Pet Peeves

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Stone Age Answer

By Mark D. Crantz
By Mark D. Crantz

I was reading the Indy when tiredness overwhelmed me, my eyes closed and then several hours later I awoke with one answer and one question. The answer solves two recent Laguna problems. The Laguna College of Art and Design was forced to close its stone-carving program. And the Laguna Theater does not know what to do with its unoccupied space. So, without further adieu, I welcome Lagunans to the re-release of “Stone-Carvers” now playing at the Laguna Theater. That’s the answer to two problems. And my question is who took my Laguna Independent while I was asleep, made it into a hat and glued it to my head?

Laguna College closed the stone-carving program because of the internet. Students were elated. One student explained, “It took forever to carve out answers in those Blue Book tablets. I could never finish.” Another student added, “I knew the answers, but could not afford the carving tools to complete the tests. So, I bought cheat sheet stone tablet answers off the internet. But, the one-ton delivery charge bankrupted me. I had to quit school and go back to work in the family business, gravel driveways.”

Laguna Theater closed because the owner could not make enough money from the movies any more. A person close to management explained. “I told the owner that the future was in talkies. He insisted the silent movies were better because the audience could make up the dialogue in their heads. And audiences did. In their collective heads they said, “Honey, I can’t hear anything. I’m deaf.” And the audience “Honeys” answered, “How come you have all the luck, and I have to still hear you?”

Some people complained that the stone carving area was messy. Campus meanies called participants “The Beverly Hillbillies.” One weekend stone carving resident threw back, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but our stones and stones will smash your bones and names can never hurt us.”

The vitriolic rhetoric proved prophetic. As the college administration rolled the boulders out the doors, the stone carving staff struck gold. Oil that is, black gold, Texas tea. The stoners became billionaires. The kinfolk said, “Professors move away from there. Said being in the movies is the place you ought to be. So they loaded up the truck and moved to Coast Highway to an old Californy theatrreee. Popcorn, movie stars. It’s the Laguna Beach Hillbillies.”

“Well now its time to say hello to professors over here. And they would like to thank you folks for kindly dropping in. You’re all invited back next week to this locality. To have a heapin’ helpin’ of their hospitality. Laguna Hillbillies, that is. Carve a spell. Keep your steel-toed shoes on.   Y’all come back now, y’hear?”

Crantz tells the Indy it took him three years carving out this column. Readers are encouraged to copy this work in stone only, of course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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