This posting arose, as many do, from a comment in another thread.
A long time ago, in a place far, far way…
Oneonta, New York is a small town located a few hours north of New York City. It is a picturesque town of green hills and rather relentless precipitation.
At a time from the misty past known as, the 1970’s < gasp >, a young man found himself a freshman at what was then known as SUCO or perhaps what is better described as SUNY Oneonta. He was from the band of suburbs surrounding New York City, but more specifically, that cradle of all things suburban called Long Island. It is the curious fish-shaped island jutting east of Manhattan.
And a rather introverted young man was he. But he found himself befriended by another young man. This other young man, (Let’s call him Ray, since that was his name.) was from an even smaller town, Bovina Centre, New York. (Bovina Centre is the sort of place from which political advisors emerge, but do not return.)
Here is the quiet young man, err, esteemed candidate, back in the day. (Mid 1970’s)
Now that your twenty minutes of side-splitting laughter has subsided, back to our tale. (You should know that such an appearance was considered cutting edge at the time.)
This being the start of the fall semester, elections were scheduled for various dorm posts in the facility in which both young men were housed. Somehow the quiet young man was pursuaded by Ray to run for one of these positions, despite his being wholly unsuited for such an undertaking.
And so the campaign began.
And though Ray would harass anyone he could detain for even a brief period, the principal means of informing the dorm residents about the “candidate” was through hand-made signs posted throughout the dorm. (Computer-generated banners were still the subject of science fiction tales, this being the mid 1970’s.)
And so the sign-making began.
And the men utilized language of many kinds in their signs. They utilized various contemporary terms and they looked to a time even further in the past.
And this review of the past gave rise to one sign which included a perversion of earlier political language, Some pot in every chicken. And this particular sign was posted in a back hallway.
Subsequently, the quiet young man had occasion to leave the dorm via the main front entrance. Upon reaching the doorway, he noticed that the aforesaid perversion had been placed at the entryway, without his or Ray’s prior knowledge. Apparently, this signalled the approval of what must surely have been some individual(s) of a diminished mental stature.
And because of this, the quiet young man enjoyed(?) a brief period of renown, though he lost the election.
Such is sometimes the course of even the best-planned campaigns.
