Monkey Business in India

Lots of stuff in the news and not all of it gets covered for Allenites. But luckily you have the Advocate and its stable of crack reporters to get you back up to date. It’s bow season now and if the deer are able to survive it, regular deer season is near. But in some parts of the world there are different problems. Monkeys have moved into some urban areas of India. In a place called Tikri some criminal types threw bricks at people and one man in his 70s was killed. Others have been injured by the aggressive visitors. Citizens of Tikri have demanded the police put an end to the monkey invaders who often attack, bite and otherwise bother locals. Police say they are unable to prosecute the monkeys who are in fact, protected by law.

The monkey invaders normally live in a nearby forest but have taken a liking to living in town. Sort of reminds me of Non, a small town east of Gerty. One time, several years ago, a Non resident decided to raise a peacock or two and was pretty successful at it. About 30 years ago my wife, Pat and I attended a revival down there and during the services that warm summer night we could hear these large numbers of this “new” bird squawking and carrying on. Church services continued on and afterwards I was told these ungodly squeals and screams were the peacock’s mating calls. By now the birds were living all over Non and most of the residents were sick and tired of them.

I’m told that many people wondered how to handle this but every solution that was proposed was unacceptable to the good-hearted people down there. Since I didn’t live there I didn’t let it bother me but I was fascinated by these birds. I asked someone about the problem some years later and was informed that the problem had vanished. Seems like some undercover people had taken the law into their own hands. It was just that one morning the people of Non awoke and there were no more peacocks. No more noise. No midnight mating call. Not even any dead bodies. They had all disappeared. Gone. The Peacock management committee had removed the “problems” without a Meanwhile up in Detroit, a pair of funeral homes ran onto an old practice that used to be fairly common. They sold burial policies to people. But believe it or not, when they got the chance they just pocketed the money. To further enhance their profi ts they ran upon another scheme. They didn’t bury all their dead bodies. But you know how people are. Someone told on them. Eleven small bodies were found hidden in between the first and second fl oors under a staircase. Some were in coffins, others in boxes or just wrapped up. All were premature babies (the paper called them fetus’s) whom the funeral home was paid to bury, but didn’t. Like the burial policies, it was easy money.

Since then, another funeral home near Wayne University was caught with over 100 unburied bodies. And they sold lots of burial insurance policies. Some elderly couples bought policies to insure they received a nice burial in an expensive casket. By the time the death(s) came to pass, if there was no one to verify it, the funeral home would ignore the policy and get the County to cough up enough for a cheap county burial. There were several schemes resulting in the funeral home either