Disaster Thankfully Averted In Skies Over Lamont

Late last Tuesday, an area aviation nut, Fester Snopes, (not to be confused with Festus Snopes - although they are 'cousins' in ways that the Law doesn't allow!) 57, an area farmer/rancher, got 'a hankering' to take advantage of this beautiful weather we've been having and decided to take his aging airplane up for a spin. Never one to do anything alone, (and because he is an outrageous cheapskate and wanted people to pitch in for gas!!) Fester was able to entice a preacher from a neighboring town, the local mayor and some poor college kid just passing thru on a backpacking trip across the Palouse to share the ride with him - at $50 a pop (although it only takes about $90 to fill up the plane's doggone fuel tank!). "Well, it was such a lovely day, I just couldn't pass up a chance to soar in the good old wild blue yonder!" said the irrepressible Fester after filling out all the necessary police and FAA reports and opening up all of his quite voluminous fan mail to see if anyone included money with their heartfelt congratulations for a successful trip. "Who would have ever guessed that such an unfortunate thing could happen on such a pretty day - that, and how was I supposed to know that a person needed to change the oil on a dadburn airplane (pronounced 'air-O-plane), for Pete's sake! I mean, ain't my truck and my tractor enough, for goodness sake? Well, anyway, I am just glad that it was my plane so I got first dibs once imminent disaster loomed on our immediate horizon" he said smugly.

After a marginally successful takeoff and achieving an altitude of slightly more than 3000 feet, Festus first became aware that there might be a slight safety issue when his entire windscreen became covered with black, stinking oil - thus reducing visibility to less than 3 inches. "Well, that is when I had to pull rank - and, ironically, that was the exact moment that I regretted the fact that I was too lazy to load up the fourth parachute, doggone it! I mean, how was I supposed to know that something like that was going to happen?" he sniveled. Never being one to linger long in difficult situations, Fester immediately grabbed the closest parachute and launched himself out of the plane, leaving the preacher, the Mayor and the poor college kid to fight it out in some sort of sick "Lord of the Flies" type scenario.

After staring at each other with the camaraderie that only the doomed can share, the Mayor immediately began blathering about the upcoming Town meeting and water tests and how the park needed to be mowed (In February??) and that sort of malarkey and reached down into the pile, strapped himself in and dove out the open door, leaving the now shaken preacher and college kid to sort matters out. The preacher, Phineas Flum, knowing that he was in good with his Maker and weighing the options of returning to that ever cantankerous Mrs. Phineas Flum, quite graciously told the college kid/backpacker that he should take the remaining chute and save himself - given that the kid had his whole life ahead of him and that he, Phineas, had lived a full life and knew where he was going after death. The college kid, looking on with admiration at the selfless 'man of God' just said "That won't be necessary, that doggone Mayor just jumped out of the plane with my stinking backpack! It had everything I owned in there!" he whined quite inappropriately!. (Editorial Note: We at the Lamont Blog would have given just about anything to have seen the Mayor's look of horrified consternation when instead of pulling the 'rip cord' to release the chute he instead was left staring at another man's dirty gym sock! Oh, that would have been great!) Phineas, although quite torn, said a quick prayer and exited the plane a full 30 seconds before the engine seized up completely and the doomed craft crashed quite harmlessly into the Scablands. (Tell those dadburn cows how 'harmless' that hurtling mass of smoking Hell descending from the normally peaceful skies was given that it almost caused a mini stampede, for crying out loud!) Ironically, no one even noticed that the Mayor was actually missing for almost a week, and Town productivity has soared a whopping 237% over that same period. "Darn their eyes!" said the Mayor's ghost - or maybe that was just the wind - who knows? But that does sound like that doggone, no-good Mayor - to haunt the town from the 'great beyond' like he did in life - him and all of his fancy 'big-city ways!' Can't he just leave us alone, for Pete's sake?