Excited Scientific Community Converges On Town To Study “Survival Of The Unfittest” Theory In Its Natural Environment

The Town of Lamont, long known as the place that time forgot as well as the town where people have an unnatural aversion to using fire hydrants in case of an emergency that somehow requires a whole lot of water in a relatively short period of time, dern near had its temporary population double after word leaked out that trained professionals could finally glimpse the tragic, depressing, embarrassing, decidedly humiliating polar opposite of one of the pillars of ‘Natural Selection’ in the animal kingdom, the often misunderstood principle of ‘Survival Of The Fittest’ itself. Lamont, a tiny hamlet in far northwest Whitman County (The wise Whitman County management team, often while in polite conversation, quite frequently tries to pawn Lamont off on Lincoln or Adams Counties, usually with limited to no success! But you can’t blame a County for trying, now can you?) – Anyway (dang, where was I?) The Greater Lamont Metropolitan Area (GLMA) is one of those thankfully rare places where the laws of the Universe somehow seem to be reversed – you know, where right is wrong, where evil is in fact good, where fixing someone’s car means sabotaging and stealing parts off of it – and, of course, where shoddy work and/or no work at all has been the historical mark of excellence while painting, cleaning up and sprucing up the place draws horrified and disbelieving facial expressions (from the long-term locals, anyway!) most akin to a man with a well-developed sense of smell having his face unceremoniously thrust in the general direction of the backside of a billy-goat! Lamont is the town, famous across the Palouse, where, until very recently, everything was pretty much backwards – but where people still live out their feeble lives, if that is what you call it when one attacks everything in sight – thus sparking the interest in the world’s scientific community – at least the ones with a high pain/dysfunction threshold!

“Well, this has been the dream of the scientific community since, well, since that Sir Isaac Newton feller came up with whatever the heck it was that he came up with, for crying out loud!” said Dr. Gomer Bodine, PhD., an area so-called scientist and farmer/rancher. (Editorial Note: Hey, don’t forget Sir Isaac’s often underappreciated brother “Fig”! Sir Isaac is such a dadburned glory hog! Just think what the world would be like without his brother’s contribution to western civilization, doggone it!) “Being from these parts, I just don’t see what all the fuss is about. I mean, sitting around griping about improvements as the place just slowly decays around us is about as natural as all get-out, but I guess them high-fluting science types need something to occupy those eggheads of theirs and all” said Dr. Bodine, a Greater Lamont Metropolitan Area (GLMA) insider for all of his 53 years, while scratching the seat of his pants quite inappropriately! (Dr. Bodine is also the “Grand Wizard” of the ‘Rocky Mountain Oyster’ (RMO) Appreciation/Sanctification Society! (RMO-ASS) Whoa! What credentials! What leadership! What vision for the greater good of mankind!) “Anyway, I guess Lamont is some sort of dadburned ‘Lost World’ or whatever, where folks with a largely 12th century mindset are thrust into the 21st century and have to cope and all of that! Sure, we all think that pavement is the devil’s bedspread, and that fire hydrants are stupid wastes of time and space (unless you are a dog!) and that libraries, with all them fancy books and all that dern learning, are the ultimate in extravagant boondoggles because, as everyone knows, all buildings put up by man should be designed for duel-use to also house livestock and all - especially one's favorite (pronounced 'fave-o-right'!) cow! (Don’t forget that brainstorm involving storing fire trucks in the library! Can’t forget that one! That was special!) So, on some level I just don’t see what all the fuss is about” said the mail order Doctor of Philosophy, a local graduate of a GLMA school system that obviously spent way too much money on sports and rodeo events and teaching the kids to whittle!

“Well, my colleagues and I are just excited as can be over the opportunity Lamont affords us in better understanding the clash of cultures inherent when a nest of Medieval throw-backs (only a subset of the total - but a noisy one!) are discovered right in the midst of the 21st century” said Dr. Martin Weaver, PhD, a real PhD from a real university that gives out real degrees, not them dern mail order ones the GLMA farmers/ranchers place such stock in. “So, in the academic community, towns like Lamont are known affectionately as cultural “Elephant Burial Grounds” where people chewed up and spit out by modernity go to die. The symbolism of the elephant is quite significant, given that the beasts tend to have very long memories (for perceived slights and grudges of all kinds!) and they are extremely short-sighted! Oh, the things we can learn about our past by studying the laggardly social mores of a segment of Lamont are truly staggering – but it does kind of stink that they do not have a public restroom for me and my staff to frequent as we conduct our potentially disturbing analysis of the place, that’s all!” he concluded wearily while gingerly crossing and uncrossing his legs over and over!