MANIFESTO!

All of the top Business Schools in the country, the likes of Harvard, Yale, Slippery Rock, Grove City, this class of places, all seem to espouse the need for any venture worth its salt to clearly state, in a concise and tightly worded, almost single sentence structure, the Statement of Purpose, The Raisin Da Etra, the This-Is-Why-We-Occupy-The-Space Shout-Out, and, in our opinion, this is a pretty good idea, because as we have often written in opinions to others, if you can’t write down what you do and why you do it in a simple form, you probably don’t know what you are doing in the first place and therefore, there’s not really a lot of reason to be doing it, also in the first place, so we sat down and decided we better get one of these must-have credos written up PDQ, so we stayed late one night, although, really, that’s not quite right to say because we first actually never came in The Institute at all because that morning, the old Valiant conked out right on the street in front of the Sudz-Ur-Dudz, and by the time that JimboTow picked up the car and brought it over to the Texaco to see what broke, it was already nearly ten, and the thought of getting much of anything done before noon was really remote, so we though, hey, it’s almost lunch, so let’s grab a bite now, and then when we get to The Institute, we can really power into work without having to start, then stop, then try to think of some place for lunch, then go out, then get back, then have to try and figure out where we were when we stopped, and then start again, so we walked over to the UE2Much Diner, sat down in our regular booth, in the corner facing toward the racetrack across the highway, and ordered our usual entrees, a club style Ruben on whole wheat with mayo, extra lite mustard, Grey Poupon of course, hold the pickles, and a large side of extra well done O’Brian Style curly fries, and, as another order, one poached egg, medium, whole wheat, dry, butter on the side, with strawberry preserves, and two knives, because when you use your knife to get an egg on the slice of toast, and then you cut it up, and now it’s all eggy, it’s not really appetizing to then use the same knife to spread that butter and preserves on the other slice of toast, which, in our opinion, anybody would agree to, so while we were waiting for the order to arrive, we decided to start working on our statement which we needed to create, and that’s when we first came up with the great name of “Manifesto!” because we both thought that that was a little more grandiose than simply naming the statement the “Statement” or the “Statement of Purpose” or the “Mission Statement” so our statement became Manifesto! and Manifesto! it still is, even though, in our opinion, it’s not yet property framed or artfully crafted or intuitively fashioned or in any way complete, like the "Rosetta Stone” or the “Stone Temple Pilots” or “Sly And The Family Stone” or “Everybody Let’s Get Stoned,” because rather than a static document, ours would be fluid, ever changing, an on going work in process, a constantly morphing medium, always appearing in a new light, a darker shadow, a finer focus, a tighter drum, and to that end, we started writing on the back of some fax that had come in, unwanted, of course, on the home machine, offering free trips to Branson to be the first on our block to get tickets for 'Garth & Dolly Together Again For The First Time,' at the Good Ol’ Time Country Theater, where, if truth be told, we did catch Johnny C back in the early 60’s when he and Hoyt A were on tour as the opening act for Patsy C, and, in our opinion, this was the Golden Age of real American Classical Music, with talent that was not there before and has not been there since, and the inspiration engendered by the memories of those great times and great tunes and great travels is what really got us to where we are today, so it was with this impetus that we put pen, really a Pentel .07 2H lead mechanical pencil, to paper, and started writing, and the funny thing was that before our lunch even came, though, of course, that’s not saying much because, in our opinion, the service at the UE2Much has been going steadily down hill ever since those new people, you know who we mean, took over from Lou and Teresa and their Grandma, that grand old lady who came in at three and made fresh bread and pies every morning before the sun came up, which the new people, you know, are not doing because even though we order 100% Whole Wheat, we have been starting to think that what we are actually getting is brown Wonder Bread, but we can’t really tell that for sure, but what we can tell for sure is that our Manifesto! was coming along really well, thank you ma’m, so after lunch, we made are regular stop for the afternoon mail at the Post Office, when finally got back to The Institute, through the alley back entrance, of course, we were pretty happy with where things had progressed so far, so we posted our draft copy Manifesto! on the cork board near the coffee pot and asked for every one on staff to make their comments and corrections and so for now, here’s where we are, and you know, we would like to have all of your comments too, so don’t be bashful about sending over a quick note with your comments, suggestions, corrections, because, in our opinion, that would be a good thing, and, by the way, the Valiant is looking better because it was only a gasket that came loose on the old Slant Six and the boys at the Texaco are torqueing down the heads, throwing in a little STP along with the 30 weight, and they said it will be good as new in no time flat, so that would, in our opinion, also be a good thing.