Day of the Ly'in Hos, the University of Texas at El Paso Story

Excerpt: From prologue
Copyright: 2005
Genre: Early 21st Century American University Magic Surrealism

"Just who were these two mysterious visitors from Chaucer's House of Fame? From one of the remoter regions of our galaxy? Or were they maybe employees of the rumor section described in The House of Fame's Book III, Line 2128, the employees having the job classification of currours, and eke messengers? Anyhow, whether they really were couriers or such like messengers, they sure seemed to fall right out of the sky, or out of UTEP's English 4308, Fall of 2003, that Christmas season night of nineteen sixty-six.

"And they had the wildest, craziest most blatantly sexist so-called message conceivable, as they hastened to explain what brought them down to us, perhaps having traveled by riding piggy back from the far reaches of Outer Space on that fabulous bird described in the original House of Fame, Book II, Lines 529 and 530 as This egle, of which I have you tolde, That shone with fethres as of gold.

"Then again, perhaps the gold covered up the fact that this eagle was a real-deal Soul-Talk'in Eagle, as he is quoted in Chaucer's original House of Fame as calling him Geffrey, at least in Book II, line 729.

"Now, those lucky us belonged to Second Lieutenant George Mallon's Ist Platoon, Fox Company, the Second Battalion, First Marine Regiment, aka The Professionals. We were young men celebrating as best we could under regulation green canvas on that cold and rain swept battalion ocmbatrear of the old Fleet Marine Force, Western Pacific Area Command (wes PAC for short), Southern Quang Nam Province, the Republic of Vietnam. A part of that same Marine expeditionary Force whose wartime casualties would eventually total 13,000 killed in action and 88,000 wounded in action out of a total of 550,000 Marines committed to combat over the duration of the war.

"Mellow holiday sounds such as those coming from Rifleman Dale "T-Bone" Richardson's portable turntable featuring Mr. Joe Tex's Coming Home from Viet Nam song, combined with the haunitng, dreamy, heavy-on-the-clarinet of the brand new Percy Faith - Spence Maxwell creation, Christmas Is, playing on Armed Forces radio, Da Nang, courtesy of Lance-Corporal Huedilla Cundiffe's transistor, helped provide a festive air, in spite of it being wartime.

"For all too many of us, it was our first Christmas away from home. And for yet another thirty or more of us within all three rifle platoons of Fox Company itself, including weapons attachements, our last Christmas on Planet Earth, period.

"Suddenly two strangers materialized among us. And took on the apparances of both Huedilla and T-Bone, leaving the real Huedilla and T-Bone to momentarily fade away right in front of our very eyes, leaving both young men wearing startled looks on their faces, as they feebly beckoned us for aid and assistance. But to no avail. Instead these two strangers took on their outward physical traits and even some of their mannerisms and began to speak.

"And while these mysterious visitors might have dressed differently in that famous Chaucerian House of Rumours back home on their own planet, with us they were wearing plain Marine green wienie utility trousers with plain green bush jackets and red Santa Clause stocking caps, stuck on at juanty angles. Poncho liners worn toga like around their shoulders gave them good, swiring props for heir frequest rhetorical flourishes.

"And, no!

"These guys did not begin with a lot of preliminary, garrulous, rambling to and fro,peculiar to the I was there with Willie and Joe genre, beloved by grumpy old men everywhere.

Huh!

"Such as yours truly has often been accused of doing.

Doing what?

"Rambling on. Habitually.

Oh, yeah! Now we see!

"These two currours, and (or) eke messengers weren't like that at all.

Uh, huh!

"Nope! There was none of that with these tough male beings, two or three millenium young, who now shared, as I've said, the most remarkable resemblance to our good and hard-partying friends, those legendary Marine Lance Corporals, Dale T-Bone Richardson, lately of St. Xavier's University of New Orleans, and Huedilla Cundiffe, a career white-collar civil service employee from Philadelphia, P.A.

You bet!

"And guess what? They set out their intergalactic mission statement in a heartbeat, with first one leading and then the other responding, until the rest of us caught on to the drill.

Alright, now. Let's rock!

TO BE CONTINUED!