Lakehead University - Yearbook (Thunder Bay, Ontario Canada)

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THE NOR ' WESTER JOURNEY TO RUTUF — Continued the power of the Hewhassayan perpetual motion machine. Into the crusher, Senator Burns pushed stacks of books. The senator took strong exception to certain books having brightly colored covers which hurt his eyes. He said that these dangerous books were a threat to the people ' s health, and unless they were put into his crusher to be destroyed, the whole population of Hew- hassay would become color-blind. Senator Morton Graft, who assisted Senator Burns, headed the Hewhassayan Investigating Committee, which investigated investigators investigating the citizens for signs of unconventional thoughts. Senator Graft charged with treason any citizen who advocated policies contrary to the traditional opinions of Hewhassay. Senator Graft also found guilty any citizen refusing to answer his interrogator ' s questions. Senator Graft publicly condemned the traitor before his trial. Judge Virgil Bridemore then sentenced the traitor to be deported to the terrible planet of Parasov, where people lived a life worse than death. Hewnassay constantly feared attack from Parasov because of its aggressive and hostile dictatorship called the Kremtreach. Fortunately, a great and won- derful invention, the nucleusonic bomb, preserved peace and prevented uni- versal warfare. One good thing about Parasov was the absence of unemployment. The pep- per mines and slave camps of sweltering Tropicornia, an unbearably hot and humid land in eastern Parasov, always provided opportunities with a future , and a substantial proportion of the population worked there. The M.K.B.D. (The Men who Kindly Butcher Deviates) was a marvellous organization which performed two functions. First, it continually watched over every activity of every citizen every minute of his life. Secondly, it was the employment agency for the Tropicornia pepper mines and slave camps, and it was instru- mental in procuring large numbers of workers. My Hewhassayan freind, Otis K. Zmpclbtx (pronounced Qsnrvpdk) told me he was a dog psychologist. He tested dogs to determine their I.Q. Dogs with superior intelligence were used to perform many minor tasks for the people. They were also taught to talk, and to play football, baseball, and other sports. I particularly admired the educational system in Hewhassay. Otis and I had much in common in that we both possessed a vast amount of information on a variety of worthwhile subjects. We both had memorized significant speech- es from the classics of our languages. He was delighted when I was able to quote twenty-five lines from Polonius ' speech beginning: And these few percepts in thy memory Look thou char- acter ... He especially admired the kindly wisdom of that excellent old man Polonius. Otis then impressed me by disclosing many exact statistics of his country. He was able to give the average rainfall from 1896 to 1963 of six different Hewhassayan cities: Katzala, Esp, Saint Kosher, Oopdeedoo, Tillden, and the tropical paradise Kmonawanaseeya. Otis was as equally skilled in the ancient nd extinct Hewhssayan language called Mortis as I was in Latin. He easily said Articus ignorala prima donna camera non- sensi , but he did not know what it meant. Both of us knew a great many words in these ancient languages, although we were not always sure of either the meaning or pronunciation of most of them. Both of us had a good understanding of the parts and functions of plants and animals, and we agreed that this knowledge more than made up for our ignorance about the physical and mental funtioning of our own respective species. As in some places on my own planet, radicals who advocated a new and — 19

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THE NOR ' WESTER JOURNEY TO RUTUF It was the morning of May 18, 1996, when I had finally finished construction of my saucer shaped intercelestial space missile. Having reached the age of thirty, two days previously, and having celebrated my birthday at a surprise party which my friends had thrown for me on the night of May 16, I was in very good spirits. My elation increased when I proudly inspected my fioraluminum missile fitted with six motors powered by solar and electro- atomic energy. For security reasons I cannot reveal the dimensions, weight, power, or color of my missile. Alter completing preparations for my departure from Earth, I secretly shot off into space from a spot in the most isolated region of desolate and barren Labrador at twenty-one minutes after two o ' clock in the afternoon of May 18, 1996. Again, for security reasons, I have to withhold certain information, including the exact take-off place and the speed with which I left the earth ' s atmosphere. It all seemed like a dream. But I was jolted back to reality with a shock when my missile broke through the light barrier. My gyro-gravitational cockpit allowed me to maintain my balance when my missile accelerated beyond the speed of light. It felt as though eons of time had passed. Actually I had been travelling just seventy-four hours, twenty-six minutes, and four and three-fifth seconds when my missile left our universe and entered another one known only to myself. Its name is Rutuf. I had made the journey very quickly because I had taken a short cut through the fourth dimension. I set my automatic radar-operated controls to land at my destination, the planet Hewhassay. I arrived without mishap and climbed down from my missile. I met a citizen who could converse with me, because the people of Hewhassay spoke a kind of Pidgin-English. The friendly Hewhassayan ' s name was Otis K. Zmpclbtx (pronounced Qsnrvpdk). He told me that all the people of Hewhassay had ignored my arrival there. He told me that the law of the planet forced the populace to ignore unusual things in the sky, especially flying saucers. He quoted the law which stated: Strange, uncommon, or unusual objects (particularly those which are saucer shaped) seen in the sky are to be ignored. They do not (under any circum- stances) exist. The said objects are merely optical illusions, hallucinations, or the results of mass hypnosis. The citizens of Hewhassay resembled the people of America except for their scrawny bodies, the result of doing no physical work. Push-button controlled robots and electronic brains relieved the people from burdensome physical and mental effort. Because their eyes were badly weakened from cinema- scopic five dimensional colored television, 98.6 per cent of the population wore thick spectacles resembling binoculars. Senator Shady Burns, dictator of the democratic Hewhassayan government, Otis told me, enforces laws which restrict, restrain, control, confine, and pro- hibit certain thoughts, opinions, and beliefs of the citizens. Senator Burns enforces these laws to preserve the glorious freedom and liberty which we Hewhassayans enjoy. Senator Burns also had a crusher machine which resembled the meat grinder used by American housewives, except that it was twelve and one-quarter times larger, and its jaws were kept churning by 18 —

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THE NOR ' WESTER JOURNEY TO RUTUF — Continued improved educational system were placed In mental hospitals. Otis and 1 laughed at some of the ridiculous policies which the radicals emphasized: the study of the fundamentals of learning, of thinking clearly, and of com- municating properly. This last foolish topic included instruction in how to read for comprehension and speed, and how to write and speak correctly and effectively. Such departures from the traditional methods of the educational system would only result in the growth of political groups opposed to good, sound government. Hewhassayans had sound ideas about the qualifications necessary to enter university. Athletic ability and family prestige were the necessary qualifica- tions, rather than intelligence. Students with outstanding athletic ability, rather than students with superior intelligence, received scholarships or finan- cial aid. Otis told me that in South Alababeeboo, a province in the planet Afersleep, and to a lesser extent in Dickzeedee, in the lower regions of Hewhassay, people having certain physical characteristics were denied many privileges. In these places, persons with red hair and persons weighing more than one hundred and seventy-eight pounds, were considered to be second-class cit izens. The first-class citizens discriminated against them, and prevented them by law from living near their betters, riding in the public vehicles, or entering buildings owned by first-class citizens. I suggested that such bigoted, narrow-minded and prejudiced people must be sacrilegious monsters and heathens, if they did not agree with God who put all human beings into his universe with the intention that they should all be treated as people of equal importance. Otis! firmly denied my suggestion. In the land of Dickzeedee, said Otis, a great spiritual leader named Ig- natious Hickblare leads the people in emotional spiritual riots. He rants and raves, and the audience becomes temporarily insane. Ignatious Hickblare acquired his great ability as a spiritual leader by taking courses in public relations, advertising and salesmanship. I agreed with Otis about the achievements of Mr. Hickblare, after Otis told me of the large sums of money wnich Hickblare re ceived for his tireless efforts in influencing the people towards his spiritual ideas. As much as I enjoyed Otis ' company, I began to perceive that the Hewhas- sayans were becoming somewhat hostile toward me. On asking Otis the cause of their hostility, he informed me that they resented my auburn hair and sanguine complexion. There were even rumours that the Hewhassayan Investigating Committee was going to place me on its scales because they began to suspect that my weight was more than one hundred and seventy- eight pounds. Otis advised me to end my visit for my own safety. With the help of Otis, I immediately prepared for my return to Earth. It took us twenty-three minutes to fill my missile with the proper provisions. Then at twenty minutes to two, in the afternoon of May 22, 1996, I said farewell to Otis and shot off into space. Because of the mistake I made when I set the automatic guiding controls, my missile went forty-three million light miles in the wrong direction. Fortunately I corrected my mistake, and except for this short delay, I arrived back to Earth. My joy and enthusiasm at returning home multiplied when I was informed that my wife had just given birth to our fifth child, a girl. BY Z. THEODORE HONEY, PH. D. 20 —