Note to Dear Reader - An earlier Post recounted the low blackguarding of Mike Houlihan by the snobs of the Union League Club - on response Mike founded the Cleek of Chicago - the Driver of the City:Mashies, Rakes and Niblicks are for smaller souls. The Cleek of Chicago is Big, Big Club!
New York – Workers at New York's Bronx Zoo found the poisonous Egyptian cobra that escaped from its pen a week ago and has kept area residents alarmed ever since.
The serpent is alive and under observation and will be on view to the public again if the planned checkup finds it in good condition, according to zoo officials cited by the online edition of the New York Daily News.
The search team caught the hooded snake Thursday with some special tongs and hooks inside the Reptile House at the zoo, which the cobra had never left.
Zoo workers brought the Egyptian cobra out of hiding with a scattering of wood shavings that rats and mice use for nesting around the building, according to the CNN online edition, so that it would smell like mealtime to the serpent and lure it into the open.
Among the Doric Columns of Chicago's Newest Club, Renaissance Man Mike Houlihan explains International history and Morality to Journeyman Reader Pat Hickey - no mean task that: ( hushed quietude erupted by outraged incredulity!)
" Found him indeed! Found! Nay, those jackanape public service layabouts would not know a snake from a five iron, Hickey. Mike Bloomberg was at wit's end and asked for my assistance. Off to the Apple, I bustle, my Gladstone packed with Arctic foul weather gear, given the vicissitudes in the winds and currents of this our planet earth and Mother Nature's singular affinity for heaping snows upon the American eastern seaboard, and soundly counselled his ministers on where to find the Egyptian twister. No reptile -Democrat, Republican, or other cold-blooded creature flourishes in the open, mind you. This uncircumcised serpent would be found in the very same Reptilian Domicile from whence only the panic of louts and ninnies Twittering with thumbs akimbo emerged. I informed the Mayor's men that, in fact, fugitive meat rope had not left the Zoo at All. Why leave the Bronx, Old Man? Beckon the adder out of his lair with sprinklings of wood and leafy composite where a mighty meal of mice might be had."
Astounding, Houli!
"No less astounding than man's inability to recall past habits. Occam's Razor tells us that were one to be caused misty-eyed and worried by Dad's absence at mealtime, might just portend a brisk and healthful walk up to Keegan's Pub, rather than a call to Chicago 911. There, the Roistering Pater Familias might be found under a pile of great-coats forgotten by drunken young people -next to the GOLD CUP GOLF machine."
What common sense might do for man, Houli.
" A Quid Nunc for the ages, Hickey, my son. Now, about the current conundrum! Worthington, charge my Auchentoshan with the soda, there's a good man. This damned whisky I found wholly unsuitable to the snifter - it is as overrated as a Dick Morris insight. I prefer the Bruichladdich 15 -fresh coastal sea air, some oak, vanilla, nuts, honey and a touch of brine.Palate: Creamy and sweet, brine develops considerably, then notes of malt and pepper.Finish: Long, gentle, flavorful, and slightly oily . . ."
Houli, sound chap, your latest Gordian Knot.
" Indeed. Cole Day was one of the finest sprinters in the Chicago Catholic League - ran for Loyola Academy in the mid-1970's - at about the time you were applying the Socratic Method at Bishop McNamara. He went on to run for Villanova at the very end of Eamon Coglan's great career as Chairman of the Boards under the tutelage Jumbo Elliot. Cole Day the short distances and Coglan the mighty Mile and change. Cole Day emerged from the Augustinian university with a solid business degree; alas, sans the notoriety of Eamon Coglan.
Cole went into venture capitalism and made piles of money, that vanished in the recent national economic unpleasantness. Cole Day went missing and his life partner -Cole bats from the other-side of the plate -called me last Saturday -sharply at 3 PM at WCEV - Chicago's Voice AM Radio 1450 on your dial . . ."
Indeed, the very place for wholesome chat and pointed commentary on mankind's folly, to be sure my peripatetic friend, but to the case!
" The life partner was beside himself with anxiety and had yet to announce the disappearance of his sprinting sodomite on the Social Networks abounding - he called me to sort out the ramifications. Cole Day had gone missing a week ago Wednesday -March 16th."
Two weeks ago Wednesday . . .
" I went of course to the Exchange that had been the Temple of Doom for Day's Fortunes and every person there happened to be the same age as you and I - the darker side of Fifty and the Sunny Side of Seventy, Hickey! It was singularly interesting to be in a locale of such universally aged persons as myself - outside of Friday Nights at the Lounge of Beverly Woods . . .naturally.
I asked the Exchange President, a ruddy and solid man who had gone to Steinmetz High School Class of 1965, 'Cole Day?'
He replied, 'Boy, do I remember coal day the sound of the truck pulling up close to gangway of my Dad's two-Flat, while I laid in bed waiting for Chuck Bill's Adventure Theatre to come on and the clatter of coal cascading down the chute . . .' He was joined by other contemporaries who chorused -'I loved coal day! The guys pushing the wheel-barrows always put us kids on for ride. Hey, remeber when we all used to burn our garbage out in those concrete incinerators in the alleys -We used to climb in them and play army tank and kill maggots with our fingers. We used to take handfuls of maggots and use them to catch crayfish under the viaduct on Wood Street. I miss the cinders on the snow - remember that? Every lawn had snow dappled with coal cinders and nuclear fallout from the A Bomb Testing. How about Sonic Booms? And Nike Sites all along Lake Shore Drive? The stockyards only smelled on Wednesdays! & etc.
In bemused frustration I raised plaintiff hands 'Ladies and Gents, Please! Cole Day?'
They chorused - It was Wednesdays before noon! The big trucks came down Western and . . ."
Cole Day, Houli?
" Remember, Hickey, Cole Day was a sprinter of singular abiliity! I found out that he taken up another life partner - he had taken up with one the recent Wisconsin Democrat Exiles with whom he had become enchanted - they now reside in that Dairyland Arcadia of Madison-you know the heart wants what the serpent demands and such; thus, an unhappy ending for one. Nevertheless, the thoroughly enjoyable round of reminiscences at the Exchange. I had almost completely forgotten about Chuck Bill's Adventure Theatre -'Ding Hao Feather-merchants!' Old William of Occam! Snakes and Coal, Hickey. Snakes and coal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eamonn_Coghlan
http://skinnyhouli.com/
