Beheading Witches

Hey Silverhorners, including those of you who are 'witches' (you know who you are) there is good news in the black magic business. The folks in charge of a little out of the way place in Europe, called Glarus, have figured out how to finally get their little town into the news. They have decided to issue a pardon to a witch who was beheaded some 200 years ago.

The alleged witch, Anna Goeldi, lost her head after she was blamed and convicted of being responsible for the death of a young girl. Outraged villagers, it's always outraged villagers who go after witches, tracked her down and put her to death in 1782 in what is now being described as an 'illegal trial' But all is forgiven now, at least as far as the villagers are concerned, I'm sure the witch is not in a forgiving mood even though the villagers are now heralding her as a symbolic figure, almost a heroine...can you spell toursim opportunity?

But it's not as simple as it may seem, apparently the local protestant church, a congregation who are usually a little less particular about such things, no wait, that's baptists...and the right wing Swiss People's Party, SPP are not in favor of making a star out of a witch.

However, it seems that a combined group of investigators, probably what we would call a "Cold Case" squad, teamed up with I'm betting some tourism consultants, and figured out that this was a wrong that needed to be righted. The poor dear witch, who was 48 when her head was whacked off, was apparently an illiterate housemaid, who may very well have confessed under duress...um...torture....But it's gonna be all made up to her because the government of Glarus has set aside about $100,000 to be used for a play in her honor and they already have the museum opened...I wonder what all would be in a museum about a witch who had her head cut off? I'm thinking an axe, a chopping block and a bucket, and that's pretty much all you need you've got a museum.

It's time these wrongs were righted, and the 100,000 people (mostly women) who were burned alive in Europe should all have their own museum. It was tough driving a broom in the 15th century, kind of like driving an SUV in this century....

The closest thing we ever have to a beheading here on Silverhorn Mountain usually occurs around Thanksgiving when we accuse, try and convict a few turkeys....and the punishment is tough, a beheaded, stuffed and then burned in an oven by my wife who seems to have it in for the turkeys...Perhaps I should ask the Silverhorn Mountain Municipal officials for some money to open a turkey museum. Might put us back on the tourist maps too!

The Dead Sea Scrolls Online

Hey Silverhorner's welcome back to The View From Silverhorn Mountain! It's a beautiful August day on top of old Silverhorn.

Well, better brush up on your Hebrew, because the moment you have all been waiting for is almost upon us. Yup, you guessed it, the Dead Sea Scrolls are going to be published online for us all to read....FINALLY!! I have been wanting to have a go at translating the scrolls since I first heard of them.

Now, these things are going to need special handling because they are supposed to be about 2000 years old...which I sure will make for enthralling reading. It's kind of like finding an old Simpsons-Sears Catalogue in the attic. There is something kind of fun about reading how much a bra and bloomers sold for 2000 years ago.

According to the article in The Globe and Mail, the first scrolls were discovered by accident in 1947 by a young Bedouin shepherd who was chasing a runaway sheep. It doesn't say why the sheep was running away, but I have my suspicions...the desert nights are long and lonely if you get my drift....

According to legend, and perhaps fact, they were buried in a cave in Qumran, just above the Dead Sea...oh..yeah...I get it now, that's why they call them the Dead Sea Scrolls....Well those Bedouin shepards are not dumb, they knew they were on to a good thing when archeologists started buying these old scroll and pieces of scrolls. It was like selling old skin magazines...and the archeologists had that same look on their faces as the people who buy old skin magazines.....

Experts have been reading and studying these scrolls since they were first discovered, but as far as I can tell, they haven't really figured out what they say. Sure there are lots of experts coming up with what they say they say but c'mon...how do we really know? I think that is why they are now putting them online for the rest of us to take a stab at figuring out what they say. It's been over 60 years since they started looking at these things...and still nothing world changing has come from them, it might be time to look for another line of work.

I dunno about you, but I'm thinking it could be just a bunch of old menus from the first seafood restaurant, which of course wouldn't have stayed in business very long, situated as it were, on the Dead Sea...

If you haven't got a computer, don't worry, I think the paperback will be out in the early fall....

Assisted Living Camping Trip

Hey Silverhorner's!
I have to apologize if tonight's post of The View From Silverhorn Mountain goes over your heads, but...

Frequent readers will recall the story of Old Davey, the resident of Old Fellar Hollow Assisted Living Facility here on Silverhorn Mountain. If you don't remember it, just read the post before this one. Old Davey sliced a part of his foot off when he got hold of a lawnmower.

Well, imagine my surprise when I came home Friday night and the wife announced that she had volunteered to take Old Davey and some of the other residents of the Old Fellar Hollow Assisted Living Facility on a camping trip...

"Camping trip !!! ???" I exclaimed!! and questioned?? at the same time...."Camping trip, with those old um...far...um..people? Besides, I hate camping, it always rains and there are flies and the bathrooms...man the bathrooms always smell...never been in a campground bathroom that didn't smell like the dump on compost bin day. I'm not going..."

"Yes, you are coming along too, it will do you good to see how these poor folks are, especially if you are going to make fun of them on your blog, besides that, I can't leave you home alone, you know what happened the last time. The dog has never been the same....

"The dog has neurotic tendencies, and besides I don't make fun of people on my b...."

She cut me off with one of those "Keep talking and I will shove the garden hose down your throat and turn it on" looks, and...having lived that experience once before, and internal cleansing though it might be... I don't want it again, so I shut up, but not before I asked, "So who's coming?"

"Well, lemmie see..." she said, smiling as she read the list of names. "There is Old Davey of course, he needs someone to help him walk around, make him tea, get him to the showers, and-"

"Hold up, that isn't going to be me!" I said, with as much indignation as I could muster. "Not Old Davey, he's kinda strange...I think he likes to play with rope."

"Well, maybe not old Davey, because if he likes to play with rope, you'll probably hang yourself, but there's others. What about, his girlfriend, Millie, she's nice."

"Yes, if you like geriatric music groupies...I heard she lifted her shirt and flashed The Eagles at a concert....nobody flashes the Eagles anymore...and besides, isn't she the one who set the entire north end of Silverhorn Mountain on fire a couple of years ago?"

"It wasn't that bad...." she countered, "Just a little campfire that got out of control."

"Campfire....? As I recall she set the living room of the Old Fellar Assisted Living Facility on fire."

"Well she's not that old, besides, but I doubt she would want you around her, not the way you sing..." she answered, adding, "But what about Nobbie?"

"What about Nobbie?" I asked, "Last I knew he was still trying to get his truck driving licence back from the DMV, they got pissed when he drove his dump truck through Tim Horton's drive through trying to get his very lovely but caffine addicted young wife a coffee..."

"What? The Silverhorn Tim Horton's doesn't have a drive through."

"Exactly." I countered, "It does now, and his wife Sharon, got her coffee."

"Yeah well I guess Old Nobbie is out too, I've heard he is quite the runner and if he got away you couldn't catch him, he's not quite right you know, prone to running away."

"I doubt anyone could, I've seen him run, like a gazelle, not quite as pretty to watch as a gazelle, not exactly graceful, but damm near as fast."

"Oh that was only one time, and only because a bunch of wild women were chasing him with a rope."

"Rope...? Wild Women....?" I asked, "Was Old Davey involved in some way?"

"You know, I don't think it would be a good idea for you to accompany us on this camping trip after all. There isn't anyone you could look after. Well, I mean I suppose there's Rhonda, but she is too...um...well...she has hormone troubles if you know what I mean...kind of...um...over sexed"

"Yes, yes, go on" I said, this sounded interesting, oversexed...now that is right up my alley, although I was never really sure what the word 'oversexed' means. Is it too much sex or not enough? You'd think if you got a lot of sex at some point you would have enough...although lord knows I don't know what that amount would be...but anyway I am digressing...

"Rhonda eh?" I questioned, "Maybe I could do her....I mean look after her..."

"Yes, but I think she's a little to um...well...worldly for you, she has a special counsellor assigned to her at all times to look after her. I think his name is Ronnie or Ron. He feeds her, washes her down and well, from some of the rumors at the assisted living facility, he looks after some of her other needs as well..."

"Yeah, I've met him seems like not a bad guy, I hear he makes a mean breakfast."

"Yes, more for him than her, he needs to keep up his strength at all times." she said, "I heard when she was a dispatcher for a trucking company, every Friday afternoon she would dispatch a truck with the best looking driver to her house."

Well I could go on and on, but suffice to say I ended up agreeing to go along, but only if I could sleep in the same tent as Reena and Jim, one of the geriatric married couples staying at the Silverhorn Hollow Assisted Living Facility. Reena is so tiny that she doesn't take up much room in the tent and by the look of Jim, she is a good cook....come to find out, she is also a pretty good snorer...so I ended up sleeping on the bottom bunk of my own van...except there is no bottom bunk, so I was sleeping under the van.

At least it didn't rain....

Anyone See My Toe?

Well...well...well...Hi-Ho Silverhorners... long time no see or talk to, sorry, this is a busy time of the year up on Silverhorn Mountain, lots going on...but...there is no time too busy not to stop and talk to you about...you guessed it, croc safety....

No...I am not talking about crocidiles, or alligators, I'm talking about the most loathsome, ugly, silly, things known to men...those plastic shoes that look like something an overweight, aging wife in the backwoods of Russia during the cold war would wear as she killed a chicken for supper...

The little pieces of plastic, like a child's toy, molded in the likeness of real grown up shoes that have become so popular of late, because, like so many marketer's know, and Barnum Bailey said, 'you can fool most people most of the time' and someone else said, 'those are silly looking shoes' Of course I am talking about Cayman Sandal Crocs


Frequent reader's of The View From Silverhorn Mountain know that I have been somewhat against these shoes since I first laid eyes on them. But I have laid off of late because, well, I started to feel pity for the wearer's realizing, albeit a little too late that they probably cannot help themselves. In all likelyhood they are wearing the shoes that they were given in the hospital following their accident. As soon as the shock treatment kicks in and they remember where their feet are, they will probably get rid of them.

I had laid off the whole 'croc' thing following several articles I had written some time back, This is A Croc! which was followed by some other equally informative posts and references to the um...ahh...shoes....However, I had to come back to them tonight, much to my chagrin, because of something that happened in Old Fellar Hollow, just down the road from Silverhorn Mountain. It seems one of the residents of the assisted living facility got out and into the gardener's shed. Thinking himself a young man back in the subdivision, Old Davey as his fellow resident's refer to him, got hold of the lawnmower, started it up and promptly cut his big toe off when he stuck his foot under the mower to see if it was going....unfortunately, the old fella is deaf, and couldn't hear the mower.

Of course, they don't give the assisted living residents steel toe safety boots, they give them, you guessed it, 'crocs' and they don't offer a lot of toe protection if you know what I mean....they are freakin' plastic, with holes in them...no man in in his right mind would wear them. Of course they are very popular because there are a lot of men not in their right minds....

The pity of it is, Old Davey had some of the nicest toes in the assisted living facility, on Friday's the nurses would paint them up for him, and he was the belle of the Old Fellar Hollow Assisted Living Facility Saturday Night Dance and Diaper Changing Party. (By the way, the diaper changing party is a hoot, a litle like musical chairs, the nurses put a bunch of diapers on a table and play music, until the residents find their own diapers and put them on. Sometimes they show it on the local cable channel...Silverhorn Mountain TV, now available in HDTV)
Here is a pic one of the nurses, sent me of Old Davey's foot before the accident.


But wait...there's more...Old Davey is pretty broke up about all of this, because he won't be able to wear his Sassari Peep Toe Wedges to the next dance. He just got them too, and is quite disappointed.



The good news is, the doc's have checked out Davey's prognosis, and say he will soon be able to return to his job as safety supervisor at the Old Fellar Hollow Assisted Living Facility.

There ya have it, more safety tips from Silverhorn Mountain...Get well soon Davey!

Free Amazon Prime Trial Offer

Hey Silverhorner's How is it going? I have been pretty busy around the old Silverhorn Lodge this summer and not much time to update you. What can I say, it's been a busy couple of months, with lots going on. However, I had to drop in tonight to mention something that came in my email today. It's a free trial offer from Amazon prime that is not to be sneezed at.....

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