HOW TO IDENTIFY BLARNEY

Today, October 26, 2005, the entire scientific community was set aghast by the news, Yodar Hoopelhoffer, the Mount Perry town idiot, had invented the worlds first "Blarneyscope". With the device, Yodar is rumored to be able to separate the Straight Poop from Pure Balderdash by merely shining light from his Blarneyscope on the Blarney.

During my years in the Air Force, I remember how we always got "the straight poop", but I could never figure out how they got the facts straight. Apparently, this particular part of military life, was a closely guarded secret. Have you ever tried to straighten poop? Then you have some idea how difficult the job would be to separate Straighten Poop from Pure Balderdash. As of this very moment I have absolutely no idea what a Balderdash even looks like. Much less what straight poop looks like. Going even further, what kind of animal makes straight poop? Except for the dictionary, where does one find Balderdash?

Yet here in Mount Perry, the town idiot seems to have managed to not only find both, but devised a machine he says separates them. According to Mount Perry's ace reporter, Badnews Hunter, of The Mount Perry Newspaper and Fish Wrap, who spent hours interviewing Yodar. Yodar was said to have explained the device as follows. Light entering the device shines down through a long tube and is reflected off a sliver of brightly polished rock Yodar swears he bought the sliver of stone from the wee people who lived in the forests of Ireland.

They assured Yodar, the sliver of stone was swiped from the legendary, Blarney Stone itself. Light reflected from this sliver of stone is gathered on optically corrected mirrors to a lens where the light is focused on a screen. Once focused on a screen the light can be divided into different color gradients and evaluated trough a spectrograph which measures the intensity of each of the light groupings.

This information is then compiled in a computer which plots the density of the various color patterns on a graph. This graph can then be interpreted by anyone experienced in the art of color interpretation. Although Badnews found Yodar's explanation fascinating, Yodar never explained how the separation was done.

A type setter back at the home office of the Mount Perry Newspaper and Fish Wrap took one look at the story and said, "This is Pure Balderdash!" No one is quite sure how he was able to tell so quickly. When last seen he was being questioned by agents of our very own, M. P. I. A., (Mount Perry Intelligence Agency) about how he knew the explanation was indeed Balderdash and how to straighten poop. Should you be planning a stop in Mount Perry during your next vacation, you might refrain from using either of the words, "Straight Poop" and or, "Balderdash" until this conundrum can be resolved.

Of more importance, is the story Yodar tells of how he came by this shard from the Blarney Stone. Yodar says he bought the shard from some wee people he met in the forest. These wee people insisted they would only take gold in payment for the shard. Once paid, the wee people put their gold in an iron pot, then ran off through the woods toward the end of the rainbow, where they said they were going to hide their gold. Everyone knows the Blarney stone is at the bottom of a long shaft in an old castle and can only be reached if someone dangles you by your feet until you reach the stone. The story is a well known fact.

Kissing the Blarney Stone will give you the ability to spin a tale as well as any Irishman. We also know, only the wee people are small enough to get down the shaft to clean the Blarney stone, thus preventing the spread of life threatening disease. The shaft is so narrow and tight no man would have been able to reach the Blarney Stone. Especially a man Yodar's size. This had to be the work of the wee people. They are the only ones small enough to dangle themselves down the shaft and still have enough room to swing a stone hammer, with enough force to dislodge a shard from the stone. Yet visitors do seem to indicate a sliver of the rock is missing.

This they know by a long rough spot on a stone otherwise worn smooth by the lips of the thousands of people who kiss the blarney stone each year. Only those, the size of one of the wee people, could have slithered down the shaft and still had enough room to break off a small piece of the stone. The idea they would only accept gold in payment, then they carried the gold of in a iron pot toward one end of the rainbow, did seem to indicate there might be some truth in the story.

On the other hand, they don't call Yodar Hoopelhoffer the Mount Perry Town idiot for nothing. After all, he was the one who brought the magic Kudzu seeds to Mount Perry and planted them along the road side to stabilize the soil and prevent erosion. Yodar didn't realize one needed a slope to make water run fast enough to cause erosion.

Where does one find a slope in a swamp except on the slopes of our beloved mountain. Yodar, believing he was doing a great good for the town of Mount Perry, took some of the Kudzu seeds to the top of Mount Perry and planted them. Within a year, Mount Perry had vanished under a tangle of green Kudzu growth.

It took the rest of us 6 years to cut the Kudzu back and re-expose our beloved Mount Perry. There are still some people in this town who grit their teeth at the mere mention of the name Yodar Hoopelhoffer. In the end the whole thing comes down to the question of whether or not you believe there are wee people living in the woods, who keep their gold in iron pots hidden at the end of the rainbow.

Only then can one move on into the realm of believing in the Blarney Scope.

However, should you decide you want a Blarney Scope, I just happen to have one in the front window of my shop, the price is negotiable, but must be paid in gold coin.