<bgsound src="midis/solenza.mid" loop=infinite>

ŠTOM WYOMING



Fatboy is a gopher prairie dog that lives at the Motocross track. His burrow isn't on a corner, or in an out of the way place, but is out in the middle of the parking area, the pits. Fatboy is one of a couple hundred gophers that live within the confines of the track. Some live in the pit area, some live along the fence, and some, I've discovered, have their holes in the middle of the track. I would guess that it's the young gophers who like to live dangerously. They have their holes in the middle of the track, so when you come around and think you're going to hit one, he will dive into his hole.

I first noticed Fatboy a few years back, a day when I was at the track. What caught my eye about this gopher in particular was that he was five or six times larger than the others. His belly was so fat that little paths could be found radiating from his burrow, which were caused by his adipose stomach dragging the ground as he went about his daily affairs. Everytime I went near his burrow to pick up trash, he would get just inside the hole and start chirping and fussing. A gopher's sound is telling you to "get the heck away from my house and leave me be".

It got so that each time I went to the track the first thing I did was look for Fatboy, to see if he was out or not. Back then we had a dog and she would scamper about and try to catch the gophers. Then if she caught them, she would want to play with them, but would nearly always end up killing them, for her idea of play was a little too severe for the tiny critters. But Fatboy would stay just down inside his burrow so my dog would have no chance of making him a toy and her prey.

After each race I would go over and clean up the trash: pick up the paper, empty the trashcans. One day I found a big piece of Pizza so I took it over to Fatboy's burrow and left it at the edge. When I came back the next day, it was not there. One thing led to another, so it became a habit that anything I found that was edible, I would place by his burrow. Once, the wife found a dozen frosted donuts, so we put them there. A whole dozen donuts, and walla, the next day they were gone. I guess it can be said that I tried to insure that Fatboy kept his name. Then in the fall I started bringing celery and carrots from home and leaving them near his burrow.

In the spring, as soon as it started to warm up and the gophers started coming out, I always made a special effort to see if Fatboy had survived the winter, so he could grace us with his company again that year. The last time I saw him, last year, he must have been at least five or six years old. I don't know what the expected life of a gopher is, but I think his was a lot longer than most.

If you are a young gopher and live around the MX track, you know that the Chief and top Dog of gophers (no that is an oxymoron, top dog gopher) is Fatboy. He is the big cheese and you listen to him. You obey him or you get your tail nipped. Fatboy has been around the horn quite a few times so he feels that he knows more than any of the other gophers, and as a matter of fact, he does know more than anyone, including the "two legs". How did he come by all this knowledge, and what made him so superior to others? Well that is in part what this farce is all about, and it's the intent of the story (spinning a big yarn).

Now it seems that when Fatboy was born to Louisa and Clarence P. Gopher, he was one of a brood of nine, plus he was the runt. When I say runt I mean runt, he was about a third the size of his siblings. When it came time to feed, or eat if you please, he was the last one to get anything, that is if there was anything left when he bellied up to the trough. It went this way for the first couple months of his life and looked as though it would continue to be that way for all of his life, which would be a short one, unless something changed and changed drastically. But Nature has a way of looking out for kids and runty critters. And how did it come to affect the life of Fatboy?

One day after a big race at the track, the trash cans were full of delectable goodies. Fatboy's big brother, Elmo, got in one of the cans and ate so much that he could not get out. Well Fatboy scampered into the barrel through the same hole and ate his fill. Then he scampered out again with no problem. Elmo, it seems, was the big bully of the litter. He took everything from his brothers, he bossed and pushed them around and made them do his bidding. Now normally when a gopher eats too much he does one of two things: he gnaws a larger hole to get out, or he waits until he digests the feast and shrinks back to his regular size. Normally Elmo would do the latter but in this incidence someone saw a two leg empty something into the Dumpster. The big Dumpster wrought fright and havoc on gopher's because they knew a lot of them had been lost in those big Green monsters. It seems that once in a Dumpster, a gopher cannot get out until he goes off the edge of the earth.

When a "two leg" starts emptying the trash cans, all the gophers in the area start chattering and sounding the alarm. "Get out, get out," they scream, "they are dumping the cans!" This sends everyone scurrying back to their own, or to the closest, burrow. This time everyone got out except Elmo, and he couldn't make it. He started screaming and crying and hollering and making all sorts of noises, any noise that he could generate. In fact, every gopher was hollering and screaming and scurrying about, every gopher except Fatboy. Fatboy had witnessed the event and he ran over to the can and got inside and grabbed hold of Elmo. He told Elmo to quiet down, just "cool it" he kept repeating.

Finally Fatboy had had enough of Elmo's whimpering. He jumped up on a beer can and whomped Elmo up side his head with an apple core. Elmo just collapsed into a ball of whimper-jelly. Then, about that time the "two leg" emptied the can into the Dumpster.

After Fatboy and Elmo stopped falling and tumbling, Elmo started his whimpering all over again, which caused Fatboy to once again whomp him up side of his head. And the next thing they knew, the Dumpster was towed outside the gate and left for the big truck to pick it up.

Elmo didn't want to be whomped again so he said "What do we do? We are doomed!"

Fatboy hugged Elmo and said, "Alas. All is not lost, we will get out of here. We will get back to the family."

Elmo knew for sure that this was a big one, but he wasn't about to say so and get whomped again, so he said, "OK".

Fatboy scampered around in the Dumpster and found a big glazed donut, which he gave it to Elmo. The donut was larger than Elmo, but Fatboy said eat it, and so Elmo started eating. Fatboy then began to explore the dumpster, moving up and down, side-to-side, and end-to-end. He checked every hole for a means of escape.

No holes, no plugs and no drains could Fatboy find, so he sat down and started eating a piece of Butterfinger he'd found. After he'd finished the piece of candy, the piece of apple he'd found, and something else he'd found, he was gorged. For the first time in his life he did not have to fight for food, or wait for what was left. In fact, he was so full he couldn't think, so he stretched out on a piece of foam and took a nap.

Fatboy hadn't slept long when Elmo roused him and wanted to know what he was doing, and how he was going to save them. Well this made Fatboy so mad that he grabbed the first thing at hand and whomped Elmo up side the head. In doing so, he knocked the piece of foam he was sleeping on out of the dumpster, and as Elmo fell, he rolled off the dumpster. And as luck would have it, he landed on the foam which had landed in a mud puddle.

Not thinking of himself, Fatboy immediately jumped after Elmo, and he also landed on the foam. His landing, however, caused Elmo to fall off the foam into the mud-hole. Elmo was revived by the cool water and came up swinging and yelling. Then to his surprise, he found he was on the ground, just outside the gate. Without further ado he high-tailed it for home to be reunited with the family. At seeing his brother was OK, Fatboy laughed and he, too, started toward home. He realized though, that his mother would give him what for because he had been gone so long.

When Fatboy got back to the burrow his mom ran over and hugged him. His dad grabbed him and shook his paw, saying how proud he was of his brave son. Then all of the relatives, who by now had heard how Elmo and Fatboy had been lost, started coming over, which meant that soon the burrow was so full they had to adjourn outside.

Fatboy didn't know how to handle this newfound fame and stardom, so he sorta shuffled his feet. Then the first chance he got, he headed for a trash can to get more to eat. It seems Elmo was knocked silly by that last whomp on the head. He remembered yelling at Fatboy, then the next thing he knew he was in the water. Wowie, Fatboy was now Elmo's hero.

His new found hero status allowed Fatboy to eat first, and everyone started giving him part of what they had. This he liked so he started eating and eating, and then eating some more. Needless to say before long he began growing, so it wasn't long before he was larger than any other gopher around the track. Also, everyone with a problem, both young and old started asking him help them. Fatboy would stop, scratch his head, and start asking them questions, until, after a while, he had ask so many questions the original Asker was tired and wanted to go on off about his business. However just as they would turn to walk away, Fatboy would say in a low clear voice, "And now how do you think you should go about solving this?" The Asker would immediately say something and then Fatboy would say, "You see, you had the solution yourself, you didn't need me". This made the Askers feel good about themselves so normally the solution worked. Gradually, Fatboy became the most sage gopher in the area, and he also became the largest gopher in the area. When he was out and about looking for food or just meandering around and he saw someone doing something they shouldn't be doing, he would look at them, and in that low clear voice he would say, "Do you think you should be doing that?" Then he would walk off.

One day Fatboy was over next to the starting gate, stretched out, sunning himself, when he saw one of Samsun's kids bump into old Theresa Bobble Gopher. He immediately went over and said "You shouldn't have done that."

Samsun's oldest boy Maitai was a big strappling gopher and he had a reputation of being a wild one, of not being nice to anyone. Hearing Fatboy's words, Maitai sneeringly looked at Fatboy and said, "Sshut up you fat slob, who ask you anything!"

Before you could say Peter Potasivich, Fatboy ran over, grabbed Maitai, and spun him around over his head four or five times. Then he slammed Maitai to the ground. He looked down, and in the his low clear voice, he said, "I said you shouldn't have done that and I think you should apologize."

Poor Maitia just looked up at Fatboy, for no one had ever stood up to him or treated him like that before. Immediately Maitia got up and went over to Theresa and apologized, then he got away from there as fast as he could, for he wanted no more of Fatboy.

A couple of other similar incidents occurred in Fatboy's life, and each time Fatboy would say nothing. He would just smile and walk away. Needless to say the legend was born, so that everyone around the track, and as far away as the Airport, even as far as the Okie Blanchard Stadium, sang Fatboy's praises.

1/22/99 9:17:31 PM



Return To Index