First up, I want to tell you about another Booksweeps contest I’m sponsoring with some other mystery writers: the Crime Fiction & Thrillers BookBub Follower Giveaway Contest. It started yesterday, March 15 and runs through March 24, which happens to be my sister’s birthday. Just a nice coincidence.
Like the contest that ran a couple of weeks ago that I was part of, this is another chance to win a new e-reader, either a Nook or a Kindle, and 30 new books to satisfy your reading pleasure. This time, I’m sponsoring with Open Season, the first book in the Seasons Mystery Series.
Slim Randles is my guest today and I couldn’t resist another story featuring Windy. His wacky explanation of the Ides of March is pretty funny. And since St. Paddy’s Day is this week, have a glass of green beer. Or if you’d rather, a cup of green tea. Either one works. Enjoy…
Windy Wilson actually had to go into the Rest of Your Life retirement home to find enough folks for an audience. He knew an important date in history was coming, and he had obligations.
“Called it The Ideas of March, you know,” Windy said to those whose wheelchairs weren’t quick enough to make the hallway.
“Now the object of their evilness on the Ideas of March was none other than Julius Caesar hisself. You know. He was so famous his face is on gold coins in old dead boats on the bottom of the ocean. And a-course you know they named a food after him, don’t ya? Thass right. We all heard of Orange Julius.
“Well, on this partic’lar Ideas of March, Ol’ Julius was s’posed to give a speech there in Rome to all them senators and tell ‘em what a great guy he was, and how great his ecumenicals was workin’ out for the middle classers and who he thought they should conquer next. But that wasn’t gonna happen, nossir, ‘cuz them senators who didn’t like him was waitin’ for him at the front door of the farm … called this here buildin’ the farm, for some reason … and they flat sicced a temper tyrannus on him, which meant they stuck daggers in him, right through his bathrobe, and he fell down.
“And while he was busy a-dyin’ he noticed one of them stabbers was his ol’ trail pard, name of Brutal. And with his dyin’ breath, Julius managed to say, “Brutal ol’ boy, don’t tell me you was in on this deal, too? But a-course he said it in Roman, so it come out more like “Et tu Buffet?”
“They used ta talk like that. But anyway, that was the Ideas of March for that year, anyhow, and ol’ Julius Caesar went on to orange juice fame and havin’ movies and plays wrote about him.
“But I still think “Et tu Buffet” would be a pretty good ol’ name for a Roman coffee shop, and you can tell ‘em I said so.”
They’d all made it to safety by that time except for one old lady whose aluminum walker had broken its leg and had to be put down.
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All of the posts here are from his syndicated column, Home Country that is read in hundreds of newspapers across the country. I am always happy to have him share his wit and wisdom here.
Slim Randles is a veteran newspaperman, hunting guide, cowboy and dog musher. He was a feature writer and columnist for The Anchorage Daily News for 10 years and guided hunters in the Alaska Range and the Talkeetna Mountains. A resident of New Mexico now for more than 30 years, Randles is the prize-winning author of a dozen books, and is host of two podcasts and a television program.