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Do not tell Leo –

St. Paul, MN – Minnesota Republicans are pushing legislation that would make it a crime for people on public assistance to have more $20 in cash in their pockets any given month. This represents a change from their initial proposal, which banned them from having any money at all.

And Republicans are going to hire government officials to check poor people’s pockets?  And that makes government smaller by …. ?  I dunno.  I give up.  But, this is a Leo Berman fire starter.  If Leo finds out about this, he’ll sleep overnight in the hallway to be the first to file a bill just like it in Texas.

Juanita grins and recalls one of her favorite stories which has something to do with money in your pocket.  “We had a dope dealer around here a couple decades ago by the name of Chicken Wing.  How he got his name is a whole ‘nother story I’ll save for later.  Anyway, Ole Chicken Wing was a very ethical dope dealer.  He would not sell to children and he could not abide thieves.  Other than selling dope, he was a model citizen.”

“Except with women.  Chicken Wing never mistreated women, but he liked a wide variety of women in his life.  He liked the ladies.  And being as how Chicken Wing was not what you’d call handsome – being about 7 foot tall and 120 pounds soaking wet – with mushy facial features.  His body was lean and angular; his face was all circles.  The whole effect was that he looked like a Dr. Seuss character.”

“So, popularity with the ladies made dope dealing a necessity.  Ladies do not come cheap.  Chicken Wing always had a nice car and some jewelery that rivaled the sun in the sparkle department.  Not all of his jewelery was real, but some was, and what wasn’t real was big and shiny.”

“But,” Juanita continues, “Chicken Wing never had more than fifteen or twenty dollars in his wallet, and most of that would be in ones.  Rumor had it that he bought his car up in Dallas with cash money in a brown paper bag.  The ladies would look under the sofa cushions, sneak a peek in his wallet, or check his sock drawer for the money they just knew he had!  One of them even dug up a freshly planted tree in his yard, thinking he buried his cash there.”

“None of them could find Chicken Wing’s money.  It was the biggest mystery in town.”

“Well, time came for Chicken Wing to go to that Great Picnic in The Sky.  At about 60 years of age, Chicken Wing dropped dead of a heart attack.  They hauled him up to the emergency room to try to save him, but he was already singing in Sweet Jesus’ Quartet.  During the process of accounting for his personal items, one of the nurses took off Chicken Wing’s shoes.  Forty thousand dollars fell on the floor.  His feet were partially deformed from carrying all that money around in his shoes.”

“Ten years later, another hundred grand was found when his old house caught fire and the firefighters had to smash in the walls.  The ladies are still arguing over who it belongs to.”

“So, I’m just saying that not everybody carries their money in their wallet.  If you live in Minnesota, you may end up with government in your shoes.”

But please don’t tell Leo Berman about Minnesota or Chicken Wing.  Either story would set him off, and once he’s off, there’s no safe landing place.

(Heads-up to Robert for the Minnesota bill.)