Poo-Po Platter Writes Home

My Dearest Mama and Papa, Emmak, Tongi, Katu, Lip-Lip, Big Solly, Little Solly, Yamsu, Hatpha, Cortu, Poga-Pogo, Sim-Sim, Tuta, Dilbop, Frapok, Katau, Masul, Binjat, Zha-Zha, and all my beloved Platter cousins, aunts and uncles. Dear Grandma and Grandpa Platter and Maw-Maw Mary,

Poo-Po be loving Canada so much but country have terrible big money problem, no can even afford to pay sun to shine here! Thank God Canada able still afford politicians. Make me feel bad they get such small salary for much good work, but Poo-Po work hard, send tax to government, try to help. Too bad Canada Government not able afford even little bit sunshine for small
town like Funky - maybe next year be better.

But economic woes of Canada not keep Poo-Po from prospering! All Poo-Po had when landed was raft made of Clorox and DUX bottles and 2 plastic fruit-trimmed hat and now - small year later - have own business and snug little float house. Poo-Po being so very happy! Only thing Poo-Po miss is family and hope soon all join me.

Poo-Po have nice place. Is floating house on dock near cafe. High tide we be level with dock. Low tide Poo-Po climb 26 feet of ladder down to reach house, which by then sit on gravel bar. Tide come in, tide go out, twice a day - like live on seat of swing. View change alla time. Good thing Poo-Po land in raft at low tide. Public beach gone at high tide.

I paint it myself, a nice green like fern months ago - but paint still dripping - never dry. In this place they paint wood before build house, because it never dry enough to paint again. If one of brothers can invent alcohol-based paint that dry out wet wood without exploding we all be rich and everyone in family can come to Canada, help support poor cash-starved government. Boys can play in Fijian soccer league and drink plenty Kava. I give some Kava you send to Ling Wong who drink anything most of time and who pinch Poo Po's bum every time. He say it make him stone-cold sober - once he able talk again. He seem very much friendly.

Only took Poo-Po few days decide what to do here once stop being seasick. No sunshine here, just rain, rain alla time alla time. So no tans here - everyone either rust or grow moss, which depend on body chemistry, so Poo-Po think tanning salon big ticket to success. And everyone soon want Poo-Po's secret of hair that shed water! So Poo-Po open beauty shop and
every one now has beautiful Polynesian Perm. Please send another 40 gallon drum of shark-liver oil, can't find in Canada beauty supply catalogue.

Hope you all well, you tell Poo-Po - Fiji Government still got lots money? Sun still come up every day in Fiji?

Love and kisses, I be missing all of you most terrible.
Your beautiful daughter, sister, cousin, niece and grandchild,
Poo-Po

Sister Anne's Prayer

Dear Lord,

Between YOU and me, look at the kind of GIRLS that want to enter nunneries these days! Much too flighty *and* a great deal of strain on the cold water shower system!

I blame it on television, on shows like Sex and the ___________ (write anything you choose from your Aunt Fanny to the local hockey arena, everything is about SEX these days! In retrospect I'll bet you wish you'd have endowed humankind with asexual reproduction.)

Just please send me a novitiate or two of uncommon homeliness and no passions whatsoever, save that for do-goodery and the downtrodden poor.

Sister Anne (Mother Superior)
Mystical Light Mission

Clive Peterson

Mr. Clive Peterson is proprietor of Peterson's Pharmacy and Office Supplies on the south end of Main Street. Mr P. is one of the "old" breed of pharmacists, who not only counts and doles out pills but also solid doses of opinion. And while the rest of us are happy as stink to shuffle ole granny off to the rest home when she starts forgetting which shoe goes on which foot, Mr. Peterson is of a differing opinion. Probably because he is just about ready for the rest home himself.



Seriously Mr P. could use some Sea-Bond denture adhesive (or maybe some super glue) to secure those false teeth of his. They clack like a 1920s steam thresher. You think I'm kidding but the kids over at the high school use him as a percussionist at their dances since Willie McSpurgle fell off the platform and broke both his drumsticks.

The History of Funk's Inlet

The recorded history of Funk's Inlet began during WWII when John (Mad Jack) Arsenfluffin and his spotter Ling Wong were the Navy air patrol along a stretch of BC's North Coast.
During a storm Jack landed the Beaver in a deep bay and beached it while he and Wong took shelter under the up-turned roots of an old hemlock. When the storm was over the plane was gone and the two men were stranded.
After a few days they hailed a passing Native canoe. The people of the Kitankaboodle Nation were amused by Jack's aviator googles and red beard, but they were astounded to hear that a nation to the south, Vancoovah, was under the misapprehension that it had a claim to the land and sea the Kitankaboodle had lived on since put there by the Raven!
The Kits armed themselves and set out for Vancoovah, to deliver Jack's plea for rescue and exert their territorial imperative. Only the elderly infirm, two women too-pregnant-to-fight and the Kit's ancestral spirits stayed behind.
When the war party failed to return Jack and Wong took up with the women and made themselves at home until the Navy remembered them and sent a boat to bring them home.

So in 1945 Jack and Wong went back to Vancouver, only to find the city too noisy and busy after the solitude of the north. After two weeks they packed a bag each, climbed into Jack's new Beaver and flew north. They built a shack and a dock, and named the place Funk's Inlet after their buddy Tommy Funk, one of the thousands of Canadians who hadn't returned from the war.
In 1948 a boatload of refugees headed for Prince Rupert blew off course and struck the rocks at the head of the Inlet. The imigres climbed into the lifeboats and rowed ashore, increasing the population of Funky by 100 people in a single night.
And so it went. Few came by choice, but most stayed. There is no road out, it's a long way to row and while Jack's fares in are cheap, a ticket out is astronomical. Besides, once you've gotten to know your neighbour well enough to borrow his fishing gear, and can find your way home blind drunk in a fog as thick as congealed bacon grease, who would want to live anywhere else?