LDotFMotNYl: Extended Scene

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(Note: this follows a series of six deleted letters from the Last Day of the First Month of the New Year Letter. Visit those scenes here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.)

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Theric Uses Public Forum to Corrupt Entire Community
Ugly mug terrorizes innocents

For roughly a quarter of 2005, Theric became the interim editor of the Tehachapi News. One of the best-loved aspects of that job was writing a weekly column. Just before the first went to press, he took the News’s digital camera home during lunch and asked Lady Steed to take his picture.

Know this: You do not rush a masterpiece by Ansel Adams. You do not rush a masterpiece by Annie Leibovitz. You do not rush a masterpiece by Lady Steed. Nevermind giving her the added disadvantage of a less photogenic subject than Half Dome or Milla Jovavich —you cannot expect perfection within forty minutes. Especially when the background will necessarily end up showing a crib!

Portraiture aside, Theric wrote a columns [sic] in which he equated Wal*Mart with starlings, civic leaders with rain, and reading with intelligence (a controversial one, that). Even without his column, Theric was able to edutain the masses in the paper’s pages with work on runaway sewage, renegade cementeers, equestrial therapy, wildland fires (shoes: melted), and trash masquerading as famous literary characters (such as the Holden Caulfield bubblewrap at the side of Dennison Road).

It was hard to leave. Even though the going-away party had excellent sandwiches.

Commentary

(The lighter stuff is what made the final cut and the darker stuff is what didn't make the final version.)

What didn't make it didn't make it because it just didn't flow, it didn't fit, it didn't work.

Plus, that photograph was so awful that I think we all just wish to forget it.

Ask Lady Steed.

(Or Master Fob--he saw it too.)

But!

On the bright side!

Those sandwiches!

If you're ever passing through Tehachapi, be sure to stop at Kohnen's Bakery. If you're there for a sandwich instead of a pastry, I recommend getting the Saladwich and adding roast beef to it. If you are getting pastries, don't forget a nuss ecken!

And don't forget to get one for me too!