{Item lhe previous page)
Allentown, Pennsylvania. it has a
capacity of 250 kw. Unlike his Danish
counterparts, Merkham makes wind~
mills to sell. He offers three sizes: 45
kw, for private use, 150 kw, and 250
kw, for commercial and industrial
use. The windmills now in use are con-
nected to Pennsylvania Power and
Light, to which the extra power is
sold. The cost of such a windmill
ranges from $20,000 to $110,000.

The only large scale application of
wind power now planned in the United
States is in California. Officials
predict that by 1995, wind power could

provide 10% of the energy for Califor-
nia homes and businesses,

Nationwide, it would be possible to
provide 7% of our energy with wind-
power. However, this iS unlikely for
several reasons.

Some people consider windmills
eyesores. Windmills also require a
high initial investment, and perforr
m‘ance, especially of the larger mills,
is still relatively uncertain,

One last idea to cut down on
petroleum use, which is being con
sidered hy the college, is to convert
the heating plant to coal, Our coal sup-
ply, unlike petroleum, is adequate for

hundreds of years. Even Iowa may
soon be producing coal.

There are problems of air pollution
from burned coal and environmental
damage from mining, but technology
and methods are being developed to
deal with these,

While less than ideal, coal would at
least provide a plentiful and cone
tinuous supply of energy,

We all have to realize that our tradi-
tional supplies of energy are limited.
Something else is needed. The pro-
blem lies in deciding what mixture of
energy sources to use before we are
forced to choose when the oil runs out.

(Last episode, we left our hero, Cecil Vutwix, detective of no
lixed income, pondering the mysterious death or his partner,
Miles Voth. As we take the story up this week, Cecil is ex-

' amining a note that arrived via the office window, along
with a brick, smashing his 20 gallon aquarium, startling his
eels and terminating the life of his favorite bottomsucking
catfish.)

The neat, bold, block letters. done in the blood of a Swiss
yodeler, spelled out a message that would prove to be a turn-
ing point in this paragraph: “If you know what’s good for
you and you're interested in learning what happened to Lit-
tle Guido. be at the Amsterdam Bat Cannery at midnight."

“Well," he thought, “I’ve never really known what's good
for me," and with that he chucked the note, brick and all,
back out through the hole it had made. Three hundred feet
below, it tore through the vinyl roof of a passing Buick, cav-
ing in the cranium of one Alfredo EpsomSalts, ruining his
mistress's weekend, and making his wife, a deserving
woman, rich and independent (all of which has nearly ‘
nothing to do with the plot of this story).

Little Guido was next seen as a greasy stain in the back of
a Peterhuilt.

Meanwhile, back at the office, both eels were flopping
about on the carpet, and the caliish had washed up under
the haLstand. Poor Melville, Cecil thought, as he rueiully
surveyed the remains of his ex-bottomsucker. “It's not so
long since I brought him home from the K-Mart in a ziplock
bag,.,how blissfully he use to frolic about the tank, sucking
eel shit off the colored roe .ah life is so fleeting, so tran-
sient! But enough soliloqu ing, it’s time for action; those
goddamn eels are gonna ruin the carpet."

lie scooped them up with an empty cottee mug and pitched
them out the window. Melville's memory was dearer to his
heart, so he got the full bourbon-embalming treatment
before being flushed down the standrup trap door ash
canister Cecil had pilf’ered from a smoke~filled back-room
casino during the final frantic moments of the Ed Rasputin
case two years back.

Meanwhile, the eels, having described two faultless sine
curves on their way to the street, gave each other a last con-
fused, though empadietic glance, as if to shrug their
shoulders and say, “Aw, shit!" then wreaked havoc on a
group of girl scouts headed tor a tour of the Waco Rubber
Plant.

This whole mess had put Cecil in a somber mood, hut in
this business, mourning often lasts only moments; it’s a
tough racket and only the brutes survive. The silence of the
office was shattered by the loud buzz from ﬁle intercom on

September 25, I979

- Farewell, My Integrity

tom iohnson and foe king

his desk. Then there was the voice of his secretary, _a sound
which always reminded him of somebody taking the fur off a
live badger with a belt sander.

"Hit man to see you, Cecil," she rasped.

“Right, thanks missmuhu.”

”It's Shirley, for chrissakes! ”

“Yeah, right, ” he responded, casually screwing a cylinr
drical perforated silencer onto the end of his revolver and
pumping six shoE through the window of his door. From die
outer office there came a high pitched squeal and a thump.

He was a bit puzzled when he surveyed the scene in the

“Melville’s memory was dearer

to his heart, so he got the

full bourbon-embalming treatment

before being flushed down
the stand-up trap door

n

, ash canister . . .

reception room. The corpse he stepped over in the doorway
was not that of “Fingers” Fucielli, or any other gangland
torpedo in town, but that of a uniformed girl scout leader
clutching what appeared to be a stiff eel. .

“Hit man, indeed," he chuckled, “Shirley, you’re such a
card.” Crouched in the corner behind a filing Cabinet.
Shirley blubbered hysterically. He chucked her under the
chin on his way outI saying, “You’re a good man, sister,"
and hit the street, wondering what a girl scout would want
with an eel.

Thoughtfully, Cecil Vutwix moved along the teeming
street. “Salmon, herringI fishwives, Melville turns in his
lunch pail, and now this eel. There’s gotta be some connec-
tion, but where?” Clearly the place to start was the scene or
Miles’s death, the public market. Wondering if any of those
immigrant chicken suckers that hung out there would be
able to speaka da Eengleesh, he made his way toward the

wa terfront. 'I"

 

