A'Natural Sport

The follwoing is taken directly from the pages of the Devere Weekly.  The reporter asked that his named not be used for fear on not being able to enter O'Brian's Black and Tan ever again.

What follows may seem a little delicate to report but it is the job of all reporters to state the truth as they see it and let the chips fall where they may.  However it is also their duty to warn the reader that if they are of a sensitive nature or get easily offended that they should stop now.  Also if you are not of a mature age and on the front side of puberty it best you stop now unless you have the permission of your parents to continue. 

Mrs. Francis Huggins read an article in the Belfast  Monthly that described a nude bathing area that was becoming the rage in Yugoslavia.  She wondered to herself if that was one reason the people in Raymore County, most of Slavic decent, did not usually associate with those living in Devere in general and Lake Donnie Man in particular do to our areas supposed modesity. She had no proof of such but the thought was intriguing.  So intriguing was the thought that she suggested to the  Lake Donnie Man's Woman’s Auxiliary if they would be interested in developing such a place around Devere

where people could sun bathe in the nude.

At first the women were not really keen on the idea but Mrs. Huggins explained it would be only women or only men and not naturally at the same time.  She then showed the article she had read to the women and with the few pictures that were present in the article the women got as intrigued as Mrs. Huggins.

A delegation met with the Devere City Council and the suggestion was made that if they would build a privacy fence around Mrs. Sullivan’s, president of the Auxiliary, back yard it would be a healthy benefit to the neighborhood.  Being nude she said in an outdoor atmosphere was beneficial to ones health with all the vitamin D the sun provided all over the body.  The Council readily agreed and saw the wisdom of the attire affair.  The fence was built in record time after receiving a pledge from Mrs. Sullivan that she would keep her blinds closed when it was the men’s turn to use the sun bathing facility.

It was decided that since it was a woman’s idea, that the women should be the first ones to use the facility.  The day came and many women from Devere and Lake Donnie Man

showed up.  At first there seemed to be a little timidity in taking off their clothes but one by one the garments were discarded and the ladies lounged around on chairs, hammocks, and blankets.  Eventually they all decided to play volley ball.  It was then that strange sounds began to be heard from Mrs. Sullivan’s backyard.  There were deep sounding vocalizations of “Boom, Boom” and then sounds less than a big Boom all the way up to small little “Peep, Peep.”

The men kept their promise and did not try and look in on the women in fear they would see their mother, sisters, or daughters naked.  They even prevented Morris Applegate, an 80 year old vet of the Banshe War, from climbing a tree to find out what all the Booming and Peeping was about.  It was very perplexing to all.  This investagative found out.

The ladies on the west side of town had challenged the ladies on the east side of the town to a volley ball game.  Everyone was naked of course so when the ladies would jump up and spike the ball the audience would make the sound of a boom or a peep or somewhere in-between depending on the size of the player’s breasts.  The bigger the breast the deeper and louder the chant from the crowd would be.  The smaller the bosom the higher and softer the response from the crowd.  The ladies found this very amusing among themselves and felt no embarrassment or shyness in all the bouncing bosoms and the subsequent noises that followed.  A good time was had by all.

A couple of days later it was the men’s turn.  They were a little shyer about discarding their clothes than the women had been but eventually got with the program.  They felt a little awkward just lying about so they started playing croquet but stopped because they could not hit the ball just right given the impediments associated with the between the legs swing necessary for excellent performance.  They then thought about wrestling but immediately dismissed that idea for the obvious reasons.  There was a net still up, so bad mitten was tried but there was one to many careless swings and the term shuttlecock took on a different meaning altogether.  Eventually a volleyball materialized from over the fence, no one knowing who through it over, and like the women the east side challenged the west side.

The women reported later that they did not know who played volleyball.  Several of the women were sure that their husbands did not play because they only heard a lot of “Boom, Booms” and no “peep peeps.”

Ducks Unlimited

Our Emerald Isle – Ducks Unlimited “So you see gents, when the ice freezes over only the power of the polar bear or man using tools can break through and survive.” I was just finishing up regaling once again the throngs that hung on everyone word of my stories about the Last Frontier while indulging in their quarts and pints at our pup in Devere. What a great job I had even if I did have to bartend that evening. Brian was off visiting some lady friend of his in Dublin that showed up unexpectedly from the states and of course Traci was at the library studying Irish literature she claimed. Bev and Ray the Raven along with Abdul where in the kitchen conjuring up a bisque recipe that can be made from sea weed or so Abdul claims. Everyone seemed very impressed with my yarn except of O’Shannasey. He just stooped over his pint and ignored the whole story. Although he was the only one, it did stick in by craw a little. I said, “O’Shannasey, you don’t believe my story? ‘tis the truth, I swear by the Ferries of Banshee County.” “Oh, I believe you mate, it is just that I am not that impressed. I think you are making a bigger deal out of it than it deserves. I mean it is fine thing to do to break the ice up for various reason but unless you are saving a life like that of a whale or changing the contour of geography for the better than it is of little consequence. I mean at least here in O’Malley County when we did have a cold spell nature and man got together and literally changed the world. Or at least that part of the world that affected Mallard County just three counties over.” So said O’Shannasey as he went back to bending over his pint. Ok, I thought now this is a story I have to hear. “OK, O’Shannasey, you won, let me hear your story and yes, yes I know it will cost me a pint.” O’Shannasey didn’t move. “OK, Ok, make it a quart.” “Well,” O’Shannasey began, “It was the best duck season anyone could remember. The ducks seemed to land on our lake just west of here out side of town by the thousand.” “Wait a minute O’Shannasey, there is not lake on the outskirts of town except Lake Donnie Mann and that is east not west.” O’Shannasey: “You want me to finish this story or not? ( I kept quiet) Like I was saying ducks were numerous but then the game warden showed up and he told us that we could not shoot the ducks anymore this year and had to wait till the following year. He said it had to do with conservation and to insure that there would be ducks for our children’s children to enjoy. “One of the boys thought that since it was sort of a fluke that the ducks came here this summer in so many numbers why didn’t we make sure they come back next summer in fact why not fix it up so that they don’t even leave. We had a bumper crop of corn so if we just kept feeding them and provide some hay for them to nest in why would they have to leave at all. Seemed logical to all of us meaning us the duck hunters. “So around September we started feeding the ducks corn, bread scarps and any eatable thing we thought a duck might like. They seemed to like everything especially fried green tomatoes for some reason. “Because the ducks swam around in a circle a lot the water didn’t freeze like most winters. The kids were a little miffed to lose their ice skating place but they had little to say about it. But then it happened, it was around February I believe. It was a freak of nature. It was one of those things that animal evolution is made of. It was something that just can’t be explained but happened none the less. A bitter cold spell hit, the temperature dropped to a record level so quickly that the ice froze solid instantly. Water freezes faster than animal tissue so the ducks were trapped in the water, now ice, and the only thing they could move were beaks, necks and wings. The several thousand ducks through instincts I guess all started squawking and flapping their wings. They knew if they did not move out of the area they would freeze to death. As if they all had one mind, the flapping of wings became more intense and frenzied that the whole frozen lake rose as one block of ice and carried three counties away by the flapping ducks were it was warmer and the ice just melted off the duck’s legs and dropped into an area of Mallard County that needed the water to irrigate their newly planted cherry orchards. “Unfortunately the ducks never returned in such numbers again, being no lake they were interest in you see or perhaps they were just terrified and didn’t want to take a chance of history repeating itself.” I drew another quart for O’Shannasey. I knew when I had been defeated.