LOCAL MAN SLEEPS FOR TWENTY YEARS!

Local townsman, known as Rip Van Winkle, returns from the Kaatskill Mountains after 20 years of sleeping! Coming back at the age of 78, he wears shreds of clothes, quite out of state and style, his hair reaches the length of his knees! Old schoolmaster of the town, now in congress says, “I always wondered where that good for nothing, lazy chap had gone! He used to do nothing but lean against the trees over yonder. His slothful, lethargic dog returned a couple days after he disappeared but no one knew where Rip went!” Judith Gardenier, Van Winkle’s daughter says enthusiastically, “Ah, poor man! One day he was sitting in his ole’ rockin chair and the next he left to the mountains with his dog and gun. Some thought he shot himself, others were convinced he had been carried away by them Indians!” Now that Rip Van Winkle has returned, he tells us he has no memory of a war! He announced himself as a “poor, quiet man, a native of the place, and a loyal subject of the king!” when he entered the countryside.