THE RISE AND FALL ... AND RISE AND FALL ... OF THE REV. ALVIN BISONNETTE

November 26, 2009, Vol. 1, No. 4

TABLE OF CONTENTS
(in scroll-down order)

THE BEARS OF WALDEN PUDDLE
by Dr. Ursula Whipple
A new bear named Alonzo shows up outside Dr. Whipple's cabin, looking for lunch. Alonzo has no idea what he's gotten himself into.

THE RISE AND FALL
OF THE REV. ALVIN BISSONNETTE
by the Walden Puddle Writers Uncooperative
Spanning 15 years and crossing state lines at least four times: The epic journey ... through life itself ... of Walden Puddle's fire-and-brimstone preacher man. Down and out at only 24, he lifts himself up from being nothing ... to being slightly more than nothing. And he's not done yet.

THE TALK OF WALDEN PUDDLE
Reportage from the Agreeable Doughnut Cafe
The Rev. Alvin Bisonnette puts some murky rumors to rest ... and we chew the low-fat with Ms. Priscilla Whipple ... mother of Dr. Ursula Whipple ... who speaks candidly about the pain of a lifelong, unrequited crush.


THE BEARS OF
WALDEN PUDDLE
Notes from the Field, Plus Expert Advice

by Dr. Ursula Whipple

Field Notes: November 12, 2009. I saw a young male out back today, foraging for pizza crusts. He is new around here. I named him Alonzo on a whim. I name all my bears on a whim. It saves time.

Alonzo is about ten months old, probably just separated from his mother. Like most mammals with any sense, bears chase away their young, rather than inventing flimsy excuses for not renting out their rooms to graduate students. This often comes back to haunt people ... in the form of 40-year-old offspring bouncing of a divorce and knowing they can still get free room and board back where it all began.

To welcome new bears like Alonzo, I shoot them with a tranquilizer dart. Once they go down and don't move for a while, I give them a big hug and some European air kisses.

I measure their dimensions and body fat, and all those things you see on the Science Channel, which I watch avidly to stay up-to-date. Unlike my colleagues on the Science Channel, I do not pull blood samples. I hate the sight of blood, plus my grant money ran out five years ago. There is no point sending bear blood to the laboratory if my check is going to bounce.

Because bears weigh upwards of 600 pounds, you need a whole lot of tranquilizer to mellow them. That one itty-bitty little yellow Valium you take before you go into a sales meeting will not make a dent with a bear. For Alonzo, I poured 10 cc of bear tranquilizer into a dart. I loaded the dart into my air rifle, and then I started thinking.

"Ursula," I said to myself. "Alonzo is young. You'll have many other chances to welcome him." I myself was feeling down. I had received another rejection letter for a grant application that morning. Alonzo seemed happy enough out back, foraging for pizza crusts. So I squirted half the bear tranquilizer back in the bottle, left about 5 cc in the syringe ... and I stabbed myself in the ass with it.

A minute later, I was stacked up over O'Hare. Alonzo was edging closer to my trash cans, now looking for Whopper fragments and onion rings. He overturned a couple of trash cans, and the noise he was making really bummed my high.

I got so pissed off at him that I went out and smacked him in the nose with a tennis shoe. Alonzo looked at me very startled-like, and he walked back into the woods.

I am sure we can rebuild our relationship. Alonzo is young. And I am only 29 or so ... give or take. But I feel badly. It was unprofessional of me to welcome Alonzo to his new home by smacking him in the nose with a tennis shoe.

Dr. Ursula Whipple is a freelance animal behaviorist and contributing editor of Walden Puddle. Since 1990, she had lived in an abandoned cabin near town, studying the local bear population and being studied by them in turn. Often referred to, by herself and her mother, as the "Jane Goodall of the NorthWoods," she has written dozens of articles and poems about bears. She shares her fields notes with us twice monthly, because no scholarly journal will publish them.


THE RISE AND FALL ... AND
RISE AND FALL ... OF
THE REV. ALVIN BISONNETTE
(from The Walden Puddle Chronicles)
1079 words

by the Walden Puddle Writers Uncooperative

Alvin Bisonnette's rise from the ashes began on July 28, 1981, his twenty-fourth birthday. That afternoon, he had been fired from his job as a copy editor at a photo magazine.

Now, Alvin was having difficulty breathing. He felt as if his nose was pressed against a coffin. Liquid rose and receded in his nostrils like wavelets on a beach. It smelled grainy. Perhaps it was beer, he thought, and he was right. An object was stuck in his nose. Perhaps it was his thumb, he thought. He was wrong.

Alvin looked up and saw a priest. "Last rites," he mumbled. "Good."

The priest was a bartender wearing a black turtleneck. "Sir," he told Alvin, "I have to cut you off." Alvin realized where he was.

"Go ahead. Cut me off," said Alvin. "Everybody else has. I can't even hold down a job as a copy editor ... at a photo magazine. We only print captions. And I can't even edit those. I'm worthless."

"You're not worthless, sir," said the bartender, thinking of the fifty dollars Alvin had put in his till.

"Up yours, Father," said Alvin.

Moments later, he was lying on the pavement outside a bar called the Greenman in New York City, having been tossed there, like laundry, by the bartender and three unsympathetic patrons. Alvin shook his head to clear it. As he did, the object he'd mistaken for his thumb fell out of his nose.

It was a matchbook cover advertising the Cleveland Institute of Luck Reversal, a correspondence school offering courses in 137 different fields, including dog grooming, concert cello, and pastoral theology.

The streetlight under which Alvin had landed wasn't working. At that moment, thanks to a rat scurrying under the roadbed and concluding its life by patching a faulty circuit, the streetlight came on. Alvin was bathed in light.

Just then, a car passed, its radio tuned loudly to a classical music station, WQXR-FM, which was playing Handel's "Hallelujah" chorus.

"Hallelujah!" echoed Alvin. "I have seen the light!" That would be the streetlight. "I have heard the singing of angels!" That would be WQXR-FM. "I shall serve the Lord!"

Six weeks later, Alvin was an ordained minister, according to the certificate mailed to him by the Cleveland Institute of Luck Reversal. Six weeks after that, he was pastor of the Walden Puddle Church of the Definitely Saved.

His congregation had no building. They used a tent. Or rather, they pretended to. Their budget didn't allow for a canvas covering, so they purchased only tent poles. The little flock worshiped al fresco, often exposed to rain, cold, snow, sleet, or all four.

One Sunday, Rev. Bisonnette spoke joyously. "Say Hallelujah!" he proclaimed. "A tent is ours!" He had ordered one.


The tent had once belonged to the Luftwaffe. Rev. Bisonnette had acquired it through complicated channels. The Luftwaffe's insignia, the Iron Cross, appeared on the tent in many places. "That Old Iron Cross," Rev. Bisonnette would say fondly. "You know? It just works for us. That steady Old Iron Cross."

Now, protected from the elements, his congregation came down with bronchitis less often. They were able to work longer hours, and to tithe more. They bought a building, then another. By 1996, they owned the biggest church in Walden Puddle.

"We have prospered by the will of the Lord," Rev. Bisonnette preached one Sunday. "But I say unto you, brothers and sisters, we have become lazy workers in His" -- he pointed in the general direction of the constellation Ursa Minor -- "in His vineyard. Let us don the armor of righteousness and do battle with the Devil."

The devil they chose to battle first was the Jersey Devil, who lived, according to legend, in the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey. A demonic being, the Jersey Devil was, the spawn of Beelzebub himself.

Rev. Bisonnette's plan was to exorcise the Jersey Devil from those piney woods, making them safer for canoeists and fishermen. Since New Jersey has the highest per capita income in the nation, it seemed to Rev. Bisonnette like a good place to make a good impression.

At dawn on December 9, 2006, the congregation piled into four chartered buses. Owing to bad road directions, they arrived in the New Jersey Pine Barrens at three in the morning. It gets very dark in the Pine Barrens at that hour, and the lead driver became disoriented.

The caravan wandered biblically through the Pine Barrens, going in circles, along dirt tracks and county backroads, for the next three hours. "The Jersey Devil really had it in for us that night," Rev. Bisonnette would say later. Eventually, the buses shot straight through the Barrens, coming out the other end.

As they did, bright lights appeared on the eastern horizon. "Say Hallelujah!" proclaimed Rev. Bisonnette. "Civilization! Christian fellowship! Taco Bell!"

They drove into Atlantic City at dawn.

"Free Macaroni Salad Buffet!" announced Rev. Bisonnette to his hungry flock, reading a display sign on one casino. "The Lord has provided. Let us go thither and partake of the feast."

They entered the casino singing.

The next day, four chartered buses returned to Walden Puddle, but the Rev. Alvin Bisonnette was not on any of them. He came back to Walden Puddle nine days later, having hitchhiked from Atlantic City barefoot and wearing a trench coat. Underneath the trench coat, he was naked, having pawned his clerical collar, outer garments, undergarments, shoes and socks for five dollars, which he used to purchase one final chip.

To cover his shame, he had stolen the trench coat from the casino cloak room.

"This one is magic, baby," he said, kissing the chip, then rubbing it against his groin for good luck. "C'mon, baby. Come to Papa. C'mon sweet money. Come on home to Papa. Papa needs a new pair of shoes." He paused. "And underwear. And pants. And socks. And everything."

He bet on red.

"Cometh thou now to Papa, baby. Cometh thou now to Papa. C'mon red. C'mon red...."

The roulette ball settled on black.

"Lord," said Rev. Bisonnette. "I need a winner. Gimme a winner, Lord. I'm hurtin' here, baby. Lord? Are you there? Can you hear me? You are in charge, Lord! Why are you doing this to me, baby?"

He searched the pockets of his trench coat. They were empty. He searched his own pockets.

At the moment, he had no pockets.

"I needeth a winner, Lord! C'mon, baby. Help me out here!"

He heard only silence.

"I haveth no money. Help me out, Lord!"

He heard only silence again.

"You now what? You just don't like me," said Rev. Alvin Bisonnete. And he started hitchhiking north.


THE TALK OF
WALDEN PUDDLE
The Rev. Alvin Bisonnete will lead his monthly bus excursion to Atlantic City on Thursday, December 3. Tickets are $20. The bus will leave from the Church of the Definitely Saved at 5:30 a.m. and return late on Saturday, in time for Evening Worship.

"As always, we shall kneel and pray on the Boardwalk," Rev. Bisonnette told us over coffee at the Agreeable Doughnut. "We shall pray for the damnation of the casino owners, the dealers, the girls who serve drinks in togas, and all others connected with the degraded business of gambling."

Regulars on Rev. Bisonnette's bus excursions report that he disappears as soon as the bus arrives in Atlantic City, and is only seen again 36 hours later, when the bus is ready to return to Walden Puddle.

"That?" said Rev. Bisonnette. "I don't brag about it, but I go off on my own to do missionary work. On Baltic and Mediterranean. Rough neighborhoods. Gathering in the sheaves for the Lord."

We asked why, reportedly, he often returns to the bus clad only in an overcoat or, on one occasion, wrapped in the sports section of the Atlantic City Press.

"I give everything to the poor," he said. "Everything."

Our conversation turned to sports. "Every year," Rev. Bisonnette told us, "we have a little football pool in the Men's Club at Definitely Saved. We only play for matchsticks, of course. But if I were betting man, I would lay the points with the Vikings this Sunday. If I were a betting man."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A surprise birthday party will be held on December 7 for Ms. Priscilla Whipple, mother of Dr. Ursula Whipple, the locally famous bear biologist.

Ms. Whipple the Elder was born on December 7, 1941, a day of big surprises for everyone.

We know surprise parties are not supposed to be announced in advance. Our fact-checking department has verified that.

However, Ms. Whipple does not own a computer, and she has refused to read a newspaper or other periodical since Wednesday, November 7, 1956, the day after Adlai Stevenson was trounced by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the second presidential election pitting those two likable men.

"I was a high school freshman," Ms. Whipple told us. "Most of the girls had Elvis posters. The gaunt, depressive types had James Dean. But I had a crush on Adlai. The Eisenhower slogan was 'I Like Ike.' Hell, I didn't like Ike. I hated him. I keep an Adlai scrapbook to this day. That man still gets me hot."

We talked about her locally famous daughter.

"I named Ursula after ursus, which is Latin for bear," she said. "I figured, what the hell, I was still bearing her two weeks past term, and I didn't want her to forget it."

We assumed that labor had to be induced.

"I believe it was induced," said Ms. Whipple. "We were up at Woodstock. I wouldn't have missed it for anything. I went into labor during that famous two-hour set by Jimi Hendrix. We were right next to a huge overdrive amp. I think the vibrations and the feedback from the amp did it."

What a joy it must have been.

"Joy, my ass. Giving birth bummed my whole Jimi Hendrix experience. That little brat weighed twelve pounds. Twelve pounds. You try it. Anyhow, that's why ursus, and Ursula, and so on."

We were impressed that Latin had once been taught at Walden Puddle High School.

"Hell, no," said Ms. Whipple. "We could barely speak English. I spent a year at Fordham ... before Vatican II. It's a Jesuit school. We had our freshman orientation in Latin."

What a delightful lady. Please join us in back of Dr. Ursula Whipple's cabin at noon on December 7. Try not to make noise, and be careful not to trample the wild Cannabis that grows there spontaneously, and about which Dr. Whipple can do nothing.

As always, there will be bears in the area. Park as close to the cabin as you can.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

On Saturday, November 14, in the 106th renewal of their bitter rivalry, the Migratory Elk of Copious Falls High School defeated the Walden Puddle Purple Finches 79-0.

"I saw our boys do some good things out there," Coach Bill Router told us in an exclusive postgame interview outside a Port-0-San. "We did cross the 50-yard line four times...."

We didn't recall seeing that.

" ... coming onto the field. Going off the field at halftime. Coming back on to start the second half. Then leaving the field at the end of the game. That's four times. In my book."

Would he consider that a moral victory?

"Absolutely," he said. "I even saw some of the boys lingering after the game, crossing the 50-yard line at will. That had to build morale, getting to know what it feels like. I think it should carry over to next season."

An attempt by persons unknown to smuggle Mrs. Agnes Stuart's wild-mushroom cobbler into the Copious Falls Victory Banquet was thwarted by Copious Falls police.

So was an attempt to urinate in the coveted Old Galvanized Bucket, which the winning school takes home to keep in its trophy case until the following November.

The Old Galvanized Bucket has never left the Copious Falls trophy case. The series record now stands at 106-0 ... until next year.


NEXT POST: December 9, 2009

FEATURING: "Lost in Translation," in which a dazzling feat of literary brilliance ... the translation of the Greatest Novel Ever Written into the world's most difficult language ... is accomplished by Mme. Ludmilla Borisenko, an eighth-generation Walden Puddler. "A work of genius!" says her friend Ms. Priscilla Whipple. "Not just for our time, but for the ages!"

THE BEAR FACTS: Young Alonzo takes his chances and returns to Dr. Ursula Whipple's cabin. She feels badly about smacking him in the nose with a tennis shoe last time, so she outfits him with his own radio collar. Her idea of a radio collar.

BONUS ITEM: At the Agreeable Doughnut, we sip chai with Mme. Ludmilla Borisenko, whose distant ancestor, Count Pavel, fled Russia for Walden Puddle in 1825, after a serious misunderstanding with Tsar Alexander I. Although she speaks only English, Mme. Borisenko speaks it with a Russian accent. She asked us pointedly, "I see no blinchiki on this menu. To which manner of place did you brought me?"

All printed matter in Walden Puddle copyright © 2009 by Walden Puddle Gift Shop. All photos reproduced with permission. Original artwork courtesy of Aytsan.