Well, it’s that time of the year again: the time to make fun of as many people as possible as I recall events of the past year that no one in Mount Vernon even cares to remember.
Towards the end of the year, Mount Vernon-zions were startled to see that their school board representative, Dan Storck, actually cut his beard off. As we all know, with the beard Dan bears a striking resemblance to President Abraham Lincoln and he has taken things so far as to play Honest Abe in local parades, school assemblies and Tupperware parties. But Ole Honest Dan apparently had a bad reaction after seeing the Steven Spielberg epic “Lincoln: A Story Inspired by a True Guy” and the next day he cut off his beard! To determine his reasoning, we tracked Dan down in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania where he is now a resident at the “Home for Former Abe Lincoln Impersonators.” Between bingo games, he admitted that he was disturbed by the movie because “I had no idea that he ultimately got his head blown off!” He then mumbled something about how there were “a lot of John Wilkes Booth impersonators in the area,” so he decided to “drop that gig.”
Speaking of Lincoln, it took about two score years but a committed group of dog owners finally got approval to convert Westgrove Park to an off-leash dog park. The effort took that long because no one in Mount Vernon knew where Westgrove Park was and because rabid environmentalists successfully argued for years that “the dog poop that would seep into the ground could pollute our drinking water in 2,345 years.” Ultimately, the dog poop lovers prevailed but, by the time they had their ground-breaking ceremony, all of their dogs had died. The group is now asking the county to rename the park to “Westgrove Dog Cemetery.”
In the spring, an alert group of citizens spotted a Verizon truck in the parking lot at Grist Mill Park. Within moments they alerted the “Society Against Two-Headed Children,” who determined that a Verizon worker was scouting a new location for a new cell phone tower (which, they argue, emits dangerous radiation that can cause a fetus to grow an extra appendage).
The Society then issued a press release condemning the dastardly action, asking “Why does Verizon support cancer?” Within days, Supervisor Gerry Hyland announced his fervent opposition to the possible new tower and initiated deportation proceedings against the worker. He declared that “once again, the people have spoken so I will oppose this new tower even though no one has proposed one yet.” But, in a concession to those who are tired of losing their connection when they’re ordering Chinese from Chef Huang, he added that “I will form a new committee to find out what the committee I appointed five years ago recommended for sites for a new tower.”
In July, Mount Vernon-ites learned a new Spanish word: Derecho. It was a sweltering Friday night and Mount Vernon-zions-ites were in their air-conditioned homes when that annoying beep-beep-beep came on the television and the scrolling message at the top warned “Derecho to Hit Fairfax County!” Thinking it was an advertisement for new Latino salsa group, everyone ignored the warning.
Around my house, the wind started picking up and when our dog’s eyes rolled to the back of her head, we knew something was wrong. The trees in our backyard started falling — fortunately on our neighbor’s house — the electricity went off and, suddenly, my aunt who was visiting from Florida was sucked out the basement window like Goldfinger. Horrified, my 22 year old boy screamed “Damnit, the air conditioning is off!!! Hey, where is Aunt Laura?”
Mount Vernon was in the dark for several days (I will skip the obvious joke) and people were forced to the streets where they actually had to converse with their neighbors.
The Horror.
