Dallas News Issue 1

Does anyone out there know how to clean a shoe soaked through with blood? Feel free to comment if you do. This question is not so random as one might think. I do in fact have a bloody shoe. I will now pause for a few moments to let you conjure images of horrible accidents and draft dodging...

Ok, is your imagination quite finished? Now I can tell you how lame the real story is. I was playing basket ball, and someone (I won't mention any names) stepped upon my previously traumatized big toe. I looked down and noticed that blood was seeping out of that area of my shoe. Did I stop? Oh no not I. I played through the pain. This was a fairly easy accomplishment as there was no pain. Shaquille O'Neal take note. It is possible to play basketball for free with a bloody toe, much less while getting paid millions.

Really it was just blood from the last time I hurt it. It was trapped under my toenail. Now it is not. I think I may have a fighting chance now of keeping my nail. Vanity I know. Anyway, paultryness of the injury aside I still need to clean my shoe. Anyone with crime scene cover up experience feel free to contact me.

Sam's Summary

• I have a bloody shoe
• It's not my blood
• It was my blood but I have no use for it now
• I want it out of my shoe and out of my life
• I am tougher than Shaquille O'Neal
• Apparently the only point of interest in Dallas is the spot on the road where Kennedy was shot.

The goat is dead!!

I have been waiting till after the big Easter meal to relate this story. I wanted to make sure that I had it in it's entirety.

The story begins, like so many other stories, with My friend Doug asking me "Do you want to help slaughter the goat on Friday?" I am sorry if you are not familiar with this time honored Easter tradition (I wasn't either). I am not sure why this seemed to anyone to be a normal thing to do. I did not even know that there was a live goat out there somewhere.

Such an opportunity does not come up every day, so naturally I exclaimed that I most certainly did not desire to take part in their barbaric rituals. I did however end up digging the pit the day before.

It turns out that it was to be a pit roast..... In the middle of town.... on rented property. When in Texas as they say..... They dig a 2-3 ft deep hole, start a fire at the bottom, then when it burns down to coals they throw in the carcass with some seasoning and bury the whole affair for half a day. I did the digging the hole part. The good news is that the ground was not entirely solid clay; only the bottom foot or so was. At the end of my labors we had the six foot by two foot hole and two and a half feet deep.

I have to admit that the demanded dimensions were indistinguishable from any number of shallow graves dug in the heyday of wild west lawlessness. Even though I did not know the people with whom I was working at all, I was not at all worried. You see the hole was six feet long and I am 6'4". Nothing to worry about at all.

After this point, and a tall glass of the foulest civic water I have consumed in a long while, I went back to my friend's. I did not return the next day for the killing, skinning, or marinating. I did not return the day after that for the cooking. I did, however, return for the Sunday Easter feast and declined any and all polite offers to try the innocent fury creature. Instead I ate brownies, lots of brownies.

Sam's Summary

• I dug a shallow grave
• Some Texans cooked a poor li'l goat in it.
• I was not party to the slaughter.
• I did however go to a party.
• I did not eat the under cooked goat flesh.
• I indulged in deserts instead.
• I am now in the Dallas area