CAL COOLIDGE COOL ON SKWERLS!

        The United States has had its share of exciting politicians, but the 30th President, Calvin Coolidge, stands heads above the rest. C'mon. We're ceratin you can name at least half-a-dozen highlights of his Presidential term. Like how he went to bed before 10 pm, rose early, and loved to take mid-day naps. And, when he decided not to seek re-election to a third term as president, was there ever anything as moving as his statement, "I do not choose to run for president in 1928"?
        Well, Patriots, amidst all that excitement is one event that may mark President Coolidge as one of the world's Great Patriots. But, as Patriot Schaffner points out, that incident may have changed the course of history:

From: Schaffner Michael
To: GREGORY ELOVICH scarysquirrel@pinkpig.com
Subject: RE: Nuke a Squirrel
Date: Tuesday, June 01, 1999 11:53 PM

Recently I was struck by two seemingly disparate pieces of information that, once put together, become highly disturbing.

First, Lafayette Park, just across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, holds swarms of squirrels. In fact, according to David Manski, a wildlife biologist quoted in Bill Adler Jr.'s "Outwitting Squirrels" (Chicago Review Press, 1988), "The density of squirrels in that park is the highest ever recorded in the scientific literature" -- 120 in just 8 acres!

Sound scary? There's more! Squirrels in this park have been known to steal lunches, panhandle, and bite both residents and tourists. Worse, with the closing of Pennsylvania Avenue to through traffic in the wake of the Oklahoma bombing, only a thin line of cyclists and skaters stands between the President's Mansion and direct assault from these bushytail hooligans!

Why would squirrels mass across the street from the White House? Why should we fear a sudden banzai charge across the now lifeless asphalt of Pennsylvania Avenue? Vengeance, that's why -- memory of a long ago, confrontation that over the years festered within the local squirrels' pecan-sized brains into the shadow of a historical atrocity on the scale of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre!

Once, it is said, squirrels lived happily on the White House grounds. But then, one afternoon during the Coolidge administration, according to his principal Secret Service agent, Colonel Edmund W. Starling, the President left for a meeting:

"He was smoking a cigar, and as we approached the gate he flipped it to the lawn -- he never smoked while walking outside the White House grounds. The cigar struck the ground in a shower of sparks just in front of a squirrel, who jumped straight up in the air. He turned before he hit the ground. In a moment he was up a tree and out on a limb, where he sat staring at us in surprise and disappointment. His look of disillusionment was almost human. The President laughed until he had to hold his sides." [Colonel Edmund W. Starling and Thomas Sugrue, "Starling of the White House", Simon & Schuster, 1946]

Oh yes, Cal -- easy for you to laugh, but will Bill or Al or George III have to pay the price for your bit of humor? Is the unexplainable violence in this country the result of the psychological influence of the Masters of Consquirrelacy, who knew that the result of the "closing" of Pennsylvania Avenue would be its opening to the commandos of the Squirrel Enforcement Army, previously compelled to confine their depredations to innocent passersby in Lafayette Park!? Even now the squirrels of Lafayette Park are massing. Has the Secret Service made any preparations for this obvious threat? Is ANYONE looking into this?

        Indeed, Patriot Schaffner has a point. Squirrelien activity in the Washigton, D.C. area is at all time high. scary squirrel world recently reported on the threat when skwerls sabotaged Ma Sidenbocker's piano and defeated her fearsome Beaver Brigade with the help of the National Park Service.
        So, one has to wonder. Was President Cal's confrontation with the slavering chitterbox merely a chance encounter? Or was it a deliberate provocation? And if the latter, on whose initiative, Calvin's or the skwerl's? Perhaps we'll never know for sure, Cal's writings are mute on the subject. But one thing is certain. It's only a matter of time before the maniacal nut devils launch their juggarnaut across Pennsylvania Avenue and right up to the door of the White House. When that happens, will our President stand fast, whacking stick in hand? Or will the nation fall under chitter demon control?

EXPERIENCE THE UNBRIDLED EXCITEMENT OF CAL'S HOME! L TO R: CAL'S CARRIAGE, DESK, PARLOR, PORCH, PRIVY, MIRROR, STOVE, AND WOODSHED!!!

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