It's a day that will live in infancy forever and never, that damnable day the Kaiser gunned down ol' JFK. Who doesn't remember where they were the moment they got that news? Simpletons and little kids, 'cause they don't remember nuthin.

Ned remembers it like it was the third Tuesday of last month. It was the marrow-time, and the Swedes was hangin' in the trees like so much costume jewelry. This was back in the day when you could still stop at Uncle Otterbock's corner store and get a tube of Squeeze Bees to rub on your teeth for charm. Mashed yellowjackets make one highly magnetic, it's best to recall.

Back in them days Ned sailed the seven seas in a tin record player cabinet, the Victrola she was christened. At night the sweet high singing of the homesick weasels would carry Ned back to friendly ports on their drooping harmonies. These were the days, before Ned tried to walk across the ocean wearing giant-spring shoes and got himself blacklisted. These were the years when Ned would spend his days teaching the sky Portuguese and his nights pruning the stars with long-handled shears.

But then the Kaiser had to come and screw it all up with his jab-jabberin' about no taxation without relaxation and no beans without weenies and you know none of this jaw-flappin' struck JFK the right way. So he had to do what had to be done and he had that Kaiser stripped naked, dipped in hot tar, covered in penguin feathers and sold to a zoo in the Philippines.

Now granted, keep in mind that none of us at that time were opposed to this seemingly harsh treatment. Everyone was fed up with the Kaiser's tricks, from sleepin' with his shoes on to tryin to bake blackbirds in a pie. We figured he got what was comin' to him.

We were all taken by surprise though, when six months later, at JFK's Superbowl party, when that Kaiser popped up out of the cheese log like an appetizer from hell and gave JFK a shot in the nose with one of them guns that shoots the cork on a string. Some argue that JFK was surprised as well, and right they might be, 'cause at that moment he belched a surprised little belch and dropped dead of a heart attack right there on the presidential "touchdown boogie" rug.

That Kaiser was up to his old tricks again, only this time he robbed the country of a great leader, and Ned Nedmiller of probably his only chance to get that "touchdown boogie" rug. So let it be said for all to hear, that the Kaiser owes Ned a football-shaped rug, and until such a day as this is delivered, the Kaiser is not allowed to use Ned's sandwich griller, never again. Thank you.

º Last Column:
º more columns