Honolulu Lite
2001 leaves us longing
for bad old days(Before going on vacation, Charley left a few favorite columns. This one, from Sept. 8, 1995, recalls the days when terror was home-grown and life was a movie in the making.)COME and listen to my story 'bout a man named Jed: A poor mountaineer barely kept his family fed. Then one morning he was shootin' at some food and out from the woods came 43 camouflaged FBI agents, 33 deputy U.S. marshals, an M-1 tank and Janet Reno.Apparently Jed hadn't paid his taxes or something. And he had started his own religion while involved getting closer to God by eating certain varmints that turned out to be an endangered species in those parts.
Jed was actually shooting at some food, but the agents thought differently and fired back, killing Jed's ol' dog Duke.
Jed raced to the shack and told Jethro to "Get in the truck, boy!" Then with Jethro, Granny and Elly May aboard, the truck careened down a back road just as Reno called in an airstrike on Jed's cabin.
The truck broke down about 400 yards from the former cabin and Jed was taken into custody for being the leader of the Hog Hollow Militia (which he wasn't) and excessively using the phrase "hum doggies!" (which he did.)
LUCKILY, BECAUSE of the airstrike on the property, oil was discovered and, after filling out the appropriate environmental impact statements, Jed became a millionaire. His kinfolk said, "Jed move away from there! And sue somebody!"
Jed moved to Beverly (Hills, that is), where there were swimming pools, movie stars, Johnnie Cochran and producers eager to tell Jed's story.
Cochran got all the criminal charges dropped and forced the government to pay Jed restitution for false arrest, destruction of his cabin and the death of his dog. Reno was required to give Jed her own dog, a shar-pei named Hillary.
Jed raked in more money after selling the movie rights to his life. The movie eventually became the short-running TV series "Clampett." (Jed: Jerry Seinfeld, Elly May: Sharon Stone, Jethro: Bobcat Goldthwait and Granny: RuPaul.)
Jed lived in relative happiness until it was revealed that his banker, Mr. Drysdale (played by Richard Simmons) had lost all of the Clampett fortune in junk bonds.)
WITH THE FINANCIAL empire in ruins, Granny went to work as a fry cook at Red Lobster but eventually landed her own show ("A Mess o' Vittles") on the Cooking Channel. Elly May got a job at the San Bernardino "Hooters," and ran a little pet shop called "Critters."
Jethro did five years in federal prison for importing illegal Ecuadorian labor to work in his Silicon Valley computer chip factory. His only explanation to the judge for using illegal labor was "They's hard-workin' little rascals!"
Jed moved back home where he lived with his new dog Hillary. He became fatally ill after eating possum tainted with "bubblin' crude." His church congregation considered his illness a sign from the "Varmint God" and waited for his anxiously for Jed's last words, which turned out to be "Hum Doggies."
Alo-Ha! Friday compiles odd bits of news from Hawaii
and the world to get your weekend off to an entertaining start.
Charles Memminger also writes Honolulu Lite Mondays,
Wednesdays and Sundays. Send ideas to him at the
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-210,
Honolulu 96813, phone 235-6490 or e-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com.
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