STONKERED!!.

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 82, 16 June 1944, Page 5

STONKERED!!.

AIR FLAMING CORPS HEADQUARTERS

COMMODORES CRUCIFIXION

(All names used and the events depicted in the following narrative ate entirely fictional, and any resemblance to any person or thing, living or dead is entirely accidental). Air Commodore Wool worth, Commanding Officer of Squadron 1,000,035,. of the Air Flaming Corps racked his brains. The fact that this brought no result whatsoever stirred him greatly, but deterred him not the least from pursuing the problem in hand. He must have an Air Flaming Corps Headquarters. Moaning hysterically he glanced round the room. This had no effect whatsoever but there was nowhere else to glance at the moment. Suddenly his eye fastened on the tail section of an aeroplane. With a strangled sob he seized a handful of precious instruments, dashed them to the floor, and bit a new mouth mirror in half. Dash it! Where else could he store an aeroplane,, innumerable rifles, machine guns;, blackboards, type-writers, tables, forms, chairs, engines, Indian ink, sports gear, pieces of chalk,, himself at times, and above all the piles and piles of forms and records which filled his workroom and overflowed intoi the three adjacent vacant tions. Where indeed! With a wild cry of anguish Air Commodore. Woolworth flung himself into the chair, put, his feet in the spittoon, and proceeded to file his toe nails with the drill. Suddenly his face lifted itself. Hurling himself from the chair joyfully, he seized a handy pair of forceps and extracted half, the teeth from a newly completed set of dentures. Air Commodore Wool worth's heart was filled with rapture.

If he could only find enough kerosene cases, he could build a Headquarters himself. Chortling throatily, he stampeded madly off in all directions* looking for kerosene cases. Ho-lio-ho-ho* there was one ! A beauty too. Swooping down on it., lie tucked it deftly beneath an arm, and swarmed back to the surgery. Seizing an, instrument at random, he attacked the box with abandon,, and demolished it in a matter of seconds. The component parts he carefully laid asid£ then sidled back onto the street to sleuth for more boxes. Dashing on to the road, he, knocked a couple of apple cases from a passing truck and added them gloatingly to his growing collection. All week he worked. Barrelsj bones, odds and ends,, bits of things, pieces from .here and there, flotsam and jetsam, iron from the. neighbours' roofs all sorts of this and that piled themselves into his workroom, as a result of his animation. Days Passed Air Commodore Woolworth was frying a sausage over a bunser burner when the idea struck him. He would begin excavating and prepare the foundations immediately. Flinging the sausage into the open mouth of a waiting patient he rushed into the section next door. This would be as gootl a place as any. Hurling himself at a piece of ground, he proceeded to dig. When the hole was fifteen feet deep he suddenly remembered that he wasn't filling a tooth so; lie stopped. Tearing a weather board from an adjacent building he sunk it securely in the excavation.

Air Commodore Woolworth's enthusiasm was infectious. A passing pedestrian becoming infected flung himself, into the work wholeheartedly, and dug up the weather board again. Air Commodore Woolworth was infuriated. He rushed inside,, snatched a set of teeth from the bench, and ground them furiously. Suddenly he stopped. Another idea had struck him. Like a good Christian he. turned the other cheek then propelled himself into action again: He would build the A.F.C. Headquarters on skids, then he would be able to drag it home each night, by a piece of rope tied to his braces. Racing outside again he picked up the weather board and hurled it horizontally to the ground. Skid number one ! Ripping a number of palings from a nearby fence he tacked them furiously together and laid them gently down. Skid number two. But would they slide? Racing inside he snatched the half-chewed sausage from the patient's mouth, and with a muttered apology clawed his way out to grease the runners. Pushing the sausage, into lii« hip pocket for future reference he gathered up the pile of material from his workroom and commenced building. Then a ghastly thought* struck him. He had no permit. Hurrying off, he obtained an application to apply for a permit, then sat on the curb for two months while it. came through. At last it arrived. A large official looking package signed, sealed and delivered by His Worship the Mayor.

Tearing furiously at the string:,, he clawed the letter open. His eyes, crossed,, his jaw sagged, and mental paralysis set in. Across the page Va a palsied hand was scrawled:— STUNG AGAIN WOOLWORTH (Air Commodore, Commanding Officer of the Air Flaming Corps), YOU'RE IN A BRICK AREA. If you care to puH in another application we may consider allowing you to build a headquarters in the swamp dowa at Ohiwa. P.S, Would you like your rubbish collected'! Signed, The City Fathers,