[Ham-Computers] Christmas Verse And Prose For Those Who Care!

[Duane Fischer, W8DBF]

A most joyous, happy and healthy Christmas season wish to each and every one
of my fellows Ham's or SWL'ers! And of course, all the best hopes and
prayers for a happy new year too!

Due to problems at the QTH, I was not able, or in the mood, to post the
Christmas verse and prose that I promised to do. So here are a much liked
favorite from a few years ago and one most of you have never seen before. It
was penned sixteen years ago, but I think 'most' of you will get quite a few
chuckles out of it just the same!

IF any of you want the poems and prose that I "intendeded" to have here, and
on the HHI web site, send me a direct E-Mail. I will send them to you
direct.

Thanks! My best to all!

     It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's Santa On A Handheld!


                                  By Duane B. Fischer, W8DBF



     "Yo fellow Hams, this is NP11RED calling CQ CQ CQ from
the North Pole. How copy?

     The WX here is colder than a Seal's rump after sitting
on the frozen pond just north of Santa's greenhouse having
used it to melt a hole in the ice to do some fishing! The
wind is howling louder than Mrs.  Claus pet Siberian
Cat, Snowball, after she got her twenty-eight inch tail
caught in the pretzel twisting machine! Her tail is a lot
shorter now that it looks like a sine wave! The snow is
falling faster than the share prices on the stock market did
when the wire services broke the story about Burger Kingdom
getting busted by the FDA for flame broiling their burgers
with military surplus jet turbine engines burning Kentucky
Moonshine! All this time you thought that odd taste to the
beef paddy was because of them using recycled catsup
recovered from the dumpster behind Windy's!

     It is just the perfect WX for Santa, my eight Reindeer
compatriots and I to hoof it up, up and away to deliver some
toys to good little girls and boys! In case you are living on
a desolate island with no calendar, it is Christmas Eve 2005!
Over. Over.  NP11RED standing by."

     "Herbie, Herbie NP11RED, this is NP22FTS. Q5 all the
way, full quieting, good copy OM. I'll be at Santa's QTH just
as soon as I finish running down the two teenage males I'm
thumpety thump thumping in pursuit of.  They tried to flatten
my XYL Crystal by running over her with one of those super
charged snowmobiles! Fortunately Jack Frost was nearby
programming his amphibious snow generator for the traditional
magical snow of Christmas eve and Christmas morn, saw them
and blew a blast of his icy breath underneath the driver's
punk rock putrid pink woven ski hat freezing both ears more
solid than a Fruitsicle that has spent too much time lying on
a block of frozen Carbon Dioxide, or dry ice. I think I can
break off pursuit now Rudolph, they are headed for the
Canadian Mounties horse barn manure pile! They won't be hard
to spot, since the one punk's ears both fell off and the
other punk picked them up and put them in his snowmobile suit
glove pocket!  Keep my seat cold NP11RED, NP22FTS clear and
thumping your way."

     "Herbie, Herbie NP22FTS, AKA North Pole #22 Frosty The
Snowman. Don't worry OM, after a visit to that manure pile
anyone with a working nose can track those  filament fried
punks direct to their QTH! I'm going to go QRT as it is time
for the Sunday December 25th HHI 20 meter Christmas Day pre-
Net at 12:45 PM EST, or 1745 UTC.  Remember Frosty, the Net
proper starts at 1:15 PM EST, or 1815 UTC. So QSY with VFO #1
to the Sleigh operating frequency and keep the dual watch on
and VFO #2 on 14.293 MHZ usb +/- for "key clicks, mike
splatter and the sound of ... That ain't frozen snowflakes
dancing on my roof! And Frosty, please to use the waterproof
digital pocket watch with the large number display that Santa
gave you, not your sun dial! Remember it is dark for six
months of the year here and the sun dial doesn't work with no
sunlight!"

     "Ya gotta love that mixed bag of partly crazy and partly
amazing blind dude that runs the HHI Nets!  NP11RED, AKA
North Pole #11 Rudolph Eliminates Doubters is clear and QSY.
73's all, and to all a good flight!"

     "Are you sure that one hundred and five microwaveable
cheeseburger deluxe with extra onions and dill pickles is
going to be enough Santa?" "Yes momma. Remember that those
people from that medical ship the USS Hope told me that if I
wanted to live another five hundred years I had to cut down
on the animal fats, increase my vegetable portions and double
my fiber intake?" Mrs. Claus smiled. "Since when did Santa
Claus start taking orders from anyone?" Santa grinned so wide
that he nearly split a lip! "Did you see that nurse, I think
she was the dietician?" Mrs. Claus set the bright red
Delicious apple she had been polishing with her apron down on
the cupboard. "See her? No. But the way you are smiling Santa
I'll bet she is the same one who is in that digital photo on
your desk that looks like the Playboy centerfold for
December!" Santa grinned that grin that would calm a volcano
about to belch molten lava and cremate a forest!  "Yep! But I
am taking her advice so I can keep all those perverted Elves
with a crush on you away for the next half of a century! Ho!
Ho! Ho!" "Really? Then get your hand out of that cookie jar
before I put some lumps on your head with this rolling pin!
Now get going and have a good flight.  Remember to stay
out of those no fly zones over the Middle East this year, ok?
I don't want you coming back with singed eyebrows and the
spare sleigh runner shot off by some heat seeking missile
this Christmas!"

     Santa kissed her, picked up the lunchbox and staggered
toward the door. "Are you using Texas Toast for
my burgers? This thing weighs a ton!" Mrs. Claus chuckled.
"Between the 105 burgers, ten pounds of assorted cookies, one
peck of Delicious apples, eight pounds each of carrot and
celery sticks with five pounds of bean dip with hot sauce,
twenty gallons of hot chocolate and the Lead lining the
picnic basket to keep it radiation proof, you can bet your
chubby buns it is heavy! You need the exercise Santa, so stop
grumbling and start gift giving!"

     So tune the Sleigh Net in tomorrow, Christmas Sunday,
and hear Santa NP01Claus, NP03rednose, Rudolph and all the
other Reindeer and toy delivery specialists live. Have a
Merry Christmas one and all and to all of you, get some sleep
tonight and pray nobody collects on our flight insurance
policies! 73's and 88's, NP11RED is QRT."


Original: December 22, 2005



                  Ode To Stubby's Tree Farm


                                            Duane B. Fischer

     Come snow, sleet, hail or scorching sunshine, the first
weekend in December is my time to go Christmas tree shopping.
I'm talking real live sap leaking trees here people, not one
of those wire wonders that you drag out of a box and bend
into shape!  You know the kind.  The ones with the fake green
plastic needles made in some country that thinks Santa is
just another fat American who did too many drugs.  I want a
fresh cut tree, not one of those that have been hanging out
on a street corner dehydrating since the day after Halloween.
So I go to a tree farm, pick out  and cut my own festive
symbol of Christmas wonderment.

     Picking out the right type of tree can be a very
personal thing.  Sort of like selecting your underwear.
Boxers, briefs or bikinis?  Hmmm.  Why does all underwear
begin with the letter B?  Is it because it covers something
else that starts with the same letter?  Anyhow, individual
personalities may play a subtle role in just which kind of
tree is selected.  Some, for example,  may prefer a soft
cuddly fir.  Got to be pretty lonely to even think about
snuggling up with a tree!  Others may get excited over a blue
spruce.  These people are probably into S&M.  The needles on
these suckers are so sharp that you can impale Aunt Ethel's
fruit cake on them!  My personal preference is the majestic
scotch pine.  A true American Christmas tradition whose
incredible ability to shed needles is exceeded only by it's
amazing sap that no known chemical will remove!  Besides it's
pine cones make better soup.  More on that later.

     My favorite place to cut my fresh scotch pine is called
Stubby's.  It is a little out of the way tree nursery run by
a Korean war vet in a wheel chair.  Your safety is never in
question, as he keeps a well trained eye on security issues.
His wife stands at the eight foot barb wire gate and takes
your thirty-five bucks in cash, snaps your photo and lets you
walk through the metal detector.  Their son shakes you down
for weapons.  If you smile he thinks you're gay, draws his
forty-four magnum and fires a shot into the ground between
your feet.  Then he looks you straight in the eyes and says
"We don't like gay folks around here and we don't give
refunds.  Any questions?" If you pass, he gives you a map to
find the porta john and reminds you just how much it upsets
him to see yellow snow.  Then he slaps you on the buttocks,
gives you a sharp shiny hand saw, a piece of rope to tie up
the tree with and wishes you happy hunting.

     I'll never forget last year when the punks with the
chain saws showed up and crashed the gate in their four wheel
drive Chevy Blazer.  Stubby was making his usual tree nursery
rounds in his Jeep when they fired up the chain saws.  The
air was full of saw dust, pieces of bark and blue two cycle
exhaust smoke.  Trees were falling faster than the stock
market did on black Friday!  Looked like the Texas chain saw
massacre with trees instead of people.  Stubby roared up to
the action with a hood mounted fifty caliber world war ii
vintage machine gun blazing away.  He bailed out of the door,
drove his electric wheel chair behind the Jeep and opened up
with a M16.  The punks were hitting the ground faster than
hookers diving for a dropped fifty dollar bill!  While Stubby
had them pinned down with the automatic weapon fire, he
tossed a phosphorus grenade into the Blazer.  The chain saws
now had more holes in them than Swiss cheese and the Blazer
melted down into a toxic puddle.  When the cops finally got
there Stubby already had them handcuffed, in leg irons and
signing confessions.

     The police looked at the bullet riddled chain saws, the
still smoking Blazer puddle and then at Stubby.  They looked
at the terror stricken punks on their knees begging to be
arrested, the cheering crowd of Christmas tree shoppers and
then at each other.  Stubby was signing autographs and
declining media interviews on his celluar phone.  After much
negotiation with the officers, he finally agreed to take the
handcuffs and leg irons off the punks.  Provided that the
officers promised to convince the county executive just how
bad for business this situation was and to have the DNR
emergency toxic disposal unit get the melted Blazer off his
property by sunrise.  One officer got on his radio and had
central dispatch get the county executive, who just happened
to be his brother-in-law, on a secure channel.  They worked
out the details and that Blazer is now somewhere in toledo in
a land fill!

     The cops took the punks away in their cruiser and I got
out my map to find the porta john.  All of that excitement,
plus the caffeine from six cups of black coffee, had
stimulated my bladder.  Then I took a compass reading,
checked my map and set out for the scotch pine quadrant.

     I walked several miles down the scenic trails watching
other shoppers felling all sizes, shapes and types of trees.
When I finally got to the section where the scotch pines
were, naturally there was a waiting line.  Another one of
Stubby's sons was passing out customer requisition numbers
and hot apple cider.  I looked around to see if there was
another porta john nearby.  Hot cider can do funny things to
your bowels, especially when you are wearing long underwear
that you can't get down fast!  I sipped my hot cider, waited
my turn and noticed that very large snow flakes were starting
to fall.

     The lady in front of me was sneezing, hacking and
coughing her lungs out.  Isn't it wonderful how people are so
generous with their diseases?  How very thoughtful!  I tried
to step back away from her, but the guy behind me kept
inching his way forward and moving me closer to her.  What is
it with people that they have to ride your ass in lines and
on the expressway?  The light snow had now turned into a full
scale blizzard.  The wind was howling like women fighting
over items at a clearance sale.  The temperature was dropping
faster than prices at a used car lot when the salesman smells
a deal.  I was next.  Which was good, because I could feel
that apple cider starting to make my intestines gurgle.

     I found the perfect tree quite by accident.  I stumbled
over a stump in the blinding snow, did a complete flip in mid
air and landed spread eagled under an eight foot scotch pine.
I was just laying there somewhat dazed on my back spitting
out pine needles when Stubby roared up in his Jeep.  He
leaned out the window, looked down and shouted.  "I don't
know what the hell you are doing under there boy, but you got
the wrong equipment to pollinate a tree!  It's lunch time and
I brought you some hot soup.  Get your ass out from under
that tree and take this!  I got other people to serve here."
I took the steaming cup, thanked him and took a little sip.
It burned like two hundred proof Kentucky moonshine all the
way down to my stomach, and beyond.  Whew!  I could feel it
dissolving my hemorrhoids!  My eyes watered, my nose ran and
I put some snow on my tongue.  "Well," he said expectantly,
"Isn't that delicious?" "What the blazes is this stuff,
Pinesol?" I gasped.  His eye brows raised, his eyes narrowed
to slits and his lip curled into a serious snarl.
"Pinesol!", he roared in indignation.  "That is my own
special recipe for cream of pine cone soup you moronic
civilian!  A bowl of that stuff is better than a weekend on a
tropical island with native girls who haven't seen a man in
five years!  I once survived for nearly a month in the Black
Forest eating nothing but pine cone soup and an occasional
rodent that got close enough for me to ring it's scrawny
neck.  Don't you like it?"  How could I argue with a man who
had a machine gun mounted on the hood of his Jeep and a
thirty-eight hanging from a stainless steel neck chain?  "Yea
it's just wonderful," I said as I gagged down another
mouthful.  "Really cleans out the sinus cavities."  He
smiled, gave me two thumbs up and sped off into the swirling
snow to make his next delivery.  Better than an island full
of sexually aroused native girls?  Hmmm.  Old Stubby had
definitely spent too long alone in the woods!

     I sawed the tree down and trimmed off the excess
branches.  I tied it up in a nice tight bundle with the rope
and started dragging it toward the main gate.  Every few
hundred steps I stopped to take a compass reading and to
belch.  The pine scent from my breath was so intense that it
made my eyes water.  I started having a hallucination about
being mistaken for a pine cone by a giant squirrel and being
stuffed into a hole in a rotting tree trunk!  After what
seemed like hours, I staggered up to the exit check point.
That was when the drug sniffing guard dog awakened from his
nap and began to bark like someone had goosed him with a
cattle prod!  He grabbed me by the pant leg, ripped my Levis
into ribbons and urinated on my boot.  The son did a strip
search while Stubby's wife pointed a forty-five at my mid
section and stared at my navel.  The snarling dog lunged at
my leather coat and ripped a hole in the chest area.  Out
fell a very old salomi stick from the inner breast pocket.
The dog devoured it, wrapper and all.  "Shit!", said the boy.
"Thought we had us a drug dealer here Ma.  Go on mister, get
your clothes on.  You've got butt ugly legs!  Don't forget to
pick up a discount coupon for ten percent off next year's
tree because of that little rip in your jacket."  "Little
rip!", I exclaimed.  "Half of the chest is missing!  And what
about my jeans?  This leg looks like somebody ran it through
a paper shredder!"  He and his mother exchanged glances.
"Alright," she said.  "Here's two coupons.  Now get out of
here before my arthritic finger has a cramp and slips on the
trigger."

     Now you are probably thinking that I am totally stupid
for going back to Stubby's tree nursery again this year.
Right?  Any sane person would swallow their pride, go down to
the local True Value Hardware and buy a plastic pine.  Right?
Perhaps.  But what fun would it be to put together something
so disgustingly safe?  Fake Christmas trees belong in
department stores and government buildings, not living rooms!
I look forward all year to the holiday challenge of being
able to wrestle a scotch pine into my den without busting
half of the branches off or knocking pictures off the walls!
Don't care for the soup, but Stubby's tree nursery is most
definitely my kind of place!


Original: November 22, 1995. Total Words: 1957
Copyright November 1995 by Duane B. Fischer, W8DBF




Duane Fischer, W8DBF - WPE8CXO
E-Mail: dfischer at usol.com
Hallicrafters web site: www.w9wze.net
HHRP web site: hhrp.w9wze.net