"Green Turkeys" Note: Emails are organized in the order received, with first received at the top. *** Dear Readers: Some of you reported problems reaching the page referenced in last week's column. Please try this URL: http://tinyurl.com/yfhgwn4 It will hopefully work for you. Jim *** Dear Jim: I had a good laugh at your Green Turkey piece. Unfortunately, a few people are suckered in by such nonsense. I heard of another one that is closer to the pulp and paper industry Have a look at http://www.fetchstixvt.com/ According to VPR, the 3 stick kit sells for $10. These guys are not so dumb. I estimate about 1/1000 cord in the kit, so that is wood selling at $10,000/cord. NOBODY in the pulp and paper industry is smart enough to sell wood at these prices. Neil McCubbin Foster, Quebec Canada *** Thank you for your e-mail. I am on leave and not checking emails until I return to the office. If your matter is urgent please redirect your email to [deleted]. In the event I have won a large sum of money please contact me on my shoe phone 123 456 789. I will return to my office on Wednesday 2nd December. Thanks [withheld] --- I get about 400 "out-of-office" emails from every issue of Nip Impressions and I read them all. This was the funniest one ever. I doctored it up to protect the comedian. I'll give a hint, though: he lives on an island in the South Pacific. Jim *** Jim: I just finished reading Point Counterpoint and found it enlightening. That is a good column. I learn from you and Travis. Usually I agree with both of you to some degree. I emailed both Point Counterpoint and Green Turkeys to... He is considered 'rich' here in TC... By the way, back in 1980, when I was living out in the Perry Co. wilderness without electricity and running water, my partner, Doug, and I were vegetarians (I'm sure he still is). We had friends over for Thanksgiving. Needless to say preparing a complex meal was labor intensive but I enjoyed it. (Our stove was a prize--huge, heavy, burned wood, or could be hooked up to propane--I conceded to propane for that dinner, but you couldn't beat the beans and cornbread from the wood burning side) Anyway, back to the menu. For dinner I made a dish consisting of peanut butter, garlic, cayenne, honey, ginger, soy and lemon. Served over pasta. It was really quite good. It was the first time I ventured into this kind of conglomeration. Maybe it was kindergarten of 'Taste Expansion School.' My most memorable Thanksgiving and the reason I always try to have a glass of wine on Thanksgiving Day, occurred in 1976. I was in So. Calif. My 'West Coast Mother' Dee, (who was 62 at the time, I was 27) had been involved in a horrible auto accident on Oct. 30. She had been in intensive care for a week or more, and then a private room with limited visitation (there is a funny story associated with that, but I will tell you that one some other time). By Thanksgiving she was much better, but the hospital was reluctant to let her out for Thanksgiving Day. I finally agreed that I would have her back by 8 pm. So they agreed. I packed her in my orange Volkswagon Squareback and away we went. At my house, I propped her in my most comfortable chair and proceeded to cook. First came the wine...all to myself, while I cooked, a Julia Child in the making. I stuck the turkey in the oven. Her 4 friends arrived(the first time they had seen her since the accident). We drank wine and waited. And waited. And waited....while the turkey cooked. Apparently I hadn't planned my turkey roasting correctly and what I thought would take an hour and half turned out to be 3 hours.(Gives 'Green Turkey' a whole new meaning.) At 4pm we were all sufficiently corked that dinner wasn't so bad, and the turkey was fully cooked. After everyone left, Dee was exhausted and wanted to lie down. I had a water bed. She rested while I cleaned up. My German Shepherd, Yoghurt, found Dee appealing, probably turkey and dressing residue on her face, and would go into the bedroom and give her a good lick every so often. At 7:00pm it was time to get rolling. I went to get Dee out of the waterbed and couldn't. She couldn't roll and was still sore. It took 20 minutes and finally she was up. Time to drive to the hospital. By now it was 7:45. The hospital was 20 min. away. Ah-h, we would make it only 5 min. late. Then I looked at the gas gauge. Empty. Crap. Stop at a gas station. Get ready to pump.....oops! No cash (no credit card in those days). Dee dug around in her purse and came up with a couple of dollars. Saved by the Grace of God. Onward. We finally arrived at Sharps only 30 min. late. The nurses were very angry with me....and the Grace of God turned into the Wrath of God. All considered, Dee had a good day, mostly because she was out of the hospital, and got a kick out of watching me try to prepare Thanksgiving dinner. We laughed about that day until she died 3 years ago. And I always have wine on Thanksgiving Day. Salute! Cousin Mickey Tell City, Indiana USA --- Mickey, When I read of your 1980 experience with Doug, I have visions of Shooter's cabin in the movie "Hoosiers." This movie, of course, reminds me of wintertime as a kid in southern Ohio, including the part about Shooter's cabin. Our house wasn't quite as bad as that cabin, but it was allegedly built in 1812, when I am sure it was grand. Unfortunately, we happened to live it in the 1960's. Jim *** Jim, This reminds me of a story of my cousin David's: Several years ago he and a friend thought they'd earn a little extra money by raising chickens in their yards...they live in central Ohio where farming and raising chickens is typical, in fact, it is still not un-common for people in this community to raise their own chickens and eggs. Anyway, when the two new entrepreneurs had the first batch of mature chickens raised and ready to go they needed to sell these chickens and they were getting nowhere! That is until David had the idea while walking into a local restaurant, next door to an Amish furniture store, to call them "Amish chickens." Well, the owner thought that sounded great and put Amish chicken on that weekend's menu...and it sold out just like that! The restaurateur called and ordered the rest of David's "Amish chickens" on Monday and life was grand! So, I think this type of thing can happen even where people should know better... Oh, you'll appreciate this -- yesterday I was giving a talk to a local community college international business class using [my company] as an example and the discussion of how are we doing in "this" economy came up...well, I happened to have some [research] graphs of waste paper pricing and exports as part of the discussion and one of the students said, "with raw material (OCC) being so cheap now, your business must be booming!" I have to admit I did laugh, and then proceeded to talk about how governments interfere with capital markets making them inefficient and specifically discussed the [current] tax credits that have kept our business from benefiting from any resurgence in recycling system investment. Keep up the good work. Chris Demler Mason, Ohio USA --- All I can say is it must be cousin week here at Nip Impressions. If you are in the US, have a good holiday. Jim ### Have a comment? Send your email to jthompson@taii.com. 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