Christmastime 2024

Dear Mischievous Merrymakers,

This has been another banner year in the history of the thriving necropolis of Bedrock. It seems that there is no end to the fast-paced excitement our little burg can offer on a daily basis. Aside from the ecstatic thrill of watching the vultures hatch on the roof of city hall this past spring, the biggest event of the year was probably the rupture of a major water main beneath the town’s principal thoroughfare in early summer. The break required a large section of the road to be closed, and it took no fewer than 95 days to repair. Of course, that gave Mrs. Simms an extended opportunity to set up her famous “lemonade” stand for the growing throng of curious onlookers, but it was nonetheless disconcerting for the community at large because of all the detours. Deputy Waxman had to file for extended overtime both for the need to direct traffic and also to maintain order after dehydrated locals consumed far too much of Mrs. Simms’ suspiciously potent beverage.

The road repair took much longer than had been anticipated because the workers kept uncovering body parts beneath the tarmac. Needless to say this development led to a great deal of consternation, as well as some wild speculation as to whom these parts belonged and when they might have been put there. Bedrock residents being the entrepreneurial type they are, they quickly used the mystery to establish a lottery based on who could correctly guess the answers to these questions. A number of novel hypotheses was put forward, among them that they were remains of victims of the Squash Bottoms gang wars of the 1840s; that they were leftovers from the long-defunct Lawrence County School of Medical Anatomy and Blacksmithing; that they were ancient remains of Knights Templar who had wandered too far from Oak Island in search of buried treasure — or countless other scenarios that did not always limit themselves to terrestrial explanation. It turned out that old Harold Simms’ wife Geraldine was the only one to give the correct answer — that they were parts that had washed down from the local cemetery during the great sewer flush of 1886. Mrs. Simms combined her lottery winnings with her earnings from the lemonade stand and bought her husband Harold a vintage 1951 Studebaker to replace the one he lost in the Walmart standoff of ’06. Although Harold was a tad miffed because the car’s previous owner had modified its famous bullet nose grille, he was the happiest anyone had seen the old coot since VJ Day. He was so overjoyed he actually allowed someone to take his photo as he beamed with delight next to his new pride and joy.

Of course, many locals already had been anticipating some kind of catastrophe like our water-main break and morbid discoveries because the solar eclipse earlier in the year had portended such disaster for our community. Fortunately most locals were informed enough to know that the eclipse was coming and were not overly troubled by the event, but a few were observed hurriedly rushing into their backyards as darkness descended and were preparing to offer animal sacrifices in an effort to appease the angry sun-god. The eclipse thankfully ended before any animals were immolated, but neighborhood cats did seem to remain inordinately skittish for several weeks afterward.

As for the Cratons themselves, they too have had something of a memorable year (if such can be had in Bedrock … although come to think of it, most of the memories described were not within the province of our municipality). Eldest son Ben, who lives with wife Nyssa in Lafayette, received his CISSP certification in February, and while that means most of our readers will now turn to Google to find out what that is, suffice to say that it is indeed a respectable achievement that places him in rather prestigious company within his profession.

Middle son Jonathan and wife Annie continue to enjoy life on the Left Coast near Seattle, and youngest son Stephen and wife Elisabeth venture forward in Middle Tennessee where they bought a new house in Spring Hill this past July. They all are continuing to advance in their respective careers, Jon in retail management, Annie in writing and editing, Stephen as a software engineer, and Elisabeth as a professional artist (check out her website at marschstudios.com).

The old folks just continue puttering along and getting older. Both Debbie and John had second books released this year (though in quite different genres), and they each are continuing to work on other books set for release in 2025. Evidently Debbie put too much of herself into her writing and ended up having hand surgery this past July, but she has recovered sufficiently now that old John takes more seriously her threats to strangle him in his sleep someday. John had a ballet performed in Jasper in September but otherwise hasn’t done a lot with music this year, focusing more on the written word. The downturn in musical productivity seems to greatly please the critics.

In October a new member was welcomed to the family as Smokey Cat ventured to the Cratons’ back door. A small kitten of unknown provenance, he literally adopted them rather than they him, but his presence means that the old folks are now officially running a cat house in Bedford. Old John says it’s almost like having three quarreling little boys in the house again, but at least the boys never climbed the window blinds … that he knew of.

John Douglas & Debbie Craton, plus cats

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