I was thinking Craftsman, but we're in the same neighborhood...

Retour has been a fun distraction to blow out the carb, but now lets get on to far more interesting subjects:

Jim Lynch -- Let's talk about your mayoralty campaign, and provided it's not in the City of Redding, California, how we might offer comfort, support and -- unlike Mr. Retour -- some of our fortune. (I doubt the prohibition on foreign nationals donating extends down to local politics.)

Mike O'Brien -- Yet one more snappy campaign slogan for you inspired by Nike: "Mike O'Brien: Just Druid."

Al Cook -- A more important question than politics: Who are you cheering for in the playoffs? I'm presently working with the "Who has the most ex-Oilers on the team?" theory, so I'm pulling for Los Angeles with Smyth, Stoll and Greene.

Now, since I am loathe to call anyone a liar, and Mr. Retour insists that Michael Retour is the name his mother gave him, I shall take him at face value and conclude that Retour must be a unique middle name.

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Doubtful since "retour" is French for "return".  Michael may be, but I also did searches for that as well and came up empty.

Anyway, hecklers need to relax....  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1697

Kevin,

And "Michael Retour" -- or "Michael est de Retour" as I noted in a cheeky manner in an earlier reply to M. Retour -- is the french version of "Michael Row Your Boat Ashore" which (as we all know) is a African American spiritual dating back to at least the Civil War era.

As far as non de plumes go, far cleverer than most.

Bang bang shoot shoot. Happiness is...

Living to see four.

hey everyone, thanks for the interest. Unfortunately I have no zombie plans, as I'm more a werewolf guy.

I live in small suburb in Kansas, just a few minutes west of Kansas City. It's more or less a bedroom community of about 9,000 people, and it's pretty much all blue collar. It sits in the shadow of the much more affluent county just to the south.

I doin't have any real axes to grind, expect for the fact that they've patched the pothole in front of my driveway three times and it keeps falling apart...rather, the city itself is in need of reinvention.

The mayor is a genial guy, the former publisher of the local paper. But in fact he's an elderly man, something like 67. Which is fine, except the city council is made of up of men as old or older than the mayor. The city is an old city, with some historical character, but we're losing our young people across the river. We just keep going in the same direction. 

My idea is that the city itself just needs a new leadership, a new way of doing things. Example: we recently passed up a chance at a casino. the city's outlay was minimal and the revenue would have been great, but we passed because we didn't want to appear 'shady.' (Our town has like 29 churches). Instead we now have a Burger King.

I'm of the opinion that a younger person (ok, I'm 42), and someone who didn't spend their whole life here, might be able to think outside the box as it were. I'm still in the thinking stage, but I know I'd like to do something to make some changes to the town. I don't want to live in a city that still acts like it's 1978.

I dunno, does that make sense?

I appreciate the interest, and if anything actually materializes I'll keep you posted.