Jul 9, 2010

Local Woman Wins Prestigious Palouse Limerick Competition

Although hard to believe, the town of Lamont actually won something when a local fashion maven and area farm wife, Thelma Bodine, age 33, stunned the judges at the 39th annual 'Palouse Limerick Competition' held in Lamont over the weekend. Mrs. Bodine, more well known in these parts for her modern and often 'risk-taking' and avant-garde fashion sense (at least for around here!) than for capturing the very essence of the democratic process in a small town setting - (especially in a town that doesn't trust them 'big word' people!) submitted a limerick that, according to the judges, captured the very essence of the Lamont experience - and even reduced several of the normally staid and hard-hearted judges to tears with its cutting accuracy and subtle encompassing of small town living in the Palouse.

"Well, you never know what the Lamont contingent is going to trot out from year to year - so needless to say I was a little nervous when she marched right out there to deliver her limerick" said Fester Festoon, an area farmer/rancher and last year's runner-up for his edgy portrayal of the intrinsic benefits and downright deliciousness of pickled pig's feet (And their juices! Don't forget those spicy juices!). "And of course it is always a little bit of a scandal - I mean with them fancy modern clothes she wears and that alluring, 'come-hither' hair style more suited for that dern Paris, France or San Francisco before that big quake (In 1906!!) or whatever. I mean, come on! Can't the woman have a little modesty - but she obviously has the 'right stuff' when it comes to all them fancy words, so you have to hand it to her there! Well, spank my momma, but you could have knocked me over with a feather, I mean, I felt like a dadburn tea kettle in a tornado, when we all realized that she did pretty much capture the entire democratic process in Lamont to a tee, and I ain't just whistling Dixie, neither!" he stammered, mixing metaphors and clichés and all those other doggone verbal associations in one painful to read sentence. "Plus, anything we old timers can do to derail that doggone mayor with all of his 'big city ways' and keep things the way they are is, by definition, a good thing, ain't it? I mean, this is our town, for crying out loud - even though we don't participate and we let the place go to the devil (quite literally in several cases!) for the last 50+ years or so. (Don't forget the fire station went unpainted for 60 years! Oh, just ponder the idle man-hours!) But still, we have squatter rights for this town or whatever dern legal term that is" he droned on as if he was never going to stop. (Editorial Note: We were going to say that he really had 'the bit in his teeth', so to speak, but haven't we suffered enough at this point? I mean, come on! A 'tea kettle in a tornado'? Oh, the lengths of suffering this Blog will endure to bring you the breaking news from Lamont! On some level it seems quite mad, doesn't it?)

The winning limerick, composed over a 4 month period, is printed below for our readers and to set the bar that much higher for Lamont's hopeful repeat victory in next year's competition. (Can lightening really strike 2 years in a row? I mean, what are the chances of Lamont winning anything in the first place?)

First place limerick

We once had a mayor of sorts
Whose every deed we greeted with snorts
Try as he might,
He could not get it right
And for thanks got a boot to the shorts!

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