to some unknown element in this type of coal (which doesn't add to the carbon footprint) the ash was white as snow. The area is now known as White Sands National Monument. If you visit, just remember that mixed in with all the coal ash are the ashes of a house and a particularly naughty little boy.

 

Meanwhile, half way round the top half of the planet and much farther north, there's a very poor, very, very cold town. It's so poor and so cold that hundreds of years ago desperate townspeople, tired of burning their Christmas presents to stay warm, started plotting to be naughty just to get coal. When Santa's elves told him, Santa made a special deal with the people of this forlorn Siberian outpost. If they behave they get coal. If they misbehave they get toys that won't burn. They go through as much coal in a year as Tumbleweed went through in one night, but they're not a tourist attraction, and they're still here- asleep in warm beds.

The Munsters vs the Addams Family W4F Grudge Rematch

Back when the web was very younge, one of the better entertainment sites was the WWWF (World Wide Web Fights) Grudge match site. At least, if you were a fan of MAD Magazine style entertainment. Tom Stewart and I submitted a couple of entries, but we never got amy traction. Sadly, we lost the other[s] in an email catastrophe too painful to remember; only this one survives. I think Tom contributed to this one mainly via editorial help, but I'm not 100% sure.

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This is the never-before released transcript of the World Wide Web Wrestling Foundation Grudge Rematch between the Munsters and the Addams Family.

Transcript Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 11:45 CST

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Dawson, madly in lust with both Marilyn and Morticia, is too distracted to explain the rules properly. After botching them he attempts to correct himself but Gomez explains that a witnessed oral contract is legally binding. Dawson, sweating from hormones as well as the producer's voice yelling in his earphone, starts to argue but Lurch's grumble (which destroys two TV cameras in the aftershock) hushes him. The game begins with each pair of contestants answering both questions in a short time limit, and buzzers used only to startle Dawson out of his stupor when he stares too hard at the women and loses himself in fantasy.

1) Name something you find in your closet.
Morticia:	a rapidly-breeding nest of Pythagorean cobras
Lily:	Grandpa, hanging from the clothes rod
Dawson:	Round 1 to Morticia, since it's passably close to the number one audience answer - a nest of rapidly breeding clothes hangers.
2) Name something you eat for breakfast.
Fester:	a heaping bowl of chocolate-covered fried spiders!
Grandpa:	[staring at Fester's neck] a quart of A negative!
Dawson:	Round two to Fester since his answer is close enough to the average breakfast cereal as makes no difference.
[The Munsters look nervous, but continue smiling. Gomez pulls a ticker tape from his pocket and frowns.]
Director:	No smoking on the set! Put out that cigar!
Gomez:	[surprised] Of course! I had no idea! [grinds out cigar on hand]
3) What is that you're eating?
Marilyn:	a Mars Bar
Wednesday:	I'm not eating anything.
Dawson:	Sorry - that wasn't a game question.
Gomez:	Lurch?
Lurch:	Uuuuuuhhhhnnnnnhhhhhhhhhhh....
Morticia:	Look out!
[set collapses. When dust clears, everyone bruised but OK.]
Dawson:	OK, OK, it was a game question! What is that you're eating?
Marilyn:	Nothing. I lost my candy bar in the earthquake.
Wednesday:	[grabbing Marilyn's arm] A Girl Scout Cookie. [bites arm]
Marilyn:	Aaaahhhhh!
Morticia:	Wednesday, darling, no snacking between meals.
Wednesday:	[primly] Yes, mother. [drops arm]
Marilyn:	[plonk]
Dawson:	[rushes to Marilyn's side, begins giving mouth to mouth while Eddie expertly bandages Marilyn's arm]
Herman:	[slams Mil-spec buzzer button on loan from USAF] You stop that!
Dawson:	[leaps backwards, hits head on remains of set, collapses]
[brief interlude while Director screams, "Is there a game show host in the house?" A slender, grinning blonde woman steps forward.]
Vanna:	Round 3 to Marilyn, as most of the audience skipped breakfast in the excitement of getting to be on TV.
[commercial break]
Vanna:	Gomez may interpret for Cousin Itt in the next round.
Gomez:	Thank you, my dear. [kisses hand]
Director:	No smoking on the set! Put out that cigar!
Gomez:	[surprised]Of course! I had no idea! [grinds out cigar on forehead]
4) What is your favorite vowel?
Eddie:	F. I have a radio-controlled F-15 at home. Grandpa and I are building a life-size version next with real nuclear warhead-tipped missles!
Itt:	[typical, lovable Itt sounds]
Gomez:	That's amazing! Cousin Itt has one, too, and he and Puggsley are working on the same thing in one of our basements!
Vanna:	I need a vowel.
Itt:	[typical cute Itt noises]
Gomez:	Are you sure?
Director:	No smoking on the set! Put out that cigar!
Gomez:	[surprised] Of course! I had no idea! [grinds out cigar in ear]
Itt:	[typical cute Itt noises]
Gomez:	That's astounding! His favorite letter is also F!
Vanna:	Round 4 is a tie.
[Dawson wakes up, sees Marilyn and Morticia bending over him. Thinks he's died and gone to heaven. Grandpa walks over, looks thoughtful.]
Grandpa:	He looks a little puffy. I think a little blood-letting is in order.
Morticia:	That's just what he does need, dear.
[Morticia lifts an arm, Grandpa grins wolfishly, Marilyn pulls Girl Scout Machete out from under neck of sweater. Dawson faints again. Sounds of camera man retching, camera drifts off to point at ceiling.]
Vanna:	Looks like the Munsters need a win to tie, and a loss gives the whole alphabet to the Addams Family.
[Herman nervously grabs nearest pieces of set, begins twisting them unconsciously, creating sawdust pile at feet.]
5) Describe your favorite fantasy.
Herman:	A huh huh HUH HAH HAH HAH!!! [Blushes, begins twisting debris more furiously as ceiling crumbles and camera wavers.]
Gomez:	It's a perfect day. Stormy. Cold. A perfect beach - littered with fish parts, dead Portuguese Men-o-War, World War II mines... [Hands move dramatically. Gomez begins pacing, smoking furiously.] It's Christmas eve. [Band begins playing.] "Morti...cia roasting on an open fire... Sharks ... are nibbling my toes... War breaks out...in the Falklands again..."
Director:	Enough! And get rid of that cigar!
Gomez:	[surprised] Of course! I had no idea! [tosses cigar away]
Herman:	[turning a bizarre shade of reddish-green] I don't think I want to say. [sulks]
Vanna:	Then the Addams Family wins.
Lily:	Oh, go ahead, Herman.
Herman:	Are you sure, dear?
Lily:	Of course!
Herman:	[beginning to glow like a pile of Uranium gone critical] Well, it involves Vanna and Morticia, and a huge vat of...
Lily:	<gasp>
Herman:	of... [entire set has been reduced to huge pile of sawdust now waist-high on Herman. whose hands flap helplessly like huge industrial shredders (or maybe penguin wings)] of... cannibals!
Vanna:	Round 5 is awarded to Herman, as this exactly matches the responses of our mostly male audience. [Vanna White turns a deep shade of red, then flees, shrieking, with male audience chasing her, female audience evenly divided between angrily chasing the male audience and fighting Marilyn, Grandpa and Morticia for Richard Dawson.]
[Pat Sajak saunters on stage, grinning hugely. The glare of lights on his teeth sets various things on stage smouldering, including Gomez's discarded cigar.]
Pat:	Well, we need a tie-breaker. Let's have Thing and Spot up here. We'll ask a question, and whoever has an answer first hits the buzzer. Ready?
!) Name the most common disease in your family.
[Thing hits the buzzer. The set is quiet. Thing frantically begins hopping up and down.]
Pat:	We're waiting!
[Thing begins a pantomine.]
Gomez:	Many syllables - first word - sounds like... Paleontology? Pterodactyl? Peritonital? Pepto-Bismol(tm)?
Pat:	Sorry, time's up! Spot?
[Spot turns to a still dancing Thing, sneezes. Thing is enveloped in flame. Morticia screams. Seconds later, the flames die, and a skeletal hand appears, still hopping frantically. Gomez' cigar has started a fire in the sawdust at Herman's feet.]
Gomez:	Pascagoola? Portulacca? Pismo Beach? ...
Herman:	Aaaaahhhhh!!! [hops up and down,. scattering flaming sawdust. The studio shakes each time he lands.]
Pat:	And the studio answer? Bad breath! Spot was right! The Munsters win!
[Lurch growls. Herman starts laughing hysterically, still hopping. The combination proves to be too much for poor, old San Andreas. California rumbles into the Pacific, never to be seen again. Months later, however, divers off the new Arizona coast report strange, low-frequency rumbling and laughing noises underwater.]

 

Copyright 1995, 1997 Miles O'Neal, Austin, TX and Triple R Publishing 2014, Round Rock, TX. All rights reserved.

Tumbleweeds on my Mind

Regardless of the temperature it's technically winter. All over the western plains of Texas, tumbleweeds have dried up, put their travelin' shoes on, and hitchhiked with the breeze. In high winds the weeds stampede en masse; they make lemmings look like severely introverted loners.

I grew up on the northeastern edge of El Paso with nothing over our back wall but desert. The winter winds inevitably headed west and invariably left an interlocked tumbleweed ramp many feet deep against the cinder block wall running the length of the neighborhood. The first calm weekend day, Dad and a bunch of other neighborhood men would drive to the end of the neighborhood, head into the desert behind the mass of weeds, park the cars a ways off, and spread out along the line of tumbleweeds.

After stuffing a newspaper or two into some of the weeds, each man would hold a lighter or match ready. On signal, each would light their section of tumbleweeds. A spouse or child would be in each back yard with a hose and shovel, just in case. The flames would leap 10-20 feet in the air; the whole conflagration lasted maybe a minute. Fast and furious, that's how they burn.

As a kid, it was exciting, always over much too fast. I suspect for the adults, it lasted a lot longer. Who wants to be party to setting the desert on fire and maybe burning half of El Paso? But of there was a problem, I never knew about it. Five minutes later, the fine ash was cool enough to walk through. After the first light breeze, it was gone, spread across the city too thinly to notice. But it's burned deeply into my mind.

Last month Sharon and I finally took our long overdue, first Vacation Out West together. A small tumbleweed named Dusty stuck a thumb out as we pulled over for a photo shoot, and Sharon brought him home. He seems content to just hang out, with no trace of the usual wanderlust. So far I've avoided mentioning fire around him. He seems sensitive.

Notice Dusty's color. He's a chameleon, blending into the desert to avoid predators-- mainly off-road pickup trucks and disgruntled homeowners with fire. It doesn't always work, which I suspect is why he's happy to be an indoor recluse. A brown recluse, but we are not afraid.

Thanks to Annie Hoffman Fentz for sharing the video and asking the questions that inspired this.