Elsinore's Shores

Willkommen, dames and gents. My name is Horace Arbogast, Elsinore, Utah’s eldest denizen. In 1840, a plague of near-Biblical proportions beset the Shelbyville to our Springfield: Iliff, Colorado. Weeks turned to months, the harvest moon drawing ever nearer. With the whole of their grape haul desiccated, Iliff sought to bleed our lifeblood, the River Sevier. Ah, but, “fall back” Daylight Saving Time hastened sunup, and their home-team beanies became homing beacons.

Still, the interlopers' numbers assured success. So, we played dead. When the peril passed, we struck from behind with whatever bludgeons we found. Angler Abe flayed flesh with his fish scaler. Goody Noone cracked nuts with a nutcracker! Coach Orton towel-whipped butts red as Rudolph’s nose! Yet, brave as they were, one man won the day: A modest farmer who flooded the main drag with molasses, before rolling down a mountain inside the voided barrel to reach town ahead of the raiders. That modest Rocky Mountain oyster farmer's name was Crispus Elsinore.

Crispus' light would shine anew one Leap Year later, when Wallenda Boebert sneeze-birthed a bastard while pooping in a public outhouse. One of the town moonshiner’s two hell-spawns had defiled her, after plying her with his pappy’s tradecraft. Wallenda, walleyed as a D-I-Y boob job, could give little by way of a physical description. Of two traits she was sure: 1) Tangles of carrot-colored, bramble-textured hair lived below his belt. 2) Even flown full mast, his penis could pass for a protruding navel.

Discerning the child’s sire proved simpler said than done: The town’s only male gingers were paternal twins, mirrored even in their “shortcomings.” In a bid to shame him out of hiding, Sheriff Showalter shared Wallenda's depiction of the perp, in size-24 font, on handbills posted about town. Alas, purebred Paddies they were, the twins mistook “hung like a hobbit” for praise!

When the deadline he'd set lapsed without either twin stepping forward, Judge Hamish Hangman signed both of their names to the birth record! Even Wallenda could see that two child support checks trumped one!

Five years forward, Cancel Culture came to Elsinore. Crispus sent it packing. Trouble began when the town built a theme park inspired by Jackson’s conquest of Creek Nation atop Creek Nation burial grounds. Bad blood looked to become bloodletting. Crispus bade us kill our enemies with kindness. On his order, blankets were knitted, one for every brave and squaw, by Elsinore’s exiled cholera-denier community. But, that, My Friends, is another tale for another time.