December 24 2005

Well gang, air travel just ain’t what it used to be. Just the other day, a member of the Philadelphia Chapter of our club, made a trip to Houston, Texas to visit family there for the Holidays.
In keeping with family tradition, it was incumbent upon him to bring to his Houston family members some scrapple.
Now for the uninitiated, scrapple is a sort of Philadelphia-Irish-German soul food. It is probably best described as being made up of a blend of cornmeal and those parts of a pig, that while qualifying as protein, are not universally regarded as food fit for human consumption.
In color, it is a sort of greenish gray, and if you think about it, is something that one could easily imagine as being a substance that was designed by the Army, to be served to the troops, in a can. A soilent green kind of stuff.
At any rate, Danny Cosh, as his only carry-on luggage, had two 2lb. Frozen bricks of this exotic compound in a small soft-sided cooler.
Changing planes in Cincinnati, he put the cooler in the over-head storage compartment and took his seat.
The next person to add something to the over-head storage , while shifting the cooler of scrapple, let it drop to the floor of the plane.
On impact, the little cooler split along the zipper stitches and seams of the bag, and the bottom sides of the scrapple were exposed along with plastic piping that looked curiously much the same as an insulated wire.
Well it was one of those flights where you have to walk out on the tarmac and climb a stair in order to get on board, and when the stewardess saw plastic wrapped gray/green stuff, and what looked like a wire or two, she knew in a heartbeat that the scrapple was plastique, probably c-4, the piping was a wire, and that she had a bomb on board.
In a dazzling display of quick thinking and courage, she snatched the four lbs. Of frozen scrapple and torn soft-sided cooler, and in one smooth motion that was reminiscent of her collage softball days, hurled it at adrenaline assisted velocity out the still open cabin door.
The captain of the plane, who was boarding the plane at that moment, and who got his nose broken by the frozen scrapple and his brains rattled a little when he hit the tarmac, is said to be in stable condition.
The stewardess is currently under-going mental evaluation, and Danny is in Houston with no scrapple as it is being held as evidence.
No Sir, flying just ain’t what it used to be.
By the way. Scrapple is on the breakfast menu out at the MB&GC New Year’s Eve gathering being held at the club house and ranges.
One more thing to look forward to gang!

Till next week
Helga Biermeister
Secretary