Great Scott by Cole Parker

[Rutabaga]

An uplifting short story that is classic Cole.

Don't miss it!

R

[Nigel Gordon]

Another Cole classic and, I can say this as one who has been both an amateur and professional magician, a very insightful piece. This is a story well worth reading.

You can find it here: http://awesomedude.com/cole-parker/great-scott/great-scott.htm

[Paul Wren]

I read this with some disbelief, it was so close, so very close, to the actual events in a friend's life that I thought Cole was writing non-fiction until I realised that (a) Cole could not know of those events and (b) it was set in the wrong decade in the wrong country. This is a great and very insightful story, one well reading.

[Cole Parker]

Thanks, guys. I always try for verisimilitude. I think it helps readers identify with the characters and situations. And, as Paul suggested, it was entirely out of my head.

Well, I almost always try to make them believable. In a couple of stories I strayed from that concept, but they were meant to be humorous.

I have nothing else coming soon. I'm giving everyone a break.

Is that a collective sigh I hear? Of appreciation?

C

[Nigel Gordon]

No Cole, it is a groan of despair, how are we supposed to survive without a regular fix of your writing?

[Rutabaga]

I think "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" might have stretched the verisimilitude concept a touch.

R

[Cole Parker]

No Cole, it is a groan of despair, how are we supposed to survive without a regular fix of your writing?

Yeah, right!

I think "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" might have stretched the verisimilitude concept a touch.

R

My Diary might not be entirely authentic, either. Or Circumstances.

C

[JamesSavik]

I think "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" might have stretched the verisimilitude concept a touch.

R

There you guys go again sending me off on a dictionary search.

I felt bad for the Scott in this story. His delayed puberty was almost as problematic as my early one.

Maybe puberty is like a hurricane. It's just going to create havoc whenever it arrives.

[Cole Parker]

Kids all want to be the same as each other but to stand out at the same time. Makes it a certainty they'll always be fretting about something.

C

[Jeff Ellis]

a tour de force, wonderful, delightful... so there. More I cry more!

In this part of the country we have one of the largest misdirection tricks by a professional magician.

In WW2 the great stage magician Maskelyne worked with movie set builders to create a derelict airfield. The most secret in the country it was where spies were flown out from to be dropped into occupied Europe. As far as I am aware the trick was totally successful and the runways were never bombed,

[Cole Parker]

Didn't you also mass cardboard tanks across from Calais in preparation for the invasion in '44? That seemed to work as well.

C

[Lugnutz]

Is this in Canada?

[Cole Parker]

Is what in Canada?

C

[Jeff Ellis]

Cole, yes, not just cardboard tanks but wooden aeroplanes too and also men... thousands of men and radio traffic. There was a complete army opposite Calais and Hitler was quite convinced that Normandy was just a feint. To make it really convincing they even placed a real famous general in charge ... as I recall a really p'd off Patton sat out Normandy so that the dummy army in Kent could be seen to have a plausible leader... maybe he had upset someone :-)

[ChrisR]

England wasn't the only ones to use dummy airfields. The Luftwaffe got quite good about doing the same thing and they suckered in a number of missions until Allied photo interpretation improved considerably. In one instance a German airfield was created complete with bunkers and wooden mockups of several dozen German "aircraft" almost camouflaged in an effort to give it realism.

The Allies sent over a fighter escort with a single bomber that dropped a stick of wooden bombs right down the middle of the field.

[Merkin]