Diffle County Historical Society - History of Diffle County Chapter 1

 Our County was founded by Earl and Tobbs Diffel in 1772 after the two Diffel brothers, who emigrated to Pennsylvania to begin a new life of wealth and riches, made a running purchase with the Alamoose Native Americans.

    Copying from the William Penn family the agreement they would trade blankets and trinkets called half-pennies for all land they could walk in a day. The diffels hired young marathon runners to run a big circle and then they hired surveyors to follow and mark and measure the boundary of their newly purchased land. The Alamooske owned no land but the Diffels hadn't a clue about that fact.

    The runners were young and asked if their girlfriends could come too. The Diffels agreed and one fine Autumn morning the race was on. Soon however, on quiet woodland glades, or in a meadow of daisies, the runners lost time as they plowed more than wheat and corn. By evening there was only one runner left in the race...a true racist he never gave up. Sadly he ran a truncated circle and ended up nearly dead from a heart attack or stroke. His name was Danielle Corckette. But that is for a later chapter.

            When the Diffels learned from their surveyors that the area was too small for towns and cities and water parks in the future, they were furious. So they did what white guys always did back then, they lied to the Malamooske and refused to pay the runners, some who started their own families a mere nine months later.

    The Malamooske did what any Native American tribe would when dealing with the white man, they told them ok, the land is yours and gave the new owner a decorative shield.

      Shall I hang it in my trophy room? Tobbs asked Earl. "You might wanna learn to use that shield first", said Chief Running Late as they concluded their business

This where the Diffels stood their ground, well, someone's ground.

Diffle County Report - The Current History of the John Shenk Property

 Jack Taylor was the luckiest son of a gun in Diffle County.  He grew up poor because his daddy was Billy Taylor. Billy drank from job to job and often when the rent was due,  Billy wasn't ready to pay it.  By the time Jack was fifteen, he, his mom and his sister had made several midnight moves to new rentals just ahead of the County Sheriff.  They often kept their belongings in trash bags, piled in the closets at the ready for the next moving adventure.  Folks around town would often remark that Jack  will one day be drinking whiskey "from the same bar stool his father sits on". You know how that runs in the family.

If history was the only judge, those town gossips would be right.  Johnathan "Jack" Taylor's grandfather Buck T. Taylor died in a freak accident when he drove while intoxicated into the town square and his head and heart were pierced by General Grant's sword.  Buck's F-150 hit the statue base with such force, General Grant and his horse were both knocked backwards off the pedestal  (which was concreted in just a week prior by Mallard Brothers Contracting  "Why hire a quack when you can hire a Mallard").  Grant's sword once held high against the Southern advance penetrated the black truck's roof, then the sword roughly ran through Buck T. Taylor, and  lodged into the  seat underneath him. It took the fire company 4 hours to remove both sides of his body. The sword was replaced with a dull stainless blade with the words inscribed in fine print:  Zero Tolerance.   

Buck T. Taylor's death wasn't without irony.  Buck's great grandfather William S. Taylor was a Captain in the 23rd Calvary and fought under Grant and even once drank the old General under the table.   That was at The Grand Hotel Gettysburg where both were staying just before the big battle.  Grant later became President.   William S.Taylor died at Gettysburg on the first day of battle. That is how fate accomplishes its mission in our lives- some have cream with their coffee while others get creamed after their coffee.  

 Captain William S. Taylor had made a fortune before the war betting on tobacco futures. He and his wife, unable to bear children, created a trust for the money and that trust grew and grew.  After he died his wife Anne opened a women's clothing shop on Main Street. Anne had strong religious beliefs and could not tolerate drunkenness and addictions of the flesh, and she knew her husband's brother would squander the family fortune on booze and women if the trust went to him. She revised the Trust to skip two generations of Taylors and if there were no Taylors left by then, the trust would be donated to the Methodist Church.

On his Eighteenth birthday, Jack Taylor received a letter from "The Estate of William S. and Anne R.Taylor" requesting he meet with Estate's Executor, Attorney Ralph Handover.  He ignored it.   A month later,  the doorbell rang and twenty minutes later Jack Taylor signed the legal papers and was handed a very large check which represented 5 percent of his total fortune.   He kept the remaining monies invested and hired Attorney Ralph Handover to manage the portfolio.  He also stopped drinking.  After his meeting with Attorney Handover Jack Taylor poured a case of  beer down the toilet and never again touched another drop of alcoholic beverage.

One month later Jack moved his mother and sister into a home he bought for them.  The house was fully furnished. Each bedroom had its own walk-in closet, private bathroom, and a dresser, of course.  
"No more plastic bags."  Jack said to his mother.

He also paid the rent for one year for his father.  That was the last time he helped his dad.  

For himself?  Jack Taylor bought two hundred and fifty four acres of mostly prime wooded upland in Grinold Township, Diffle County, PA. from Johnathan Shenk  Et. Al.  The land was bordered by Rabbit Mountain Road to the North,  Diffle County Parkland to the South, Lester and Kathy Holmes to the West, and the  Red Rodeo Subdivision to the East. A small stream, Rabbit Run, follows the Red Rodeo Subdivision running North to South. Here is a basic map:

John Shenk owned a car dealership in Nutter County.  It was a dumpy looking dealership. John Shenk didn't care. He loved his cars, his beer, and his loyal customers. If your kid needed a dependable car to get through college and you asked John Shenk and he would go to the next auction, find a cheap, dependable car and then sell it to you at cost. 300 bucks, 400 bucks and your kid had a car you could trust. So when it was time to buy a new car, you went to Shenks Auto and you paid more for your car. You didn't haggle, you didn't do comparison shopping.  Shenk took care of you so when it was time,  you took care of John Shenk.

John owned a large property on Rabbit Mountain Road. It was where he went to hunt, to drink, to hide, to cry, to laugh, to escape the garage, the sales, and his sister Betty who co-owned the dealership.  He loved the woods, the stream, and he built dirt roads along the entire boundary so he could drive all the way around.  it's easy to get lost on two hundred and fifty four acres.  John Shenk got more lost every day.  One day, John, a short, stocky man with a broad nose and a kind smile, drove into the woods with a six pack of  Reading Premium  and a 22 caliber snake pistol.   He parked near the Southern boundary at a wooden bridge crossing over Rabbit Run.  He walked onto the bridge which was nothing more than 4 telephone poles from bank to bank with 2' x 12' planks nailed on top.  

John Shenk sat with his six-pack and hung his feet over the side and just relaxed.  He didn't notice Momma  black bear with her cubs walking to the bridge. He downed his last beer.   He didn't notice the cubs until they walked up and sniffed and batted his empty beer cans off the bridge.  Then he jumped up quick with alarm, and being beer balance-challenged, he fell forward on top of one of the cubs. The screaming cub ran back to his Momma  who stood up and roared with rage.  

John Shenk pulled his snake pistol  and shot Momma with every bullet in the gun as she charged him.  He backed up to the edge of  the bridge as he fired his tiny gun , then he tripped, falling backwards into the stream where the back of his head hit a large rock. John laid there, not moving.  Momma bear leaped off the bridge and  landed on top of him. She pressed her nose into his face, teeth bared, and then she paused.  She sniffed.  She nudged. Then she walked away. John Shenk averted a bear attack.  He played dead.  and he did it better than most because he was already dead when Momma bear landed on him. 

The very last time John Shenk saw the world, he witnessed this:  Tree branches reaching right up to bright blue, white puffy-clouded sky and in the foreground: a giant black bear, completely airborne, her arms and legs spread wide with her claws extended and her teeth bared, no more than five feet directly above him.  John Shenk's last thought?   I wish I had a camera.  No one will ever believe this.  He smiled and drew in his last sweet breath on Earth.

Two months after his death, John's sister sold half the property to Red Rodeo Land Consulting.  The other half she kept for another ten years until Jack Taylor made her an offer she couldn't refuse.

DIFFLE COUNTY UPDATE: East Greenville Sues East Greenville and Wins!

 DIFFLE COUNTY UPDATE

Historian Randall O'Rourke 

East Greenville  held a referendum on the city name after their Town Constable, Johnny “Bearhug” Bartlesky made an amazing discovery. He was driving to Quakertown to pick up a prisoner from the county prison when he got lost, with the help a gas station attendant or two.   He ended up in East Greenville- in Montgomery County!    When he returned home with this revelation, the Town Council was furious and wrote a letter to the imposter East Greenville demanding they change their name.

Since the Montgomery County town was established over one hundred years before the Diffle County town, there was no way they were changing their name.  Instead East Greenville, Montgomery County sued East Greenville, Diffle County to force a name change.

In the course of discovery, it was revealed  that a significant number of tax bills were being sent to the wrong town by a somewhat confused US Postal Service.  Since the homes in Montgomery County were higher in value than the homes in  Diffle County-  our County tax fund greatly benefited. 

   “You don’t look a gift horse in the mouth”,  testified Diffle County Chief Tax Assessor Randall O’Rourke at the Superior Court Hearing last April.

That was a sticking point with State Judge Anthony Grube, a former Montgomery County Prosecutor who ruled that Diffle County's East Greenville would be audited, the monies returned to the right and proper East Greenville, and a binding referendum on a new name placed on the ballot in November. Then Judge Gruber sealed the court record.

Diffle County Council formed a Name Committee and by September three names were added to the referendum:  Greenvale, PA ;  East Greenvale, PA , and Westgreen, PA.   The third name was chosen when it was pointed out to the Committee  by the town historian, Randall O’Rourke that the Diffle County seat is located on the West side of the creek, and not the East side as previously thought.

The winning vote was East Greenvale.  There were a few write-ins that gained traction but fell a few votes short. The top write-in three vote-getters   East Greensucksville;  Gruberville,  and West Easterly.

West Easterly actually won the most votes, if you count the two absentee ballots sent in by the Sean and Maggie O’Rourke. They were vacationing in Ireland at the time of election, and asked their son Randall to drop their absentee ballot off at the post office.   He forgot.

~~~

In other news -  Barry Stettler was plowing snow part-time for Grinold Township when he fell and broke his leg.

 Last October  Barry put up a shed right on the property line and his neighbor Jim Catinera filed a complaint with the zoning office.   Barry had to rent a skid-steer to move the shed five feet beck from the line. That cost him a hundred and seventy five dollars for the machine rental and permit fee. Barry was not a happy camper.

When winter arrived and it came time to plow the roads, Barry was assigned to plow Caterina’s street.  Big Don warned Barry beforehand.   “Don’t even think about doing damage to Catinera’s mailbox. “  Barry politely nodded. 

After four sweeps of the street, each time pushing snow closer and closer to the mailbox, finally Barry took one last swipe.  The heavy, wet snow flew, the post cracked, but the mailbox did not fall over.  Furious at this, Barry drove for a fifth time at the mailbox, opened the truck door and gave the box a good hard kick. Then he lost his grip on the steering wheel and fell out of the truck.  His leg hit the step rail awkwardly, then his own weight slammed down and snapped his femur like a big ol' pine branch getting whacked by a chainsaw.

The Truck continued on plowing without him, rolled down an embankment and pinned itself between two oak trees.  Big Don had to rent a crane to remove the fully-loaded salt truck  from its woodland perch.  Barry was fired and Jim Cantinera received a brand new mailbox and half a pound of  deer sausage. 

Three weeks later,  Barry’s shed blew up. “Must have been a Meth lab!” Big Don said with a big-ol’ grin.  Breaking Bad - right here in Diffle County.  You just never know.

Diffle County Update: Tracking The Great White Buck (Part 2)

 Story by Rick Fisher  All characters and places are fictional. Any resemblance to real folks we know is purely intentional  coincidental; Copyright 2013 All Rights Reserved.  NSA file No. 2314566780000999330000.1302df 

Big Don (or Country Dave if you prefer) walked Jesse Kern through the garage to a flight of stairs that led to Don's office above the town's meeting room. Big Don had a Pepsi in one hand and a legal pad filled with numbers in the other hand. Jesse Kern stood for a moment in the hallway outside of of Don's always-open door.

 "Come in and plop yourself in a chair" said Big Don as he dropped his own large frame into his Staples-discounted 99-dollar black-plastic-fake leather office chair. 

Jesse sat down in one of two provincial chairs that clearly belonged in the home Mrs. Carolyn Dorshimer,  President of the East Greenville Garden Society.  Jesse hadn't noticed that the chairs were completely out of place in a municipal office.  He did notice they were rather uncomfortable.   Perhaps that is why Big Don liked them so much.

"That chair you're sitting in we pulled out of the dumpster on clean-up day,"  said Country Dave (or Big Don if you prefer) who smiled broadly, his grayish-blue eyes twinkling with mirth.  "The Dorshimers drove in with a truck full of furniture. They pretended to be Township residents. Larry asked them what road they lived on and she politely said, 'We live right off Main Street on a private lane."  We helped them dump their furniture and then I told them, 'Now If you come back with more junk be certain to bring someone who lives on Main Street'  They didn't come back.   You know she is President of the Garden Society."

Jesse nodded. 

 Big Don went on, without barely taking a breath.  "I hear you have been tracking a white buck.  I remember when me and my pop, God rest his soul, saw a white buck.  We had been hunting all day and hadn't seen a single deer.  We had just gotten back to the cabin and had sat down on the front porch with a few refreshments.  Our guns were leaning against the wall just outside the front door.  We may have been onto our second or third refreshment when down the lane trots a white buck. He stops 30 feet from the porch, directly in front of us and stops to nibble on some grass. We sat in our porch rockers watching him for about two or three minutes.  He was a 10 pointer with a fine rack. What a trophy.  I quietly reached over for my gun." 

Big Don took a sip of his Pepsi as he got up from his chair, which groaned and cracked from the loss of his weight.    Big Don held the soda can like a gun, pretending to point it at a deer.

"So I leveled my rifle and took aim. I was about to release the safety when Pop yells 'HA!' jumps out of his chair and slams the palms of his hands down hard on the porch railing several times. He even scared me. The buck leaps into the air with a snort and was gone before I could fire.  I turned to Pop and said, 'Why the hell did you do that?   I had him perfect in my sights!'

Big Don looked Jesse right in the eyes.  "Pop looked at me straight in the eyes.  'There's some things you don't kill. It's bad luck to shoot a white deer."

Then Big Don grinned that old just between us grin he was famous for.  "So what can East Greenville Township do for you?

Jesse Kern paused briefly then replied, "I don't believe in luck and I want that deer on my wall.  I've been tracking him for quite a while now but he's vanished these past two weeks.  Do you know anyone who has seen him?  Al Jacobs thought he saw the Albino last week across the pond."

Big Don shook his head .  "I don't know anyone who has seen your trophy in the past few weeks, Jesse. Did you check down at the Legion?  "Jesse nodded his head.  Don paused in thought for a moment and then broke into another smile.  "I have just the thing for you. We have a GameSpy camera you might be able to use. Diffle County Waste Management gave it to us. We had folks dumping at the dead end on Shale Pit Lane.  We used the camera to try to catch them in the act."

Don got up and walked over to tall file cabinet, pulled out the bottom drawer, and removed a camouflage-covered plastic box.  He set the box on the desk, opened the face of it, and pulled out a camera.

"This is a motion sensor camera.  After it is activated by movement, it will film for 15 seconds.  It has night vision too.   You place it in this protective box, lock it in,  and secure the box to a tree.  This camera does an excellent job of filming deer. That's a fact we learned on Shale Pit Lane."   They both chuckled. Big Don handed the camera and box to Jesse.   "Try it out for a few weeks but our zoning officer will want it back so try to remind yourself to return it.."

Jesse stood up and thanked  Big Don. "I will try to remind myself. And I know exactly where I want to place this camera." Jesse looked down at the camera in his hand.

"Good!" Big Don Exclaimed, "Now I've got to get through these numbers before the State Auditor arrives.  Don't let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya!"

Jesse stood motionless for a moment in front of Don's desk. Don sat back down in his groaning chair, grabbed a pencil off the desk and adjusted his adding machine.

"Don, why don't you use a computer to add those numbers?" asked Jesse Kern.

"Don't trust computers," Don replied, "Never did and never will. I can add just fine on my own. Then I know it's right."  Big Don waved Jesse towards the door.  "Now go catch your great white buck and don't bring any bad luck back into this office!"

A few hours later, Jesse Kern was ten feet high in an old oak tree pointing the Township camera down a woods path on the State Game lands directly behind his farm.  He had seen enough buck rubs high up on the smaller trees to know there was a buck with a big rack moving through these woods.  Maybe he would get lucky and make a great discovery.

Diffle County Historical Society Note:  Big Don is a Grinold Township Supervisor.  There is no Main Street in Grinold Township, Diffle County.  Mr. and Mrs. Martin Dorshimer are residents of East Greenville Borough, Diffle County, PA They reside on Carolyn Lane. Mrs. Dorshimer has been President of the East Greenville Garden Society for over 24 years.

~/~

The Diffle County Report - Jesse Kern and the Great White Catch (Part 1)

Jesse Kern led a rugged life. He didn't know much else and by his own reckoning, he never needed to know.   He was raised poor in a one room cabin on the H.Kern Farm. His property overlooked a small valley along Potter Creek. The land had been in his family's name for over two hundred years. 

Jesse's dad taught him to track, hunt, fish, raise chickens and then chop off their heads. Bill Kern also taught his son how ferment black raspberries.   That was over 33 years ago.  Jesse's mom died when he was near enough to seven to spit at it.  His dad never re-married. Bill Kern died of prostate cancer about three years ago or so. 

For Jesse, days and years sort of blended together and he rarely would remember an anniversary or birthday.  He preferred the timeless movement of the woods- the snort of a deer, growl of a bear, and the scream of a rabbit were sounds he remembered and dates he studiously kept track of in a small black, leather-bound journal.

Jesse Kern was single.  It seemed to him that women wanted a reward for leaving him. He paid a price every time he fell in love.  Lately, he was more concerned about shooting a deer goodnight than saying goodnight dear.

A few days ago Charlie Ross had spotted a 12-point White Buck lying low under a stand of hemlocks. Charlie lived  about a half-mile North of Jesse Kern on County Road 319.  The white buck or albino buck is one of the rarest of deer and to have it's head stuffed and hung on the rec room wall was a Diffle County source of pride.

Within a few hours of lying quietly under a forest canopy, the white buck was talked about at Church Bingo, at the Masonic Lodge, at the Knights of Columbus, at the local Elks, the Moose, the VFW, the American Legion, and every other bar and tavern in Diffle County.  By the time Jesse Kern heard about the white buck, it had grown to State record size with at least 18 points of sheer white antler divinity.   

Jesse pushed his stringy blonde hair back behind his ears and smiled. He knew that stand of hemlocks sat on the border between his property and the state game lands.  For the past two days Jesse walked all the familiar paths in the woods near his cabin.  He looked for signs of buck rub on the higher branches, where only a prize buck in his prime could reach. He studied the tracks on the deer trails and paths.  He sat in his favorite deer stand and watched the forest underneath. He listened for the buck that might be nearby, moving through the thicker brush with quiet respect for the man watching from the trees.

Jesse Kern walked these trails nearly every day, setting traps and  blinds, and fixing deer stands. Kern knew Diffle County better than Google Earth.  He adjusted his backpack and rifle as he began tracking the elusive white deer.

In 1945, Jesse's Grandfather Harold and Great Uncle Paul divided the 150 acre farm where County Road 319 ran through the center.  At least Harold Kern thought the road divided the land in half.  A few years after the papers were signed, Harold hired a surveyor.  He owned 47 acres. His scoundrel of a brother owned 103 acres.  Harold Kern had trusted his brother and learned a bitter lesson in vocabulary: Without the word betrayal, the word trust would cease to exist.

Now through a stroke of luck, bad for Paul's side of the family and good for Jesse- the entire farm was going to become whole again. Great Uncle Paul and his wife Viola only had three children, Maggie, Ruth, and  Johnathan.  Naturally, Paul left his entire estate to Jesse's Uncle Johnathan- who married a frail woman from the city named Cecile Robuster. She promptly died of cancer on her 24th birthday and left Johnathan childless.  He never remarried (some say John preferred the company of men anyway) and recently passed away from an "unknown disease". The sole heir of his estate? Jesse Kern.  Great Uncle Paul was rolling over in his grave. Paul's sisters sued for their fair share of the estate and lost in court over the very clear handwriting in Great Uncle Paul's last Will and Testament.

The words were written like this:

    ( "...as for my two thieving gossiping, man-killing sisters I leave each one dollar of monopoly money.  I won't have my hard earned cash tossed into one-armed bandits and drunk down with fancy drinks.  There isn't a bank in hell that would take my money but Maggie and Ruth would sure as hell try to deposit it there.  I also leave nothing for their children or their children's children.  I'd rather give my money to a clan of gypsies. I'd rather leave it to my bastard brother's grandson. Leave them nothing and don't let a judge tell you otherwise. I am of sound mind and body and this is my last request.  Signed  Paul Kern"

Since the land transfer wasn't yet complete, Jesse Kern stayed off his Uncle's farm.  Besides the deer was Jesse's main concern and he was focused on that stand of hemlocks  near the game lands. Despite several sightings from residents all over Diffle County,  Jesse Kern hadn't caught the slightest scent of this world record buck.  He decided to talk with the best hunter in Diffle County and get some tips on how to catch the great white deer.  Big Don opened the door to the Township building and smiled broadly from ear to ear as Jesse Kern stepped inside. 

"You've come to the right place!" Big Don exclaimed as they walked through an interior doorway that led to the Township garage..

END PART 1

Diffle County Commissioners and the Water Thieving Scoundrel

 Diffle County is rich with water. This life force bubbles out of the ground in our rare and beautiful sand springs which in turn fills our wetlands, streams, rivers, and lakes. The clear nectar pours out of our artesian wells.  With a pick and a shovel a homesteader could dig a shallow well in a couple of days and be filling cow troughs within a day after that.  Diffle County folks know the water comes from rich aquifers deep under the Pennsylvania mountains.  Our streams are clear of silt and full of native fish.  We have four trout hatcheries in full operation. The State Fish Commission doesn't stock our lakes.  They don't need to. We have plenty. Water has never been a commodity here. Water is a privileged and time-honored right of existence as it should be everywhere. And we take it for granted.

Our elected Diffle County Commissioners never even gave water regulations a second thought.  Then Baker Springs Mineral Water Company, Inc. bought Jesse Baker's 120-acre farm, drilled 3 commercial wells, and paved the driveway. Within a few months of their new ownership, Rocky Springs was rolling 30 tanker trucks a day in and out of the old Baker farm, down Diffle County roads, and across Diffle County bridges.

At their next monthly meeting, the commissioners placed "Water Thieving Scoundrel" on their Agenda list for discussion and sent a formal letter to the CEO of Baker Springs Mineral Water Company, Inc. requesting his attendance.  The letter, crafted by Doris Black, the commissioners secretary for over 40 years, read like this:

DIFFLE COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OFFICE

1 COURTHOUSE SQUARE  P.O. BOX 21

NORTH GREENVALE, PA

"Fish, Hunt, and Play and When You're Done- Go Away"

August 10, 2015

Jean Hunter, CEO

Baker Springs Water Co

15 Watercress Dr.

Watertown, NY

Re: Misappropriation of Diffle County Groundwater Water

Dear Mr. Hunt:

You are required to attend the County Commissioners public meeting on August 15, 2015 at 730 p.m. to discuss your removal of county  water from our aquifer without a permit or permission. 

Seriously Yours,

Donald Tanglelic

Chairman, 

Diffle County Commissioners 

On August 15th at 7:00 p.m. in the ornately designed County Meeting Room No. 1, in front of a packed house of mostly curious (the usual crowd of meeting groupies) and a few angry citizens (adjoining property owners to the Baker farm),  the County Commissioners called the meeting to order.  Present  and seated at the was  Donald Tanglelic, Chairman,  Robert Darling, Vice -Chair, and Lawrence Busch, Secretary-Treasurer,  County Engineer Douglas Windmere, PE, and David J. Sears, Esq., County Solicitor.  Doris Black sat at a side table, her white hair most recently in curls but now coiffed and sprayed in its Sunday church best.  Sitting next to Doris was a stenographer hired by Baker Springs to record a transcript of the meeting.

The front row of the audience was reserved and empty, as per the request of Baker Springs.  Chairman Tanglelic called the meeting to order, all rose and everyone recited the pledge of allegiance.  After the audience was seated, the the representatives of Baker Springs Mineral Water Company, Inc. filed into the room.  The first three were attorneys, followed by a hydro-geologist, two engineers, a soil scientist, a representative from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, the manager of the facility, and then Jean Hunter, CEO. 

Ms. Jean Hunter stood 6'1" tall in heels, had long, dark brown hair that glistened like black velvet and ended in a straight, professional cut in the small of back, just above her derriere. Her movie star figure carried just enough curves and was elegantly displayed in a tight, form fitting black cocktail dress, wholly inappropriate for a county meeting.  The room fell into silence as she sat down in the seat directly across from the commissioners.  She tightly crossed her legs and looked Chairman Tanglelic, tilting her head slightly to one side, her large brown eyes accentuating the beauty of her lightly freckled face. She wrinkled her upturned nose ever so slightly, and her ruby-red lips parted slightly to reveal her white, television-ready teeth. 

"Good evening Commissioners" said Ms. Jean Hunter as she adjusted herself in her seat. "Thank you for reserving the front row. We are a large, loving family and I sometimes forget that we take up a lot of space,  I hope we haven't inconvenienced you this evening."   She smiled brightly and the room lights appeared to brighten alongside her.   All three commissioners melted into their chairs.

" I will forgive you for assuming I was man in your letter to me.  I have to admit I was surprised to read your letter and I was concerned from its tone, that you were planning something that would have the potential to harm my business." 

"As you can see I brought my lawyers and hydrologists and I could allow them to speak- but they talk with less diplomacy than I do."   She smiled at the community leaders.   "I want to give something back to your community. And so my firm has been in contact with our financiers and the owners of the largest aquarium in the world.  Next month we will submit plans to Diffle County for a state of the art environmental center and aquarium, focusing on the native fish from this area.  We estimate the project will cost $265 million dollars and will include a hotel.   Are there any questions?"

Deafening silence.

Ms. Hunter stood up and smiled brightly at the commissioners.  Then she snapped her fingers and her subordinates leaped to their feet and the entire group marched out of the room, with Ms. Hunter the last to leave, turning back one last time to wave to the room of stunned citizens and their elected officials.

And that is how Difffle County ended up with the Diffle County Aquarium/Hunter Environmental Center and the rest of the country drinks from Baker Springs.

A Diffle County Fourth of July

On April 30th Kandee Dalton passed the forty-year mark. She celebrated at the District Justice's office with her fifth marriage ceremony. Of course, there was open betting within Diffle County that her latest husband, Harvin Williams would be down the road by June. A secondary bet was how empty his pockets would be on the trip out.  Her last husband had to borrow bus fare from Big Don to get himself on a one way bus to the next state.

Kandee Dalton owned the only diner in East Greenvale.  She stood just about 5'4" foot tall in 4" heels and her curly blonde hair spilled over her petite shoulders like a bad 70's perm.  Think Barbara Streisand in Main Event, but with a smaller, upturned nose and bright blue eyes.  

When she was a younger woman, she and a girlfriend had a few too many sangrias and decided to stand on an Interstate overpass and flash the truckers travelling East. She thought it would make their long journey more enjoyable.  Two jack-knifed trucks later, Kandee Dalton earned herself a household name.  Of course, she embraced it, naming her newly bought diner 

 ~Kandee's Truck Stop~

She was pretty enough, more than sexy enough. and definitely smart enough not to go to jail for risking a catastrophe that day.  When she met the County prosecutor it was love at first sight. She married District Attorney Mark Holmes after his office declined to prosecute her.  He was Kandee's first husband and they were divorced within a year. She bought a BMW to celebrate. He moved to North County and never returned.

Kandee was always looking to insert herself into an idea.   It basically worked like this:  Kandee would be talking to a neighbor or co-worker at Diffle County Children and Youth, where she was a secretary.  After thirty minutes of a Kandee monologue, the other person would try to find an out-subject. An out-subject is where you interrupt almost rudely, float a sentence to change the subject and hope it gets you out of the conversation and the room.  Mary Timpson-Smith, a wall-flower of a case worker, decided it was time to employ an out-subject on Kandee, who had been rattling on for a half hour over living room draperies. 

"Speaking of those old colonial drapes. I just don't understand why we have a Halloween parade but we don't have a parade to celebrate our Nation's Independence!" exclaimed Mary, building herself up for the big finale, "Why I get so angry it's all I can do to deliver this very important letter to my boss, which I better get to right away. You have a good day Kandee!"  And off she went, an out-subject success.

At that moment an idea birthed inside Kandee's brain - followed closely by a question

Kandee's Idea:   We should have a Fourth of July festival in Diffle County.  One with a parade, games for kids, food booths, and fireworks!  I bet the only reason it hasn't happened is because nobody has tried.  I should organize it!

Kandee Question:  I wonder if I can get paid for my efforts? I wouldn't ask for alot..just enough to cover my expenses plus 15%. That seems fair enough.

Kandee was quite talented at getting donations from local male merchants.She was a flirt and men are dogs which was perfect for the July 4th celebration.  Millers Grocery Store donated 4000 hot dogs, the East Greenvvale Elks donated 4000 hot dog buns,  Antonicci Pizza donated 40 pizza pies,  Johnston Office Supplies donated paper products for 4000 people, Happy Lucky Chinese Take-Out donated 4000 fortune cookies, and Millers Grocery Store ( this required more flirting), donated 6000 cans of Roadhouse Root Beer.  It's amazing what a pretty smile and a low-cut blouse can accomplish in  Greenvale.

By March, Kandee had a parade organized that was partly sponsored  by the VFW and American Legion. A 15 minute fireworks display costing 10,000 dollars was sponsored by the Fraternal Order of the Masons, Lodge No. 0110 and the Knights of Columbus, East Greenvale Chapter.

Kandee had one last hurdle: County Council approval.  On Monday, April 4th, Kandee attended the Council meeting. Her request for a parade permit and permission for a fireworks display was scheduled for a vote.  The Council consisted of 5 women and 4 men.  

When Kandee entered Council chambers, the women on Council grimaced, frowned, clucked their tongues, and sent eye daggers by the thousands,  The men sat with twinkly eyes and bright, little boy smiles. Kandee was wearing a leopard print, body-clinging, spandex workout suit with 6 inch heels. She had teased her hair and looked like she stepped out of a movie- perhaps Saturday Night Fever or perhaps Saturday Night Sex Fever,

The meeting was not going smoothly. Every decision was decided along the gender line.   A proposed new shopping center, their plans not quite up to snuff- lost an extension request by a vote of 5-4.  A request for approval to allow the Warden to attend a conference on jailhouse security: No by a 5-4 vote.  And so it went until the last item on the agenda made it to the floor- The 1st Annual Diffle County 4th of July Parade and Picnic.   The meeting was already two hours old yet the room was still packed- there wasn't an extra seat in the house.

Kandee pitched her proposal to County Council.   Rebecca Lohman, Chairperson,  watched Kandee with clear disdain. She began peppering Kandee with questions.

" What about insurance for the event?  You want to use our roads, our park and our lake for this event.  Our insurance carrier insists you provide additional coverage."  Horst Muhlman of Old Farm Insurance jumped up from his seat.

"Old Farm Insurance has already issued a 2 million dollar coverage policy for the event, Madam Chair."  Kandee smiled at Horst. Horst winked at Kandee.

"We will not use taxpayers' money to police this event." sneered Ms. Lohman at Kandee.

County Sheriff Terence Drunkhenbeeter stood up. "My deputies who are off-duty have volunteered their time to provide traffic control.  I will also be assisting on my day off."  Kandee winked at the grinning Sheriff.

Chair Lohman frowned,  "We have an endangered species at the lake.  We can not risk damaging their habitat."

Mr, Randy Smart of the Difle County Conservation District stood up.  "Those turtles are already back down in the mud, in the bog end of the lake.  This event is more than 300 feet away and is perfectly acceptable to our office. Mr. Smart nodded to Kandee, his face blushing ever so slightly. Kandee was grinning from ear to ear.

Chairperson  Lohman stared at the papers on her desk for a moment, then asked.  "Can I get a motion, please?"

"Councilman John Henry made the motion to approve Kandee's project, seconded by Paul Rodgers.  The vote was called for and Kandee lost 5-4- right down the gender line.

She appealed.  In late May, Kandee and her attorney, former district attorney Mark Holmes, made her case before Senior Judge William Butler.  She won. Judge Butler ordered Diffle County to issue a permit for the parade and fireworks display.

Diffle County did not appeal Judge Butler's decision based upon the advice of their solicitor, James Dunce. In an Executive session, he advised County Council that the legal cost of fighting Kandee's discrimination lawsuit (filed in Federal Court in Philadelphia) could exceed 100,000 dollars. Solicitor Dunce recommended  settlement.  Diffle County Council voted 5-4 for the settlement, Chairperson Lohman switching over to vote with the men.  "Just this one time!" She stated, her upper lip stiff as a corpse at the city morgue.  The settlement was for $35,00.00.  Kandee considered it as payment for services rendered.

On July 4th,  Diffle County held the largest parade in County history.  Veterans marched, 15 high school bands marched, patriotic floats rolled down the main drag in between drum corps, clown troupes, and baton twirlers. Two Mummer companies from Philadelphia marched in their own merry way, umbrellas twirling high in the air.  People packed the sidewalks five deep and street merchants sold American flags and glow in the dark necklaces.

The parade ended at the County Park where a grand picnic was held. Directly behind huge tubs of potato salad (donated by the East Greenvale German Lutheran Society) and holding a large serving spoon stood a bikini-clad Kandee Dalton. Standing to her right was Attorney Mark Holmes, dishing out the baked beans.

After dark, thousands of  Diffle County folk sat on their blankets and beach chairs waiting for the fireworks show. Across whe lake, the Lucky Happy Fireworks Company shot off the first round.  But something went wrong and all the fireworks went off at once. The display lasted 12 seconds.  The entire crowd moaned in unison.

Kandee giggled, spoon in one hand and Attorney Mark Holmes in the palm of the other hand.

~~~

Diffle County Update: The Jimmy Deagan Story

A story by Rick Fisher  All characters of Diffle County are fictional. Warning: Some languiage may not be suitable for children.

Jimmy Deagan was an angry kid. His father was a drunk.  It was a family tradition. He had his father's eyes too. Tall, dark, and dangerously handsome, Jimmy could have passed for a All-America High school quarterback, except for those eyes.  Deep-set under dark eyebrows with long, black lashes; they were piercingly beautiful. They were painful and angry. They were unpredictable and deadly.   They invited girls to ruin.

When Jimmy was twelve years old, he stole magazines from the local drug store. He didn't get caught.  Then he invited Robert (Bobby) Jenkins to steal magazines and laughed and ran away, while Bobby sat handcuffed to a chair waiting for his parents to take him home.  Jimmy showed that stupid kid how to steal the wrong way- just for kicks.

By the time Jimmy was fifteen, he had fathered a child and two abortions. He could pass for eighteen and the older girls flocked to the bad boy of Diffle County.  They told him he looked like James Dean. He told them to shut up and spread their legs or he would smash their face.  It was easy for Jimmy Deagan to get laid.

At sixteen, he borrowed a car and pushed it off a cliff into the old Westville quarry.  It belonged to the only teacher who gave him an A in class.  That night was one of his favorites.  They met at her apartment just like every other Friday night.  But Jimmy Deagan was getting bored with the relationship.  He told her the A was bullshit. He didn't even show up after the first class.  That was all the time he needed to let her know she was going to belong to him and no wasn't an option.

Lindsey Vale was only twenty-three years old and fresh out of college.  She wasn't the prettiest woman and was flattered by his attention.  What could it hurt? She had never done a dangerous thing in her entire restrained life. Jimmy is a bad boy and they have a code, she thought. They could have some mutual fun and no one would get hurt. Jimmy would never rat her out. Clearly, Lindsey didn't take enough psychology courses in college.  When Jimmy Deagan is bored, people get hurt.

They were lying in her bed, smoking cigarettes in silence. He had been different tonight, rougher and uncaring. She felt uncertain. She felt used.  He slapped, he bit, he pulled hair, he took her in ways and in places she didn't expect nor want.  The silence lay between them now like a heavy stone. Finally and painfully she gathered the courage to speak.

"Jimmy, that wasn't fun for me. You hurt me tonight. You did things to me that were disrespectful." she whispered softly, her eyes misting with small tears.

"You should just shut up. You enjoyed it.  I don't need you bitching at me after you begged me, OK?"

"I'm not bitching and I was begging you to stop.  You really hurt me, Jimmy. We've been together   for almost six months.  I should be able to talk to you about how I feel."  Lindsey's tears began to flow.

"I got something I need to do.  I need to take your car for awhile.   I won't be long with it."   He looked directly into her wet eyes and smirked.  "Hey, I'll even give it a wash."

"I don't know.  Do you even have a license?  Why not let me drive you there? I can drive you Jimmy"  she searched her young lover's eyes for any level of tenderness, tears and mascara streaming down alongside her nose and over her upper lip. She could taste the salt.

"I'm not asking permission.  You're not my mother.  Where are the keys, in your purse?"  Jimmy threw back the covers and got out of bed, picked up his clothes off the floor and dressed himself, cigarette blunt hanging loosely from the corner of his James Dean mouth.  "Go get them for me."

"Jimmy, please no. Not tonight. Stay here.  I need you to hold me."  Lindsey's cries turned to hard, body-raking sobs.

James Deagan walked over to the bed, grabbed Lindsey by the hair and pulled her naked body onto the floor.  Lindsey screamed as he dragged her across the room, tossing her like a rag against her dresser.

"Reach into your purse and get me your fucking car keys."  Jimmy stood over her, his dark eyes glaring in anger and disgust.  Lindsey struggled to her feet, pulling her long, brown hair around her neck and holding it tightly.  With her free hand she reached into her purse for the car keys.  Jimmy stole them out of her hand and walked out of the room.  "See ya in the newspapers."

Twenty minutes later, Lindseys' car lay at the bottom of the quarry.  Jimmy watched it sink, then dove off the cliff himself, swam to the opposite shore, and walked, clothes soaking wet, to the Westville Police station. He was humming a sea shanty to himself.  It was a beautiful night.

Jimmy Deagan explained to the officer-on-duty how his high school teacher seduced him and initiated sex with him. She told him if he didn't fuck her, she would flunk him out of school. He wanted to run away.  After they had sexual intercourse several times, she insisted he drive her car to the mini-mart and buy her more cigarettes. She told him to take a drive and calm down and to think about how lucky he was that she chose him to be her "special student". Then she swore him to secrecy about what had happened between him.  Later the police report would reflect that there were no cigarettes in Lindsey Vales's house.  

Jimmy told the officer and then later the District Attorney and then the Grand Jury  how he didn't even realize he was on the quarry road until the car was airborne. He swam out the window and barely cleared the car before it sunk four hundred feet to the bottom. "I'm telling the truth, officer."

The police are not dumb. They watch and they see. It was common knowledge around the barracks that Deagan and Vale spent time together at her house.  The rumor mill was turning on that story for months.  However, police reports seldom include rumor mills.  Once upon a time, several years earlier, John Deagan was a highly decorated police officer- until the drink caught up with him and his wife. She died in the fiery car crash.  John Deagan survived but his son Jimmy was never the same after that night.  The local police made it a point to keep an eye on Jimmy and help him whenever they could.

The following morning, Lindsey Vale was physically removed from her apartment in handcuffs and leg irons, arrested for having sex with a minor.  The local and regional papers were there to take her picture and ask rude questions. Miss Vale was placed in the rear seat of a Westville patrol car and driven away to jail. By the end of the day, she was infamous, a household name, and Jimmy Deagan, son of John, was rolling around under the football bleachers with Tammy Goodwin,  a sophomore cheerleader.

Jimmy's dad hadn't been home in three days, out on a bender somewhere nearby.  John Deagan missed the entire event.  Lindsey Vale lost her job and was sent off to prison by a partial local jury, Jimmy's dad sobered up for awhile, just long enough to kick Jimmy out of the house.  Jimmy lived on the street for 6 months before his father took him back in, offering Jimmy a beer to celebrate his homecoming.   Jimmy declined, vowing to never drink alcohol as long as he lived.

A few years passed. Lindsey was released from prison. She left the area and was never heard from again.  A mutual friend said she tried to find another teaching job, lied on her application, and after working for a few months her lie was uncovered and she was sent packing again.

Jimmy hooked up with an older woman from Nother county and they were living together in a rented rancher on Crowley Drive.  The police visited the house often to settle arguments between the two.  No one knew her very well and no one cared as long as Jimmy stayed there and wasn't causing any more trouble in Diffle County.

Jimmy also spent time with a slight, dark-haired man he met at the Downtown tavern. His new friend was a part-time drug dealer named Kevin Valence. They met sitting at the bar and soon were inseparable. They spent most of the time at the ranch house on Crowley drive or at the Downtown tavern looking for new customers.  They snorted the profits. Kevin never ran out of money.

Folks on Crowley Drive began to notice that more and more junk was ending up on the Deagan property.  Before long, broken and battered cars were parked in the front lawn like old broken ornaments. His neighbors filed complaints and soon local officials were paying Jimmy and his girlfriend regular visits. He was ordered to clean up but Jimmy ignored the certified letters.  If the outside was bad, the inside was even worse.There was barely enough room to walk from room to room. Jimmy, his girlfriend, and Kevin Valence had become classic hoarders.

The paramedics found Jimmy Deagan lying between piles of clothes, trash, and plastic bags. When the police first walked in all they could see from floor to ceiling was huge stacks of papers, empty boxes, junked toys, porn magazines and dirty clothing. Then they saw a foot and it was connected to a leg, which was connected to the lifeless body of James D. Deagan.  When they turned him over to attempt resuscitation, his eyes were wide open and filled with fear.  Pinned to his chest was a sheet of paper with a large F written in red pen. On a nearby table lay a small a bag of pure heroin, a razor blade, an empty bottle of whiskey and an open beer.  The Coroner's report confirmed James David Degean died of a heroin overdose combined with alcohol poisoning.

His drug dealer friend was never seen again.  A few months later, Joanna Wentzel moved out of the rancher, leaving behind a house filled with garbage and rubbish.  It cost the landlord over five thousand dollars to remove all the non-living trash.

Today, a thousand miles away from death and squalor Lindsey Vale and her husband Kevin play with their son in the backyard swimming pool her parents built. Timmy Vale has eyes just like his father, dark and deep-set, with long, elegant black eyelashes. Except Timmy's eyes are filled with love and laughter- how sweet is that?

Back in Diffle County- in every bar and tavern he frequents, John Deagan swears he's gonna catch that son-of-a-bitch who killed his boy Jimmy.  He swears it like he means it as the bartender pours him another shot of Jack.

All characters are fictional. Any resemblance to actual living or dead persons is purely incidental and not intentional.  Story by Rick Fisher  @fishfire on Twitter  Copyright 8/19/11 All Rights Reserved

Postnote: Big Don told me it was high time I told a darker story about Diffle County.  "It can't be all fun and games, Ricky."

Diffle County Waste Management

Welcome TO website

We  r  Diffel COunty Waste Management

Our website was loveingly designed  by  Mrs, Ellstrom's 9th grade computer class

DONT FORGET TO RECYCLE!!!

Rules About Dumping 

1. No Dumping

2. Anyone caught dumping will be persecuted to the full extent of the laws.

3. Smile on your'e candid camera.


Bin Hours  at Our Juniper Street Facility

Monday       Closed
Tuesday       Closed
Wednesday   11 A.M. to 1 P.M.
Thursday      Closed
Friday            7 A.M. to 11 A.M.
Saturday        9 A.M. to 12 P.M.
Sunday          Closed

Times Subject to Change without Notice


D.C.W.A.    102 Juniper Street.   East Greenville, PA  18090
Phone   1-800-555-6969

Diffle County Report: Aliens Spotted on Spoot Mountain

Story by Rick Fisher Copyright 2011 All Rights Reserved. All Characters are fictional. Any resemblance to folks living or dead is purely coincidental and not intended to reflect poorly upon the good non-fictional people we know.

A bad storm came through Diffle County last week.  I always know when a summer storm is a bad one by my telephone.  Since I live in Nother County, the boys don't call me in to help out unless they are desperate.  I can accept that.  Big Don likes to say, "Ricky, we can do it with you or without you."  Mostly they do it without me.

But eventually, being the back-up to the alternate to the part-timer to the full-timer gets you called on the phone after a nasty storm.

Big Don on the phone:
"Ricky, what are you doing today?  A bad storm came through.  Ol' John is down with a bad knee,  Arthur is in Florida, and Father Figure, well..he's on a mission...you aren't on the need to know list so we will leave it at that."

"What about Larry Lohman?  Isn't he available?"  I was trying to think of an excuse.  It was 5 a.m.

"Larry has a lawn maintenance seminar to attend . Ricky, we know you aren't busy at five in the morning.  You might as well come in."  Big Don believes that sleeping doesn't count as doing something.

There were a good number of trees down over roads, and large branches too. As soon as I got into the office, Big Don and I grabbed chainsaws and hopped in the Township truck.  He drove and I rode.  He knew where he was going. Here is how the system works: All night long, trees fall down. All night long folks who should stay home in a bad storm but don't dial up 911.  All night long the State Police call Big Don.

"Is Walt (our esteemed zoning officer originally from Long Island) out helping too?  I asked, as we bumped along on the back roads.

"Ricky, how many New Yorkers do you know who can handle a chainsaw?"  Big Don replied with feigned irritation.  After that we kept our conversations to the business of cutting limbs and clearing roads.

We were cutting a large Oak limb on Weldon Drive when Big Don's cell phone started playing "Made in America" by Toby Keith.  "Ah, it's Melissa."  (All women are named Melissa to Big Don. It's kind of catchy,  you should try it at home.)  He spoke with a couple of "uhuhs" and "okays" and a "whew" and then a "thank you Melissa" before hanging up the phone.  We finished carving up the branch and tossing it into the woods at the road's edge.

"Ricky, Melissa says we'll have to go rescue Marcus Spoot."

Marcus Spoot is a  true mountain man. He owns seventy-six acres of woods on a small rise surrounded by gentle valleys.  This is the same seventy-six acres that his daddy owned, his Pappy owned, and his great Granddaddy owned.  Before that, there is a missing deed (Chief Running Bear's deed, according to Native Americans and their casino backers), then a John Becker, and back even further, and not surprisingly, the property (along with half of Pennsylvania) was owned by the Honorable William Penn.

Marcus  Spoot had a driveway made of legend. Only 4-wheel drive vehicles could easily ascend to the top. Once the mountain snow and ice arrived, the Spoot homestead was only accessible by snowmobile and ATV's.  In the winter, Marcus Spoot parked  his old Dodge truck next to the mailbox down by the main road.

If he needed to go somewhere, Spoot ditched the snowmobile in Clawney's old barn across the highway, hopped in his truck and drove. During the warmer seasons the Dodge truck carried junk, tons of junk, picked up every trash night throughout the county, then carted up the mountain and tossed on the ground- new treasures every week.

Spoot's daddy was a junk collector.  Spoot's grand-pappy was a junk collector.  Spoot's Great grandfather collected metal and wood. The first pile is still there, rusting an decaying.  On top of Spoot mountain, there are over 5 acres of  Spoot-declared treasure- from half a piper cub to a 39 foot sailboat jacked up on cinder blocks with paint peeling faster than a drunken pee. Four generations of junk sure can add up.

Over the years, Spoot Mountain has also accumulated 55-gallon plastic barrels and Marcus has put them to good use fermenting peaches, sugar pears, apples, grapes, and more. It is the most unsanitary winery known to man. Fly strips full of winged insects hang from the ceiling of his makeshift garage, and a thousand more circle the barrels.  If you saw it, you wouldn't want to drink it.

Yet the wine is 150 proof and an absolute delight as long as you only sip half a glass or pour down more than two glasses. You don't want to drink enough to remember your reaction, friend. Or you want to drink enough to forget your reaction, babydoll.

Spoot had fancy names for his wine.  "Applenesia"  "Sugarpear Snare", "Grape Sinner" and "Peach Plowed" are some of the names Spoot has used in the past.  "Hey Marcus, what kind of wine is this?", I asked one day when he dropped off a couple of jars for the boys.  "That red one is "Strawberry Snatch".  They be snatching your children away from you after you drink some of that.   The yellow one is Daffodil Dyke.  Drink a few glassfuls and you be hitting on all the wrong girls in the bar. A few more glasses, and you be dancin' in the wrong bar, and a few more, you be shaving your head and marching in the parade."

He once invited the State Auditor, a lovely, professional accountant, over to his "winery" for a tasting.  A connoisseur of fine wines, she naturally agreed.  They found her 2 days later in Stopton, 40 miles away, wandering down the middle of Main Street in search of her car.  Spoot says he warned her.  "I told her, this one is Elderberry Eraser- erase your mind as fast as you drink it down.

It was hard for us to believe that Spoot needed our help. But when we arrived we saw there were dozens of trees down over his driveway, which was mostly washed out.  And Spoot was feeling poorly, fightin off some serious chest pains. An ambulance and crew waited at the driveway entrance to take him in, while we went to work at clearing those trees.

Big Don got on cellular and called George Watkins, who lived nearby. "George, we need the big machine. Over at Spoots. Yep. Okay. Send the bill to the Township. Yep. Melissa says Howdy. Bye now."  We stood around chatting with the ambulance crew for a few minutes when the sound of thunder started rolling our way.

Within minutes, the thunder became a clanking roar of yellow iron and rust- George Watkins had arrived on top of his 1957 D8 and, without so much as a wave, attacked the trees on Spoot's driveway- breaking trees and pushing them aside like little twigs, then scraping the dirt and pushing it forward, filling the ruts in nice and tight.

We followed with our chainsaws, cutting back a limb here, tossing minor branches aside there- while Watkins and his mighty D8 carved a new driveway to Spoot's front door.  Within an hour we reached the old man, and there he was sitting on a half-finished deck, feet hanging over the edge, naked down to his tighty-whiteys, a half-empty jar of Mighty Melon Masher in one hand.

"Howdy boys! Took ya long enough!  I thought I was gonna die and so I thought I'd better get to drinkin' and not remember my ending...then the aliens came and they took me up in their spaceship and poked at me with funny white sticks.  I shared a jar of my Masher with them..whooee, they was happy after that..knocked down all them trees in the driveway trying to get back to the sky...then a cat and an otter showed up looking for some armor.   I found them a couple of nice oven doors from a couple of stoves my pappy picked up on the Johnston farm a few years back..."

Marcus Spoots vitals were checked out by the EMT and he politely refused a ride to the hospital, "..and don't even think about charging me for a house call!"   George turned his dozer around and  gave a sweep back down the mountain for a final grade, and Big Don and I declined a glass of Melon Mash, but Big Don did remind Spoot that we fixed his driveway and to stop by for hot dogs next Tuesday, oh and don't forget to get those aliens registered to vote, election's coming up and Big Don sure could use a few extra votes.

The next morning, the Diffle County Reporter ran the front page headline:

"Wobbling U.F.O. Spotted Hovering Over Spoot Mountain"
State Police Confirm Sighting of Leaf-Covered Disc in Sky

The Johnston/Reilly Feud - A Diffle County True Story

A Diffle County Short Story by Rick Fisher

(Author's Note: Diffle County is a fictional place, located in the Eastern Pennsylvania foothills. All characters are based upon folks I may or may not know. All events are fictional as well, although a truck did get pushed into in a ditch by a Johnston driving a backhoe, while pulling the remains of his neighbor's fence about twenty years ago.  This story has nothing in common with that one-except that they were similar in nature, with alcohol involved and a feud in progress. )

Our story begins...

Back in Diffle County, the boys had a Wikileak problem of their own.  Seems like Charlie Johnston got a little "tired" after too many beers on New Years Eve  and finally decided to remove the fence that Joe Reilly built  on the Johnston property. A witness to the removal called the newspaper, and the next day the Diffle County Record had a page-one picture of  the Diffle County's brand new Ford 150 upside-down in a ditch, along with Charlie's backhoe laying on its side and pieces of fencing scattered like toothpicks all over the highway.

 It all began last summer, when neighbor Joe Reilly decided that Charlie's weekend partying (especially the one that ended with Charlie running around Joe's backyard starkers) was too downright awful a sight to watch. Joe bought and built a six-foot high stockade fence (without a zoning permit) on the property line between them. That property line location was kind of determined by Joe, his step-son Billy, and a string line between two stakes. This did not sit well with Charlie Johnston, not well at all.

Family history

Joe and Charlie go way back, all the way back to Pre-K school at the Garret YMCA.  There isn't one thing one doesn't know about the other.  Now you would think that would make them the best of friends.  On the contrary, they act like two cats in a bag.

Their family history is a tad convoluted too.  Recently, Charlie's niece, Vera Johnston-Reilly  married Joe's oldest brother, William.  The Johnston family now has the singular opinion that William Reilly is a cradle-robbing pedophillic, trophy-wife hunting, loveless, screwed up son of a bitch who has twisted and coerced Vera Johnston's innocent soul and beautiful body into loving him. William also has a ton of money and most local folks wonder which bank he robbed to get it.

If you ask Vera, she will tell you (in hushed tones) that William has three redeeming qualities she can not resist- a 1968 Ford Shelby Mustang GT-350 bright red and in cherry condition, a ton of money, and the biggest "weiner" she ever laid eyes on.  It was love at first sight.

Charlie and Joe's history goes even deeper- something to do with grandparents, a tree, and a monument with a misspelled name.  That is a story for another time.

Why the fence was built

Six months ago, before the fence was built, on a warm, sunny Monday morning, Joe Reilly stormed into the town office. He was ready to raise holy hell.  According to Joe, the following incident occurred: Charlie and his wife, a bleached blonde-three hundred pound screamer named Sheila (with a mean streak wider than Saturn's rings), got plastered on JD and Corona chasers, and snuck into Joe's backyard. They wanted to take a naughty midnight dip in the Reilly's brand-new in-ground swimming pool.  "Let's pop its cherry!" Charlie said.

First they got naked (not unusual) and had loud sex on the pool steps.  Afterwards, Joe took a sweet, long pee into the pool  from the concrete edge. This angered Sheila, who was still in the pool, floating on her back.   As her voice rose to a decibel level usually reserved for planes taking-off, Charlie vomited on a lounge chair.  At about this time, Joe Reilly, usually a deep sleeper, stepped outside with shotgun in hand, shells loaded to the max with rocksalt.

Joe chased them off, with a stinging spread of salt in their naked behinds. He spent the next several hours  cleaning and super-chlorinating his pool.  The next day, he went to the town office to complain. Since Charlie Johnston works on the township road crew, Joe decided this was a community problem and he wanted Charlie Johnston fired.

Big Don, deer sausage therapy

Big Don, elected town father, handled Joe Reilly in the usual manner- with a dose of humor, a shrug of the shoulders, and a reminder to sign up for the recycling containers.  When Joe left the office an hour later (after a free hot dog lunch) he was carrying a pound of deer sausage under his arm, courtesy of Big Don. At that point, Joe had completely forgotten about Charlie Johnston's drunken disaster. "Whew, I'm not sure how I do it!", Don exclaimed, his eyes twinkling with mirth.  We're not too sure either.

Joe Reilly didn't forget his Reilly problem for very long. When he arrived home, Sheila was standing in her driveway, screaming full throttle at her kids, who were either ignoring her or completely deaf as they climbed up into Joe Reilly's favorite maple tree.  The next day, Joe bought a stockade fence at Home Depot and had it installed that weekend.  On Monday morning, Charlie Johnston filed a complaint with the zoning officer.

The township did their job, took Joe Reilly to local court and he paid a five hundred dollar fine.  But he refused to get a permit and a showdown was now brewing in Diffle County Court.  Yet Joe would visit town hall every Monday at lunchtime for a  free hot dog lunch, courtesy of Big Don.


Reilly goes to the shore , Johnston gets creative

On the Saturday following Labor Day, Joe Reilly packed up his tiny peep of a wife, and his 19-year old step-son Billy, and drove to the Jersey shore for a nice, relaxing week at his brother's vacation home in Avalon.  Finally, he would get away from the hoots, hollers, loud music, and wild parties next door.  The only sound he wanted to hear was the surf crashing against the beach.

Five minutes after he pulled out of his driveway and steered his jet-black Altima towards the Garden State Parkway, Charlie Johnston went to work on decorating Reilly's fence.

A short history on Jimmy, the hubcap hunter

A few weeks earlier, Charlie Johnston  ran into Diffle County Senior Judge William Butler at the Moose Lodge.  In early April, Judge Butler arrived home a half-day early from a weekend seminar to find his 18-year old daughter, Jennifer, in bed with 26-year old  Jimmy Beaver.

Beaver was well known for having a grand collection of hubcaps. He spent hours every day on his bicycle, canvassing Nother and Diffle County roads. Jimmy was a hubcap hunter. You couldn't miss him, he always wore the same red and black tartan flannel shirt and a bright orange hunting cap (the one with the fuzzy sides snapped up). His  long dark, greasy hair would be sticking out in all directions, and a bead of water was always hanging off the tip of his long beak of a nose.  Hubcaps were bungied to his bicycle in every way imaginable, and in a few ways no one but Jimmy could imagine.

Jimmy would place these shiny treasures all over his 1/2 acre property- Ford caps on the right side yard, Chevy caps in the front yard, Dodge caps in the left side yard, and Jap/Korean/Yugo caps in the rear yard.  Near the main road, there was a hand painted sign that read, Hupcabs,  2 dolar  Fin em yerself  leeve $ in jar   Next to the sign was a big glass jar- empty as a pauper's wallet.

The Judge was not happy that his daughter (who must have got her smarts from her mother's side of the family) was bedding anyone, especially that moron, Jimmy Beaver (to quote the judge, off the record). Senior Judge William Butler, wielding a #3 wood,  ran a half-naked Jimmy Beaver off his property that Sunday morning.

On Monday, State revenue agents showed up at the front door of Beaver's 1965 brown and tan, single-wide trailer.  They wanted to know why Jimmy Beaver hadn't sent in his sales tax money for his hubcap sales.

On Tuesday, the zoning officer knocked on Beaver's paper-thin trailer door, then hand-delivered a Notice of Violation for operating a hubcap business without a permit, in a residential zone, in violation of setbacks.

On Wednesday, two squirrelly-looking dudes from the Department of Environmental Protection were poking  Jimmy's yard with soil samplers, looking for spilled oil- based on an anonymous complaint they received.

On Thursday, Jimmy received an audit notice from the Internal Revenue Service and he lost electric for 12 hours when a County landscaping crew accidentally dropped a tree on his electric line while clearing brush along the highway.

On Friday, he was pulled over by the State Police and given a $70.00 ticket for riding a bicycle without a helmet.

Senior Judge William Butler's deal of a lifetime

Saturday morning dawned with sun-filled splendor.  Jimmy Beaver was sitting on the rusted metal front steps of his mobile home, drinking coffee, when black Lincoln town car with tinted windows pulled into his rutted, dirt driveway. The rear car door opened and out popped Judge Butler. He walked over to Jimmy and gingerly leaned on the rusted railing.  Their conversation went something like this,

Judge Butler:   "Beautiful morning!  Why look at all these hubcaps!  You got some business here, Jimmy."
Jimmy:            (frowns) "What do you want?  You need a hubcap or something?"
Judge Butler:   "How was your week?  I bet you got plenty of visitors here, eh?"
Jimmy:            (shrugs) "A few too many this week, Judge, thanks to you."
Judge Butler:   "That may be true or not, but I will tell you this. I can make it all go away with a phone call".
Jimmy:            "I ain't got no phone.  Got cut off,  right in the middle of talkin' to a man from the IRS."  
Judge Butler:   "I think two reasonable men can come to an agreement concerning my daughter."
Jimmy:            "What kind of agreement you thinkin' about, Judge?"
Judge Butler:   "How about I give you a dollar for every hubcap you have here." 
Jimmy:            "Gotta be a string attached to that somewhere..."
Judge Butler:    (interrupting) "You can never have any contact with my daughter ever again."
Jimmy:            "I got a lot of hubcaps, 10,795 of 'em to be exact.  I like to count, Judge."
Judge Butler:   "That's fine. I will write you a check, and I will have someone remove them all."
Jimmy:            "I got a string attached too."
Judge Butler:   "What do you want, son?"
Jimmy:           "I rode my bicycle out to Lincoln township yesterday. 
                       Heard you owned a couple hundred acres there, nice and flat, 
                       big tall spruce trees up to the sky. Sounds pretty."
Judge Butler:  (frowning) "Yes, I own land in Lincoln Township."
Jimmy:            (wiping his nose on his sleeve) "I got a ticket on the way back for not havin' a helmet. Made 
                      me get to thinkin' about that land. I would love to own that land"
Judge Butler:  "I'm not giving you that land, son."
Jimmy:           "I would never ask you to give me land, Judge. I wanna buy it. For 10,795 dollars. 
                      When that check o' yours clears the bank, I'll write one back to you."
Judge Butler:  "That's preposterous! I paid over 200 thousand for that land!"
Jimmy:           "Judge, your daughter Jenny loves me. Told me so on Saturday night, 
                       right before we did it in your bed.  You put the price on love, Judge. So can I.  
                       I could tell her you came here and tried to bribe me." 
Judge Butler:  "But you don't love her."
Jimmy:            (sniffs) "It will be hard to not love your daughter, but with that land, it would be a lot  
                       easier. Would forget all about her, like we never happened at all."
Judge Butler:  "May I ask what you are gonna do with 200 acres of the finest land in Diffle county?" 
Jimmy:           "Am gonna build me an airport. You can land there anytime you like- for free"  

And that is how Jimmy Beaver and Jennifer Wilma Butler broke up, how Jimmy ended up with 200 acres of the finest land in Diffle County, and how Senior Judge William Butler ended up paying monthly rent on a storage unit containing exactly 10,795 hubcaps.

How to decorate your fence for interactive play

At the Moose Lodge, another deal was made. Charlie Johnston accepted the generous offer of 10,795 free hubcaps. All he had to do was remove them from Judge Butler's storage unit.  A whole new plan was born.  Charlie called back into the kitchen, and out walked  Marshall Beets, registered surveyor and Moose lodge manager.  An hour after the Reilly family arrived in Avalon, Marshall Beets surveyed the property line, set two iron pipes on the Reilly side of the fence, and placed his seal on the blueprint- declaring Charlie Johnston as the rightful owner of Reilly's fence.

Charlie made a few phone calls and within an hour, the entire Johnston clan (except for Vera Johnston-Reilly) was standing alongside the fence, hammer in one hand nail and hubcap in the other hand.  It took 3 days and 10 cases of Budweiser, 4 quart bottles of Jack Daniels, a case of wine from the Merranti Brothers Diffle Valley Winery, and a bottle of New York State Champagne for the christening.  When it was all finished, it kind of looked like this:

Hubcap Fence  (typ.)

Joe Reilly returned home late Friday night, and drove directly into his garage, utilizing his automatic garage door opener.  His side of the fence was exactly as he built it- all wood and six feet high. The next morning he walked outside to check the pool.  All seemed normal, nothing foreign floating in the water, no extra large panties stuffed in the pool filter.  Then he saw something gleam through a crack in the fence. It looked like shiny metal reflecting the sun.

Joe walked down his driveway to the end of the fence. There, facing his property was a "No Trespassing" sign posted on a stake, directly behind the orange-painted survey pipe.  Joe peeked around the end of the fence.  Then he stepped past the pipe, passed the sign, walked 10 feet onto Charlie Johnston's property. he turned and stared at the hubcap side of the fence.  He stared for about ten minutes.  He never heard Charlie sneak up behind him until Charlie spoke,
 "She's a beauty, ain't she?"  Charlie said with false pride, patting Joe Reilly on the back.

Joe Reilly never turned around, never said a word, he simply marched back into his house and slammed the door.  Charlie laughed all day long.

After nightfall, Charlie Johnston got a rifle out of his closet. He bought it when he was 15 years old, a BB shooter, powered by a Co2 cannister. Charlie opened his bedroom window, stuck the rifle out, aimed at a hubcap and fired.  The tinging sound rang out through the sleeping neighborhood.  For the next week, every night, when Charlie got up to get a drink of water, or use the bathroom, or just because his alarm went off at 3 a.m., he would open the window, fire a few shots, ring Reilly's bell, and then return to sleep. Charlie Johnston had created a real-world first-person shooter game.

Good for the goose, good for the gander

Meanwhile, Joe Reilly paid another visit to Big Don.  Joe didn't want a recycling container.  He didn't want a hot dog.  He didn't want a story and he didn't want deer sausage.  Joe Reilly wanted Charlie Johnston cited for building a fence without a permit. Also, he wanted Johnston cited for owning a junkyard.  Big Don referred Reilly to the zoning officer, who declined to investigate on account of not knowing for certain who owned the fence, and the fact it was a feud.

Joe Reilly hired a fancy lawyer and sued to have the fence, along with the hubcaps, removed.  Joe Reilly wanted monetary damages too- for pain and suffering.The case was assigned to Diffle County Senior Judge William Butler. Charlie Johnston was ordered to remove the hubcaps, to cease from shooting at anything within the line of sight of Joe Reilly's house.  He was also ordered to not remove the fence, since it was built by Reilly.  Then Judge Butler ordered Reilly to move the fence back to his own property or tear it down. Reilly appealed to the State court and swore he'd take it all the way to the Supreme Court.

After the Hearing, Charlie Johnston drove home, called everyone in the family, and they helped him  remove 10,794 hubcaps from the fence.  He returned the hubcaps to Judge Butler's storage unit. He left one Chevy hubcap on the fence (he was a Chevy man)- in what he thought was his last act of defiance. Joe Reilly sued over that last hubcap too. And he won.

And that's how we got to this moment...

On New Years Eve, having been told that the fence was legally his, Charlie Johnston decided to remove it. He drank till he was drunk and brave enough, started up his John Deere backhoe, tied a cable to four sections of fence, and pulled it over. He repeated this until a screaming Joe Reilly came running out of his house.  He had a handgun and was shooting wildly, apparently trying to kill Charlie Johnston.  Charlie took off down the county road in the backhoe, with four sections of the fence still on the cable, dragging behind him.  Joe called 911, who dispatched the State Police.

Meanwhile, John Primer, Diffle County road foreman, was driving the County's brand new Ford F-150 over to Marin Lane, after getting a complaint of a tree down on the road.  He heard the police dispatch for Johnston on the truck scanner.  That had to be right up ahead, he thought.  Within seconds, he saw a backhoe heading straight for him. John, in a moment of heroism, tried to block the road with his truck, but Charlie Johnston didn't stop. The backhoe's front bucket hit the passenger side of the truck, and Charlie pushed John and the County's Ford truck into a storm ditch on the side of the road.  The truck flipped over, and the backhoe fell on its side. Then, out of darkness, came a photographer to get the picture for page one of the local scandal-rag, The Diffle County Reporter.  

Big Don just wants to know, "Who dropped the dime on Charlie Johnston? Must have been one of those Wikleaks people. Was it you Ricky?" and then, "John Primer should have known, you never block a Chevy man with a Ford." Then, after lunch, "I wonder if Judge Butler has a hubcap for my daughter's 2004 Chevy Lumina?  I better give him a call."  And that is how Big Don ended up with a side business- hubcap sales.