"Snow Busts Budget for 99th Straight Year"---FICTION: Dateline Normal, Mn.

Well it has been pretty stressful---fighting the snow plus the ice and the hazardous snow conditions made worse maybe by the poor plowing in certain municipalities---it seems that these snow conditions---coming at the very time that the celebrated city leaders were heading to city hall to vote for millions in TIF funding for a large hotel enterprise----well the whole thing is being touted in the press as a complete budget buster...a budget surprise.....I just wondered...

I just picked up the phone and called my old friend Herman, the countryboylawyer from Normal, Mn., who just then was ice fishing up in Normal, Mn---I wondered how the northern tundra handled those snow expenses.

When I blurted it out---about how the mayor even admitted responsibility for the bad storm handling and all, Herman just laughed:

"Shucks Wolfman( thats what he always called me) don't ya just wonder how snow expenses could be such a surprise for the 99th straight year. What is the problem...maybe memory?

Up here in Normal, Mn., we place a tax on all liquor---and hold it in a separate trust fund---we have found that in crisis snow times, folks drink evenmore, and thus the fund has risen and fallen with the snow...it just works out. We don't call it a booze tax---it's called the snow tax---and everybody is for it...after all, if nobody can drive...that is bad for business....folks get it up here...and the worst thing is if folks cannot shop at Christmas..."

Thanks Herman.