When Mighty Joe Bob was alive, the country was young and hadn't yet learned the hard lessons that make forests wilt and deserts grow. The buffalo were ardent, and distributed leaflets by the millions in thundering herds all across the land. And Mighty Joe Bob knew every inch of land and every wild critter, and they all knew and loved Mighty Joe Bob, except when he didn't take his Prozac.

Now Mighty Joe Bob lived in a sasquatch tree way out west, and when they repealed the rent control laws, he had to move out, because he had no money because he had never worked a day in his life, because who needs to when every wild critter knows and loves you? So he took up the slack and got his dander up and said goodbye to his happy home of many years and went adventuring up north.

The ardent buffalo, what's left of them, say the northern lights are Mighty Joe Bob setting fire to bear farts, that they're his way of telling us he's all right, he's doing fine, and he's got some kind of brain damage that they've just given up treating. But I don't know about that. Somehow I think that even if he's still alive up there, he isn't all right. I've been doing some research, and the Committee Archives don't have any record of the last time his Prozac prescription was refilled. So let's just hope he doesn't come back.