Aboard My Train Of Thought by Scott C. Endsley (best book club books for discussion .TXT) 📕

makeshift antenna where either end would rap around the branches, in between two trees. I anxiously got back in the car and pushed the power button on the radio, tested its resonence by making a quick transmission on the AM mode, and was elated by a low voltage standing wave ratio of a meager 1.5 to 1.

Listening closely, but not hearing more than just interference from A.M. short-wave broadcasting stations, I tuned around until I heard the beautiful sound of atmospheric heterodyne, i.e. a clear frequency. (Congratulations, you've just learned enough to get your own Ham Radio license!)
I decided to give out a call. "This is station KA5HVO... Kilo Alpha Five Hotel Victor Ocean. Can anybody copy?".............Nothing. "CQ CQ CQ... this is KA5HVO...Kilo Alpha Five Hotel Victor Ocean... Does anyone copy, over?"

A few seconds of static was all I heard, then the unmistakable sound of a station transmitting a carrier, and tuning up the tube finals of a transmitter, delighted my ears. I waited till they responded to my call.

"Clyde, is that you?"

"Yes it's me! Who are you?" I acknowledged, not realizing why the voice sounded so familiar.
"It's me... Ah.... you! I'm you! It's me.... Clyde!... I'm at your home station! I'm... Oh... I've got to go, someone's at the front door! I'm clear!" The voice ceased.

"What's going on? How could I be at two places at once,... who is this? over..." No response. "Don't go... What's going on ?! I've got to know..."

After fumbling in and out of frequencies for about five minutes, I had decided it was a prankster who did nothing more than look up my callsign in the FCC database on the internet.... which was available to anyone nosy enough to look.

Maggie and I were later joyously chomping down some grub, then suddenly, we heard a rapid rapping on the driver side window, and looked over in time to witness a large, well-built, 50ish looking African American fellow. He was waving an item I couldn't make out in the dark, but after a near at hand examination... as he waved a flashlight wildly, the light caught its metallic surface, introducing itself as a gun. "Get outta the car!..." he ordered. "You gotta chip on your shoulder!?"

"Oh yeah, I got a chip, man," I obeyed and hoped he wouldn't search to find out I didn't.

"Just gimme the keys. I'm afraid this car belongs to me, sucker, you're gonna stay here. I want nothin' to do with no one spineless enough to wear a chip... Now, I'm sorry, man, I'm gonna have to tie you to that tree over there...
.
"Oh, you're part of the underground! Whew!" I continued, "I don't have a chip either, brother, maybe we..."

He quickly backed away from my hand extended to shake his, "Don't brotha' me.... Lift your sleeve."

He reached inside of my coat and up around my lower neck, where I was terribly ticklish... which only infuriated him all the more, "Quit giggling like a bumbling school-chick!..... Hey, you don't have a chip, why didn't you tell me that right away? Glad to meet you, man, I'm Raphael..."
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(Episode 11)
I began filling him in about the whole scenario--Homer being a lovable imaginary character gone awry-- until the wee hours of daybreak. Ralph, as I began calling him, and I were just opening up. I was finding him quite opinionated, and we disagreed a lot. Most certainly about politics.

He was behind the wheel as I was fighting sleep. "You conservatives got us in this mess, man." he asserted.

"How do ya figure?" I poo-pooed his assertion..

"Well you Republicans are so doggone reactionary! Every time a Democrat, like Plimpton, gets elected, you guys cause the whole country to go crazy! It's no wonder, because of disunity, that it's easy for someone like Homer to seize power. Not only that, you all want to starve kids. You all want the rich to get richer off the backs of poor people."

"I disagree, your man Plimpton destablized and weakened the armed forces, that's how Homer got to where he is. And I think that people don't have much incentive anymore. There isn't much room for rugged individualism nowadays, with all the govermental control on free enterprise. No one wants to strive on their own, it's all just Gimme Gimme Gimme." I argued.

"Yeah?" Ralph maintained, "How 'bout the underprivileged children, the disabled, and unwed mothers trying to raise 13 kids all by herself, in this rugged individual stuff? How is all that right-wing malarkey going to assist those with a preexisting inclination toward drug abuse, in getting the help they need? Man, kids today are so desperate for escape, that some have even found a way to get a hallucinogenic high, by licking frogs... and that's no joke... I read it!"

"Hmmm, I guess that explains how the frog turned into the prince..."

"I think you lads have forgotten that there isn't any right or left anymore!" Maggie interrupted.

"Who is that?!" Ralph looked in the rear view mirror, not believing he'd just witnessed a talking dog.

"Oh that's Maggie..."

"Maggie, Huh?" Ralph uttered, almost rolling off the road.

"Ralph, me lad, as I see it, that's what makes America great.. All of us, though we disagree sometimes, contribute in the common good. Inspite of our differing views, we all play an intricate part in the sum-total of the whole society," Maggie proudly affirmed.

Ralph slammed on the brakes. "This is too crazy fo' me, man! I don't know if I can handle all this...Where you cats goin' anyway?"

"Cats?!!!" Maggie barked.

"We're going to see Flush Limbo, man!" I announced.

"Great! A Republican, an escapee from a book, a talking dog, and now Flush Limbo?! It sure ain't my day, but what the heck?" Ralph restarted up the car, wondering if this was all a nightmare; while Maggie lectured both of us on the undeniable virtues of democracy and inalienable rights for all mankind. And, most emphatically because of her progressive idealism, their moral obligation to bestow such civil liberties unto dogs, as well.
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(Episode 12)
Somewhere in a forlorn area of Virginia, we strung up the wire antenna, and I tuned around the same vicinity of kilocycles as the night before. Ralph was kinda fascinated by the ability to get a signal out to anywhere in the world. The conditions surpassed the prior evening's propagation. I turned the VFO knob and found a few fairly clear frequencies.

"CQ CQ CQ, this is KA5HVO, Kilo Alpha Five Hotel Victor Ocean. Does anyone copy?"

We suddenly heard what sounded like someone fumbling with a microphone. "Yes, Clyde, it's me again... or uh you.... do you copy? Over!"

"Yeah I hear ya, you havin' fun playin' with daddy's radio?... I don't know who you are, but I'm in no mood to mess around."

Just as I reached for the VFO knob, he panicky-like tried to assure me of his authenticity, "No, wait, Clyde, I'm extremely serious! I know it's hard to believe, so I'll let you talk to someone who's here with me..." I just shook my head in disgust that someone who took the time to study to get his license, would be foolish enough to risk getting a citation from the FCC, should they be listening. But I surrendered my suspicions when someone, whom I knew quite well, took control of the transmission.

"Dawn Comes with Rosy Fingers!.... Hey Clyde, I guess you thought I'd never find you. Well, you were right, I didn't. Instead, I returned to the City of the Intellectual Inept, aboard My Train of Thought, and guess what? I found your Fictional Likeness. You know, the one the One-Eyed Midget created when he sent you back to the Fiction Forest? Well, I brought him here with me. Now, I know the rules, nobody can enter into a physical reality without dying a fictitional death, so I had to kill him!.......

Homer continued, "So I guess you're wondering how I did it... I simply bought him breakfast at Big Buford's Buffalo Barf Bucket Burger Bistro. I suggested he try one of 14 different courses of Great Eggspectations, but he insisted on the Fried Pork Pickled Potato Peels, instead. Ten minutes later he departed. I don't know about you, but I'd tend to stay away from that place, in view of all the folks who've conked out there....... Well, I guess I'll turn it back to you now, I'm really anxious to hear your reaction..... over?"

"Homer! what is it you want... and what else are you going to do!?" I demanded with a pleading voice..

"Well, myself and your Fictional Likeness, whom I've fondly nicknamed Claude, are going to shake this country from its foundation. Your Likeness will be sort a vice president, but I'm also going to give him the keys to Europe, with my supervision, naturally. No one will ever know that Claude and yourself are two different people... All the future history books will blame you as my accessory in the demise of this nation.... Sounds fun, huh?.. over, Clyde."

I begged to know, "Why are you doing this? You were such a nice old man. What changed you?"

"Well, Mr Author, it's like this... being stuck in your ridiculous story became quite boring. Strange did me a great favor fictitiously killing me and all... I just want to get all the gusto I can, that's all Clyde. Well, we've got to go now.. We've... Er Um... you and I have a world to ruin... Over and out...." Homer laughed.

"Homer! Wait a minute.... Homer!"

"It's no use man.... We've been beat," Ralph sighed.

"I'm not giving up yet, I'm gonna go see Flush, with or without you," I vowed
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(Episode 13)
The following forenoon, Ralph slept while we drove across the unfamiliar New York terrain. Maggie hung her tongue out of the window, lapping up the last bit of country air we'd breathe again for a good while, as we traveled a backwoods route. We'd been alerted at a rest-stop, by a sympathetic highway patrolman, that the UTC were blockading major highways and questioning passerbys. We stayed mostly unseen, until approximately an hour and a half up the interstate, when we arrived at the worm-infested Big Apple, as Ralph woke up. "Say man, this is bigger than I thought!"

Neither of us ever having been in New York City before, resorted to ask