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Grandpa Waller always
said it was a good idea to know something about where
you're going before you get there, otherwise you might
drive right on by and miss it.
Grandpa's bilious
bromides were the main reason no one looked too hard
when he rolled off into the night in his wheelchair
during a Fat Tuesday visit to New Orleans in 1958. However,
in his blessed wandering memory, this is where you get
on...
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They
would have felt right at home in Poco Cabesa.
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Trying to understand
this unusual speck of rock in a lonely sea is a bit
like walking in after the first fifteen minutes of a
new "Star Wars" film with a super jumbo bucket
of popcorn in one hand and half a quart of watery soda
in the other -- figuring out what you missed so far
is no problem, but finding a seat is going to be an
adventure.
For all its glories
and follies and flaws, its flora, fauna and foolishness,
Poco Cabesa is a magical island where space and time
have little meaning and receive absolutely no respect.
A place of contrasts, contradictions, and general confusion,
it is also a place of grace and honor... you just have
to look real hard.
So, your humble correspondent
will keep it simple for now.
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(Above)
Panoramic view of Klinkleburg, circa 1891
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| Somewhere
on the tropical fringes of the great Caribbean Basin lies
the island of Poco Cabesa and the town of Joetown, home
to a few hundred locals and a President-for-Life named
Comrade Joe the Only.
On the northwest
portion of the island is the paradisaical kingdom of
Medillo Grande,
where an air-sea charter service called "Following
the Equator Air & Sea" ekes out a bare existence.
Well, actually, it just ekes.
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"It's
in the shop again??"
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That's because
FTEA&S is little more than a dilapidated Catalina
PBY Flying Boat owned by a cantankerous
crustacean (if there ever was one) named Mad
Jack Waller. Its sole crew-member is a screwball
savant Bengali wrench-wrangler named Babala
Prince Albert Holmes.
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In the greater
scheme of things, "hanging on by its fingernails"
describes its current socio-economic status.
And the latest
President-for-Life? He's just a younger, hungrier,
more capitalistic sequel to his President-for-Life
uncle, who's now the island's
second-most celebrated recluse. And the locals,
well...
But, I am getting
ahead of Hank Campbell's
story. Or maybe you have already been there and
I am behind. In any case, you have been forewarned...
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We
despise all reverences and all objects of reverence
which are outside the pale of our list of sacred
things. And yet, with strange inconsistency, we
are shocked when other people despise and defile
the things which are holy to us.
-- Mr. Twain |
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