Sven & Ula: Under Pressure
Last week we learned Erin, Ula's then-wife of 2.9 plus years, left him and went back to Ireland where there are no skunks, especially the two-legged variety of which she now considered Ula to be. And Ula, always on the look-out for the perfect partner after Helga, the inflatable robo doll who literally flew the coop, soon found another promising partner in Ursula, a waitress at a truckstop cafe at Exit 15 off I-90, in Idaho; she’d never been to Minnesota.
Pushing a pair of grocery carts through Knute & Leland’s General Mercantile in Wannasaka, Sven and Ula stopped just before the cash register to look over their list one more time. “Lessee Ula . . . ve’re goin’ to need all dis stuff an’ vun portable air tank too. Maybe you can borrow vun from Petrus Einarsson. ‘e’s got all dat stuff leftover from ‘is short-livt career as a roadside vind-power expert. You know, ‘e vas on track for Da Nort’vest Minnesota Best Ideas Club Avard by t’inkin’ to ‘arness da vind generated by passin’ traffic ‘long da interstate...”
“It vas da research dat almost kilt ‘im,” Ula added.
The boys worked on their project at Hilmersson’s Welding & Fabrication Shop in Palmville one afternoon when Knorr could help them. Removing the blower tube from Sven’s t’rashing machine sitting along a fenceline on the north forty, they hauled it to Knorr’s and unloaded it there atop a welding table.
“It’s not in too tough a shape not to use it, is it Knorr? You can sort of straighten it in places, can’t you?” Ula asked, wanting to save every penny he could seeing as he had a young new bride at home and he needed to lavish her with luxury, at least for another few weeks.
“It may cost you a little more, labor-vise. Ve’ll see if we can clean it up,” Knorr said picking up a wire brush and following a seam. “So tell me again vat ve’re buildin’ ‘ere boys. Looks sorta like a still...”
Ula was in the dark too, for a reason. He didn’t want to know exactly what Sven had in mind for all these materials only that this ‘township skunk chucker’ promised to:
1.) Alleviate his bad feelings about having to drown skunks;
2.) Utilize a live trapping device; and
3.) Rid his yard of skunks in a humane manner through which he could have great fun doing it.
The project took the whole afternoon and well into the evening. The Guinness Extra Stout didn’t exactly speed things along, but was explained away as a safety clause by demanding that the boys thoroughly know its construction before its assembly.
Ula needed extra time to affix the processes of drilling, tapping, and threading the pieces together
Knorr walked him through the steps from proper tool selection and ergonomic useage, to instructing him how to use a drill press. Sven explained the working drawings, gathered the required tools, cleaned the proposed work area, and saw to the task of turning each of the bottles of Extra Stout, sitting label-deep in ice in one of Knorr’s army surplus ammo boxes, the quarter turn they needed every half hour. Then the phone rang.
“Yah but, Ursula, we’re at a crucial step in assembling da ‘T.S.C.,’’ Ula said talking on the shop phone to his new wife of 3.8 plus months. He winked to Sven and Knorr, as he pleaded his case.
“Da boys need me ‘ere, eh. I’m an assembler person. I can’t be leavin’ dem ‘igh an’ dry, eh. Vat if I called you to come ‘ome to mow da yard ven you vere in da middle of quiltin’, eh?” He was fairly bursting with pent-up laughter; he was a sight.
“Assembler, huh, Ula? I can see you t’ree good-for-nothin’s from da vindow ‘ere!” Ursula trilled loud enough to be heard clean through Knorr’s steel shop walls. “You’ll be gettin’ your 'rinkly freckled arse ‘ome righ' now, if you know vat’s good for you -- an’ vat ain’t is fer shure Sven Guyson; I’ve never liked da man! Git out ‘ere! I’ll drive you ‘ome. Leave your truck.”
Ula slump-shouldered his way out of the shop, his tail between his legs. Sven and Knorr were silent lest they be getting one of Ursula’s tongue-lashings too, a situation they had steered clear of right from the get-go. They knew their wives would hear about it soon enough and so closed the lid on the ammo box and set about boiling up some tea with one of Knorr’s torches to get their heads on straight enough to finish the job.
It wouldn’t take long now as they both knew the task through and through, and started immediately assembling the pieces; Sven worked gluing the PVC sections of the trap in a distant part of the shop and Knorr started his welder elsewhere; the noxious odor of PVC glue and the acrid smell of metal grindings and welding smoke ascending together toward the smoke-darkened shop ceiling.
Using his lathe, Knorr had resized the skunk trap for a perfect fit inside the blower tube barrel, and was finishing welds on its assembly, having fitted the nine inch metal ring just inside the muzzle when Sven’s wife, Monique, walked in to find Sven installing the air pressure gauge below a noisy exhaust fan. She shut the fan off, and with the pointy toe of her cowboy boot lifted the lid of the ammo box to see how much beer was left in it.
“Ursula called me, bon ami,’ said Monique looking about the familiar shop. Stepping over acetylene and oxygen hoses snaking along the floor, she draped a leather weldor’s apron across a nearby anvil. Leaning her hip against it she continued,
“She is not too happy with you two slow-pokes; she’s sayin’ you’re doin’ more drinkin’ than you are working and that Ula has too much work to do at home to waste his time over here doin’ nothing with you.”
Knorr kept working from a safe distance, gauging Monique’s behavior and Sven’s reaction to it.
“We’re doin’ alright, Monique,” Sven answered. “Ve ‘ad ‘ad only two beers. Me and Ula are yust naturally slow to get t’ings goin’--even vit Knorr’s ‘elp, but ve’re nearly done vit da project. Ve’ll soon be ready to test fire it. You goin’ to stay an’ vatch? Almost done, Knorr?”
“You know, my Svenster,” Monique said as she eyed the preliminary drawings on the assembly table. “If we turn this drawing upside down, like this. . . It looks exactly like a howitzer, this being the recuperator cyclinder... But I see there’s no wheeled carriage. Is Knorr building one for it?”
Knorr, hearing Monique’s inquiry, made his way past Sven to the table and looked at the drawings again, and said, “You know, she’s right. I could make a veeled carriage for dis contraption. It vuddint take much. I’ve got some veel assemblies an’ scrap steel for a frame.You vant’ me to t’row one toget'er?”
Sven answered, “It’s goin’ to take even more time, at any rate, an’ I guess Monique vants me to come ‘ome now too, eh...”
“No, Bon ami. Not if you are having such fun. It’s not everyday you build artillery. I know a man’s affection for big guns...” Monique said, her voice trailing off as she lost herself in her thoughts.
Knorr looked at Sven, quizzically. “She used to be married to a Marine gunnery sergent,” Sven answered. “They were married on base in San Diego beneath a World War II howitzer by coincidence.”
“You come home when it’s finished,” Monique said, from the shop door. “You got anything to nibble on in here? Is Asa home? I’ll call Ursula and explain things to her. Maybe she’ll drive Ula back over here after he fixes supper to help you guys.”
“I doubt dat, she vas pretty angry vit us ven she hault him out of ‘ere--but dis is his project an’ it does benefit her too in da long run. See vat you can do, please,” Sven said as Knorr readied the headlamp on the bill of his cap.
Knorr’s steel and scrap collection is a far cry from what it used to be after Asa put her put down about his haphazard pile of junk he had amassed being a fourth generation blacksmith/fabricator. She insisted that he had inherited not only a ton of old horseshoes, but a few old horses buried under all that junk too the way it stunk in the mornings. But Knorr saw it as family treasure and when she wasn’t looking, added a piece to it now and then from farm sales and flea markets he frequented from around the world. He just knew all ‘that’ would pay off one day and today was just such a day.
“‘ere ve go, Sven,” Knorr said, pulling a partial sheet of diamond plate out of the way. “I salvaged dis axle an’ veel assembly from an old ‘ayrack da Yohnson boys ‘ad. Da tires look like dey’re still ‘oldin’ air despite da cracks along da sidevall dere.”
“Aren’t dey army non-directional six-by-six tires?” Sven said with no little wonder in his voice. “Vat do you ‘ave ve can use as a drawbar?”
“‘ere’s a vagon tongue vit an old pintel ‘ook ‘itch on it, I could cut off,” Knorr said shining his light on a reddish length of steel scrap. “An’ dis ... could be da recoil sleigh under da barrel. An’ dis, a cradle.”
“Dis is gettin’ funner all da time,” Sven said, setting the pieces aside. “Vish Ula could be ‘ere. ‘ope Monique can convince ‘er to let ‘im come back out to play.”
“Yah, Ursula’s a little tough on da old boy, but he loves it ennaways. Vat vas it ve vere lookin’ for, Sven?” Knorr mused. “Now I remember.”
Knorr picked his way between two great salvage piles, one of steel, the other aluminum, to a semi-truck box he used for small parts storage parked behind the shop. “It’s been avile since I seen ‘em...’ .
Lifting the overhead door with Sven’s help, he shined his light across old dusty wood and cardboard boxes, some opened, some closed. Entering its narrow aisles, he opened one box, then another. Sticking his hand into a third one, he stood up triumphantly. “You might need dese old M64 and M67 elevational sights. Dey’re off a mortar, but dey oughta work, eh?”
Car lights came down the road to the shop; a door opened and shut. Ula stepped into the shop just after Sven and Knorr came in the back door of the shop to open a bigger one. “Vat in sam’ell are you two doin’ ?” Ula said excitedly, looking at his two friends. “I turn my back on you two for a second . . .”
“There’s been a change of plans, Ula,” Knorr said as he and Sven rolled the wheel assembly inside. “You could give us a hand instead of just watching us do all the work.”
And before too long they had the wagon tongue, the recoil sleigh, the cradle, an old cast-iron handwheel, and the mortar sights, inside the shop, all of which Ula stared at in wonder.
“Vell, Monique gave us an idea,” Sven answered. “She turned me drawin’s upside down an’. Vell, you’ll yust ‘ave to vait an’ see vat ve’re goin’ to build now. Ve’ve got a lot to do agin. I suppose Ursula is goin’ to be callin’ you every ten minutes to make sure you’re still ‘ere an' not runavay vit an inflatable voman or sumptin’?”
“No problems dere,” Ula said. “Monique called her. I don’ know vat she said, but Ursula brought me back ‘ere right afterward. She still don’t like you much dough--you’re such a troublemaker, HA!”
The sun was coming up over the treetops when Asa Melvinsdottir phoned the shop for the boys to come up for breakfast. Knorr had closed the valves of the acetylene and oxygen tanks, and switched off the welder. Sven gathered up the thermos and cups. Ula pulled off his leather gloves and put on his jacket before the three walked out the door toward Knorr & Asa’s big blue house on the little hill.
“Vash up, boys. You’ll be vantin’ coffee or tea, Ula? Sven?” Asa asked, setting the last of the serving dishes on the table. “Did you get done vit your project?”
“Yah, it’s finished,” Knorr said, rolling up his sleeves. “Ve’ve yet to test fire it. Vud you be ‘avin’ a frozen chicken or two, Asa, ve cud use as projectiles?”
“Not my frozen chickens!, Knorr Helmerson!”Asa said, scooping a ladle-full of lutefisk onto Ula’s plate.
“Vell den, maybe ve cud be usin’ vun or two of your stray cats? Dey veigh as much as a skunk,” Sven joked knowing her fondness for the dozen or so mouse-catchers she feeds from time to time.
“An’ not a vun of my kitties eit’er, Sven Guyson, dough I vudint put it past you! ‘ave some dumplin’s, or salt pork?” Asa said, a fork nearly to her mouth.
“I’ll be catchin’ me a skunk righ’ along,” Ula said, wiping the edges of his mustache.“I set me trap last night, I did.”
“Attaboy Ula.,” Sven said.
“Yust vat da doctor ordert, Sven,” Ula said balancing a quivvering mass of lutefisk on a fork of Asa’s finest silverware. “Dere vere more ‘oles den ever out by da cow shed. Ve’ll get ‘im now.”
“So Knorr,” Ula asked. “‘ow far you t’ink dis t’ing vill chuck a skunk, eh?”
“Vell, I suppose dere’s a specific calculation to figure it out,” Knorr said sprinkling some cinnamon on his Rømmegrøt. “But I t’ink if you put yust 15 to 25 psi., in it an’ elevate da barrel 45 degrees to clear da tree tops, you oughta be able to cross da river...”
“Yust cross da river? It’s righ’ out me back door, Knorr. Are you sayin’ ve yust spent tventy-one ‘ours buildin’ a stinkin’ slingshot?” Ula said, straightening himself in his chair; his napkin falling into his lap from his collar.
“... in Vannaska, I vas t’inkin’,” Knorr said looking at Ula, as he sipped a bit of his tea.
“Vannaska!!” Ula roared with his hands thrown into the air. "Gemme a shoulder of Captain Morgan, and a naggin of vodka! Ya mean, I could shoot skunks clean to Vannaska?”
‘“Vell, maybe fart’er. Dat’s only speculation. Vat you got dere, usin’ dat big ol’ blower tube, is basically a 240 mm gun,” Knorr said, starting on a plate of cakes slathered with real maple syrup. “Dat elevatin’ ‘and veel cud be a limiter, among other t’ings ve ‘ave yet to verk out.”
“Maybe you could add a digital fire-control system later, eh?” Asa suggested as she passed a big bowl of dumplings to Sven. The boys stared at Asa who ignored their looks of astonishment.
“I’ve been talkin’ to Monique. She knows a ting or two ‘bout big guns,” she said with a smile, looking at the trio over the top of her glasses.
Last week we learned Erin, Ula's then-wife of 2.9 plus years, left him and went back to Ireland where there are no skunks, especially the two-legged variety of which she now considered Ula to be. And Ula, always on the look-out for the perfect partner after Helga, the inflatable robo doll who literally flew the coop, soon found another promising partner in Ursula, a waitress at a truckstop cafe at Exit 15 off I-90, in Idaho; she’d never been to Minnesota.
Pushing a pair of grocery carts through Knute & Leland’s General Mercantile in Wannasaka, Sven and Ula stopped just before the cash register to look over their list one more time. “Lessee Ula . . . ve’re goin’ to need all dis stuff an’ vun portable air tank too. Maybe you can borrow vun from Petrus Einarsson. ‘e’s got all dat stuff leftover from ‘is short-livt career as a roadside vind-power expert. You know, ‘e vas on track for Da Nort’vest Minnesota Best Ideas Club Avard by t’inkin’ to ‘arness da vind generated by passin’ traffic ‘long da interstate...”
“It vas da research dat almost kilt ‘im,” Ula added.
The boys worked on their project at Hilmersson’s Welding & Fabrication Shop in Palmville one afternoon when Knorr could help them. Removing the blower tube from Sven’s t’rashing machine sitting along a fenceline on the north forty, they hauled it to Knorr’s and unloaded it there atop a welding table.
“It’s not in too tough a shape not to use it, is it Knorr? You can sort of straighten it in places, can’t you?” Ula asked, wanting to save every penny he could seeing as he had a young new bride at home and he needed to lavish her with luxury, at least for another few weeks.
“It may cost you a little more, labor-vise. Ve’ll see if we can clean it up,” Knorr said picking up a wire brush and following a seam. “So tell me again vat ve’re buildin’ ‘ere boys. Looks sorta like a still...”
Ula was in the dark too, for a reason. He didn’t want to know exactly what Sven had in mind for all these materials only that this ‘township skunk chucker’ promised to:
1.) Alleviate his bad feelings about having to drown skunks;
2.) Utilize a live trapping device; and
3.) Rid his yard of skunks in a humane manner through which he could have great fun doing it.
The project took the whole afternoon and well into the evening. The Guinness Extra Stout didn’t exactly speed things along, but was explained away as a safety clause by demanding that the boys thoroughly know its construction before its assembly.
Ula needed extra time to affix the processes of drilling, tapping, and threading the pieces together
Knorr walked him through the steps from proper tool selection and ergonomic useage, to instructing him how to use a drill press. Sven explained the working drawings, gathered the required tools, cleaned the proposed work area, and saw to the task of turning each of the bottles of Extra Stout, sitting label-deep in ice in one of Knorr’s army surplus ammo boxes, the quarter turn they needed every half hour. Then the phone rang.
“Yah but, Ursula, we’re at a crucial step in assembling da ‘T.S.C.,’’ Ula said talking on the shop phone to his new wife of 3.8 plus months. He winked to Sven and Knorr, as he pleaded his case.
“Da boys need me ‘ere, eh. I’m an assembler person. I can’t be leavin’ dem ‘igh an’ dry, eh. Vat if I called you to come ‘ome to mow da yard ven you vere in da middle of quiltin’, eh?” He was fairly bursting with pent-up laughter; he was a sight.
“Assembler, huh, Ula? I can see you t’ree good-for-nothin’s from da vindow ‘ere!” Ursula trilled loud enough to be heard clean through Knorr’s steel shop walls. “You’ll be gettin’ your 'rinkly freckled arse ‘ome righ' now, if you know vat’s good for you -- an’ vat ain’t is fer shure Sven Guyson; I’ve never liked da man! Git out ‘ere! I’ll drive you ‘ome. Leave your truck.”
Ula slump-shouldered his way out of the shop, his tail between his legs. Sven and Knorr were silent lest they be getting one of Ursula’s tongue-lashings too, a situation they had steered clear of right from the get-go. They knew their wives would hear about it soon enough and so closed the lid on the ammo box and set about boiling up some tea with one of Knorr’s torches to get their heads on straight enough to finish the job.
It wouldn’t take long now as they both knew the task through and through, and started immediately assembling the pieces; Sven worked gluing the PVC sections of the trap in a distant part of the shop and Knorr started his welder elsewhere; the noxious odor of PVC glue and the acrid smell of metal grindings and welding smoke ascending together toward the smoke-darkened shop ceiling.
Using his lathe, Knorr had resized the skunk trap for a perfect fit inside the blower tube barrel, and was finishing welds on its assembly, having fitted the nine inch metal ring just inside the muzzle when Sven’s wife, Monique, walked in to find Sven installing the air pressure gauge below a noisy exhaust fan. She shut the fan off, and with the pointy toe of her cowboy boot lifted the lid of the ammo box to see how much beer was left in it.
“Ursula called me, bon ami,’ said Monique looking about the familiar shop. Stepping over acetylene and oxygen hoses snaking along the floor, she draped a leather weldor’s apron across a nearby anvil. Leaning her hip against it she continued,
“She is not too happy with you two slow-pokes; she’s sayin’ you’re doin’ more drinkin’ than you are working and that Ula has too much work to do at home to waste his time over here doin’ nothing with you.”
Knorr kept working from a safe distance, gauging Monique’s behavior and Sven’s reaction to it.
“We’re doin’ alright, Monique,” Sven answered. “Ve ‘ad ‘ad only two beers. Me and Ula are yust naturally slow to get t’ings goin’--even vit Knorr’s ‘elp, but ve’re nearly done vit da project. Ve’ll soon be ready to test fire it. You goin’ to stay an’ vatch? Almost done, Knorr?”
“You know, my Svenster,” Monique said as she eyed the preliminary drawings on the assembly table. “If we turn this drawing upside down, like this. . . It looks exactly like a howitzer, this being the recuperator cyclinder... But I see there’s no wheeled carriage. Is Knorr building one for it?”
Knorr, hearing Monique’s inquiry, made his way past Sven to the table and looked at the drawings again, and said, “You know, she’s right. I could make a veeled carriage for dis contraption. It vuddint take much. I’ve got some veel assemblies an’ scrap steel for a frame.You vant’ me to t’row one toget'er?”
Sven answered, “It’s goin’ to take even more time, at any rate, an’ I guess Monique vants me to come ‘ome now too, eh...”
“No, Bon ami. Not if you are having such fun. It’s not everyday you build artillery. I know a man’s affection for big guns...” Monique said, her voice trailing off as she lost herself in her thoughts.
Knorr looked at Sven, quizzically. “She used to be married to a Marine gunnery sergent,” Sven answered. “They were married on base in San Diego beneath a World War II howitzer by coincidence.”
“You come home when it’s finished,” Monique said, from the shop door. “You got anything to nibble on in here? Is Asa home? I’ll call Ursula and explain things to her. Maybe she’ll drive Ula back over here after he fixes supper to help you guys.”
“I doubt dat, she vas pretty angry vit us ven she hault him out of ‘ere--but dis is his project an’ it does benefit her too in da long run. See vat you can do, please,” Sven said as Knorr readied the headlamp on the bill of his cap.
Knorr’s steel and scrap collection is a far cry from what it used to be after Asa put her put down about his haphazard pile of junk he had amassed being a fourth generation blacksmith/fabricator. She insisted that he had inherited not only a ton of old horseshoes, but a few old horses buried under all that junk too the way it stunk in the mornings. But Knorr saw it as family treasure and when she wasn’t looking, added a piece to it now and then from farm sales and flea markets he frequented from around the world. He just knew all ‘that’ would pay off one day and today was just such a day.
“‘ere ve go, Sven,” Knorr said, pulling a partial sheet of diamond plate out of the way. “I salvaged dis axle an’ veel assembly from an old ‘ayrack da Yohnson boys ‘ad. Da tires look like dey’re still ‘oldin’ air despite da cracks along da sidevall dere.”
“Aren’t dey army non-directional six-by-six tires?” Sven said with no little wonder in his voice. “Vat do you ‘ave ve can use as a drawbar?”
“‘ere’s a vagon tongue vit an old pintel ‘ook ‘itch on it, I could cut off,” Knorr said shining his light on a reddish length of steel scrap. “An’ dis ... could be da recoil sleigh under da barrel. An’ dis, a cradle.”
“Dis is gettin’ funner all da time,” Sven said, setting the pieces aside. “Vish Ula could be ‘ere. ‘ope Monique can convince ‘er to let ‘im come back out to play.”
“Yah, Ursula’s a little tough on da old boy, but he loves it ennaways. Vat vas it ve vere lookin’ for, Sven?” Knorr mused. “Now I remember.”
Knorr picked his way between two great salvage piles, one of steel, the other aluminum, to a semi-truck box he used for small parts storage parked behind the shop. “It’s been avile since I seen ‘em...’ .
Lifting the overhead door with Sven’s help, he shined his light across old dusty wood and cardboard boxes, some opened, some closed. Entering its narrow aisles, he opened one box, then another. Sticking his hand into a third one, he stood up triumphantly. “You might need dese old M64 and M67 elevational sights. Dey’re off a mortar, but dey oughta work, eh?”
Car lights came down the road to the shop; a door opened and shut. Ula stepped into the shop just after Sven and Knorr came in the back door of the shop to open a bigger one. “Vat in sam’ell are you two doin’ ?” Ula said excitedly, looking at his two friends. “I turn my back on you two for a second . . .”
“There’s been a change of plans, Ula,” Knorr said as he and Sven rolled the wheel assembly inside. “You could give us a hand instead of just watching us do all the work.”
And before too long they had the wagon tongue, the recoil sleigh, the cradle, an old cast-iron handwheel, and the mortar sights, inside the shop, all of which Ula stared at in wonder.
“Vell, Monique gave us an idea,” Sven answered. “She turned me drawin’s upside down an’. Vell, you’ll yust ‘ave to vait an’ see vat ve’re goin’ to build now. Ve’ve got a lot to do agin. I suppose Ursula is goin’ to be callin’ you every ten minutes to make sure you’re still ‘ere an' not runavay vit an inflatable voman or sumptin’?”
“No problems dere,” Ula said. “Monique called her. I don’ know vat she said, but Ursula brought me back ‘ere right afterward. She still don’t like you much dough--you’re such a troublemaker, HA!”
The sun was coming up over the treetops when Asa Melvinsdottir phoned the shop for the boys to come up for breakfast. Knorr had closed the valves of the acetylene and oxygen tanks, and switched off the welder. Sven gathered up the thermos and cups. Ula pulled off his leather gloves and put on his jacket before the three walked out the door toward Knorr & Asa’s big blue house on the little hill.
“Vash up, boys. You’ll be vantin’ coffee or tea, Ula? Sven?” Asa asked, setting the last of the serving dishes on the table. “Did you get done vit your project?”
“Yah, it’s finished,” Knorr said, rolling up his sleeves. “Ve’ve yet to test fire it. Vud you be ‘avin’ a frozen chicken or two, Asa, ve cud use as projectiles?”
“Not my frozen chickens!, Knorr Helmerson!”Asa said, scooping a ladle-full of lutefisk onto Ula’s plate.
“Vell den, maybe ve cud be usin’ vun or two of your stray cats? Dey veigh as much as a skunk,” Sven joked knowing her fondness for the dozen or so mouse-catchers she feeds from time to time.
“An’ not a vun of my kitties eit’er, Sven Guyson, dough I vudint put it past you! ‘ave some dumplin’s, or salt pork?” Asa said, a fork nearly to her mouth.
“I’ll be catchin’ me a skunk righ’ along,” Ula said, wiping the edges of his mustache.“I set me trap last night, I did.”
“Attaboy Ula.,” Sven said.
“Yust vat da doctor ordert, Sven,” Ula said balancing a quivvering mass of lutefisk on a fork of Asa’s finest silverware. “Dere vere more ‘oles den ever out by da cow shed. Ve’ll get ‘im now.”
“So Knorr,” Ula asked. “‘ow far you t’ink dis t’ing vill chuck a skunk, eh?”
“Vell, I suppose dere’s a specific calculation to figure it out,” Knorr said sprinkling some cinnamon on his Rømmegrøt. “But I t’ink if you put yust 15 to 25 psi., in it an’ elevate da barrel 45 degrees to clear da tree tops, you oughta be able to cross da river...”
“Yust cross da river? It’s righ’ out me back door, Knorr. Are you sayin’ ve yust spent tventy-one ‘ours buildin’ a stinkin’ slingshot?” Ula said, straightening himself in his chair; his napkin falling into his lap from his collar.
“... in Vannaska, I vas t’inkin’,” Knorr said looking at Ula, as he sipped a bit of his tea.
“Vannaska!!” Ula roared with his hands thrown into the air. "Gemme a shoulder of Captain Morgan, and a naggin of vodka! Ya mean, I could shoot skunks clean to Vannaska?”
‘“Vell, maybe fart’er. Dat’s only speculation. Vat you got dere, usin’ dat big ol’ blower tube, is basically a 240 mm gun,” Knorr said, starting on a plate of cakes slathered with real maple syrup. “Dat elevatin’ ‘and veel cud be a limiter, among other t’ings ve ‘ave yet to verk out.”
“Maybe you could add a digital fire-control system later, eh?” Asa suggested as she passed a big bowl of dumplings to Sven. The boys stared at Asa who ignored their looks of astonishment.
“I’ve been talkin’ to Monique. She knows a ting or two ‘bout big guns,” she said with a smile, looking at the trio over the top of her glasses.
Ah, the adventures of the boys continue. The other day I gassed up at the Riverside Station and then went inside to buy ice. Since the Wannaska Cafe 89 has closed, the regulars there have been at wit's end to find another place to sit, drink coffee and jaw. And there they were. Sitting around the only very small table in the place, looking more miserable than social. Maybe they should meet your boys and take up story writing?
ReplyDeleteA lightbulb has just flared on – the story in this post isn’t about skunks; it’s a series of veiled, scatological humor. You sly devil. May I present the evidence below? By the end of my non sequitur list, I think others will see it my way as well. Here we goes . . .
skunk – the central metaphor for flatulence and other related activities
big bowl of dumplings - did you not mean "a big bowel of dumplings"?
fart’er - what happens after eating that big bowel of dumplings
He was fairly bursting with pent-up laughter – no, he was fairly bursting with pent-up gas
Ula slump-shouldered his way out of the shop, his tail between his legs – his tail is between his legs trying to hold in the pent-up gas
Me and Ula are yust naturally slow to get t’ings goin’ - constipation
Vat in sam’ell are you two doin’ – don’t you mean smell?
runavay vit an inflatable voman – inflatulent woman
Vat you got dere, usin’ dat big ol’ blower tube, is basically a 240 mm gun – farts again
I’ve been talkin’ to Monique. She knows a ting or two ‘bout big guns – big guns: the boys’ farting apparatus
And the smelly little black-and-white kitty just walks away, tail to the sky.
I rest my case – JP Savage
You are indeed insightful -- however wrong you may be in addition. There's no underlying message herein; even if you read it backwards, no devil worshiping or flatulent suggestion to be discovered hiding in the undergrowth. Not a whisker nor hint, nor wisp nor nod, nothing there but words put on a virtual page in the order they were intended. However, I do appreciate your effort.
DeleteThis story, a portion of it true. most of it not, is the second to the very last of this particular tale. Two more are to follow and then, perhaps, it's back to the old almanac format of dates and who is who and who is not any more. (I did enjoy your last post and have yet to comment; be patient.) This story had seen publication in THE RAVEN: Northwest Minnesota's Original Art, History & Humor Journal before, up to last week's entry, drastically altered back then when one of the principle characters announced she wanted a divorce, so to speak, from further mention in future Sven & Ula tales, and insisted her 'suggestion' be removed at once and forever. I obliged. (And swiftly, I might add. Be it little of me to purposely offend anyone. Uffdah.)
So, now many years later, I am finishing this episode because I can. Please bear with the sufferings of an old writer who wants his characters to relive, what I think of as a fun adventure involving the character of the late Jerry Solom, (Knorr Hilmersson) who walked on, on July 23, 2019. I miss him greatly.