'Murica's Agricultural Grain Association

2024-11-10 at 06:51 PM

Now, last time I told y'all that ol' Rob's nickname was "Redcap" and everyone's been yammering about why he was called that. I mean, it's just his nickname so there's no real importance to it.

What? You still want to know? Okay. They call him "Redcap" because his favorite hat is red. Is that good enough?

No? But there are so many more important things to know about him!

Alright! Alright! Ugh.

So, y'all know that it gets pretty chilly out here in western Penn... uh, 'Mercia, right?

Side note: Everyone - e.g. the governor, sergeant-at-arms, newspaper editor, sheriff, city council, etc. (a.k.a. Rob) - started dropping the "New" off "New Mercia" and replacing it with an apostrophe on account of because it's much easier to say and write. Also, Rob had trouble writing dubyas. Didn't know when to stop squiggling his pen, ya see?

Anyway, it was cold and he told his wife to make him a hat. He s'plained to her that he needed one because it would keep his head warm.

"Yes, dear," his wife, Lottie, replied placidly.

Now, Lottie was a good, solid person - salt of the earth, even - and had been raised to be a frontiersman's wife. Well, the best he could afford to lure away from the farmsteads near civilized places like Philadelphia.

Anyway, she knew her way around a needle and thread. Her problem was that Rob had spent the cloth budget on guns 'n ammo. That didn't faze her none, though. She was resourceful. She rummaged around in the scrap and rag bag and pulled out Rob's somewhat-worse-for-the-wear red long-john pants from a winter or two before.

She cut and pieced and sewed until she had nice warm hat for Rob. She even came this close to inventing the snap-back since the former fly was now on the back of the cap and would allow it to be sized correctly.

It wasn't until she was done, though, that she noticed the unfortunately-placed stains on what was now the front of the hat. Ever resourceful, Lottie got out her embroidery thread to do up a nice floral bouquet or something to cover the, uh, accidents.

It was at that moment that Rob perambulated in (he loved big words even if he didn't know what they meant) and started telling her about his latest project. He was going to build a medium-sized, mouse-proof barn to store the grain that he was harvesting. He had time to talk to her about it because he wasn't actually doing the harvesting. That's what a servant is for.

Anyway, he told her he was going to name it after himself and call it a Sylough.

"That's nice, dear," said Lottie, still picking out her colors.

"And I'm going to rent out space in my Sylough to other farmers in the area. I'll set up one of those newfangled corp-o-rations they got out east to protect myself from any problems if I do something bad. I'm going to call it 'Mercia Agricultural Grain Association. The other farmers have to pay me a small amount to store their grain here if they don't want to build their own Syloughs. And if they do want one, why I'll charge them to have one built!"

"That's nice, dear," Lottie repeated. Then she had a flash of inspiration! "What was the name of your new business again?"

"'Mercia Agricultural Grain Association. Why?"

"Just thinking thoughts," she said mildly. He wandered off to see over what his servant was doing. He considered himself an accomplished over-seer.

Lottie quickly realized that she didn't have enough of the darkest brown embroidery thread to spell the whole thing out. "Sh...oot," she murmured aloud barely avoiding the expletive. Then she got her second flash of inspiration! She bent to work embroidering the initials of the words on the front of the hat.

And that's how Lottie, wife of Rob, invented the acronym. It made her a bit salty, though, that she never got credit for that.

When Rob came in for dinner that evening, Lottie put the new hat on his head. He loved it! From that day forth he wore that hat everywhere. Lottie would have to sneak it off the bedpost when it got too ripe so she could give it a wash.

When people asked what the letters on his cunning new hat meant, he did his best to up-sell his new grain storage business. At one point he picked up a fancy looking chicken feather and stuck it in his cap. He quickly removed it when someone pointed and started singing that new colonial anthem! Word on the street was the war wasn't going that well and he wanted nothing to tie him to the macaroni-doodle-dandies (or whatever) that he met in Philadelphia. "I mean," he said, "I just fetched them some beer. That's all!"

He insisted that his nickname, henceforth, should be "Redcap".

And there you have it. Can we move on now?