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arm.”
    D. William Aitchbone, then just one year out of law school, had an idea. “We need a Japanese auto plant.”
    Dick Mueller, serving his first stint as post commander of the VFW, rejected that idea immediately. “No we don’t.”
    D. William Aitchbone persisted. “They’re building plants all over the United States now. Why shouldn’t we get one? Think of the jobs!”
    That brought Dick Mueller straight out of his chair. “Think of Artie Brown, young man! He left his right foot on Guadalcanal.”
    That ended any further discussion of luring a Japanese auto plant to Tuttwyler.
    â€œThere’s no way any new plant is coming here anyway,” Donald Grinspoon said, “not without the I-491 leg. And we’ll all be long in the grave before that gets built.”
    â€œMaybe we could get a junior college,” Katherine Hardihood suggested.
    â€œOr a prison,” Sheriff Norman F. Cole said.
    â€œOr a landfill,” D. William Aitchbone said.
    â€œOr a nuclear power plant,” Delores Poltruski said.
    â€œI like Katherine’s junior college idea,” said Phyllis Bastinado, principal at G.A. Hemphill Elementary. Phyllis Bastinado was a huge woman, the approximate weight and shape of a fully inflated farm tractor tire.
    That’s when Donald Grinspoon demonstrated just why he never lost an election. “Those are all fine ideas. Even the Japanese auto plant is a fine idea, Bill, if you eliminate the Japanese part. But all of those things would take years. We need something now. Something that puts us back on the map right away. Tuttwyler’s drying up like a prune.”
    â€œAre you sure we can’t get the snack cake line back?” asked Dick Mueller. “Your wife’s a Tuttwyler.”
    Donald Grinspoon’s eyes filled with tears. “The Tuttwyler’s haven’t had a say in the company since the Fifties. If they had, it wouldn’t have moved to Tennessee in the first place.”
    Dick Mueller understood the tears in the mayor’s eyes. His wife was in bad shape, too. “What do hillbillies know about making snack cakes?”
    Everyone nodded. The company’s baked goods never tasted the same since the move, especially their famous chocolate cupcakes, with their script frosting T and whipped cream surprise inside.
    â€œI think we should have a festival,” Donald Grinspoon finally said, revealing the real reason for the meeting. “An annual festival that brings in folks from all over the state. From other states, too. A grand festival that will put us back on the map. Something that will make Tuttwyler so damn famous people will visit all year long. Tourism, ladies and gentlemen. That’s our ticket to prosperity.”
    Everyone agreed that an annual festival was grand idea. Everyone but Katherine Hardihood. “What are we going to be festive about?” she asked.
    Everyone waited to hear the mayor’s answer, certain he already knew what the festival should be about. Why would he have called the meeting otherwise? But Donald Grinspoon did not know what the festival should be about. “I’m not sure,” he confessed. “Tuttwyler isn’t really famous for anything. All we ever did around here was make snack cakes.”
    â€œWhat about Artie Brown?” said Dick Mueller, patriotically shaking his fist in the air. “Artie Brown Days! That would pull them in.”
    Only D. William Aitchbone had the nerve to challenge Dick Mueller’s blind love of country. “Nobody outside Tuttwyler gives a damn that Artie Brown hobbled on one foot for six miles.”
    Dick Mueller’s fist was now shaking squarely in D. William Aitchbone’s face. “He saved an entire company of Seabees from the goddamn Nips.”
    â€œThere goes our Japanese auto plant,” Katherine Hardihood couldn’t resist whispering to Delores Poltruski.
    â€œArtie Brown Days was