his week marks the 119th birthday of Buford “Old Man� Scarsby, the world’s oldest living human and recipient of the 2004 Marco Polo Award for getting lost in a famous way. Despite many spirited attempts on his part to disappear however, the famously lost Scarsby remains found at his family home in Cutrow, North Carolina this week.

As hardly a newspaper-reading soul in the country could have missed, Buford was lost for over 45 minutes last August, after wandering off and climbing inside a hollow tree, where he was later found, terrified and smelling of owl. Family members blame the resultant “media circus� on poor communication between Buford-finding family members and the newspaper-calling members of the Scarsby clan.

Scarsby, born in 1886, has lived a rich and varied life, none of which he remembers. The one fact of which he is sure, however, is that he was born in 1886, thanks to a faded daguerreotype photograph of a newborn Scarsby wrapped in that day’s newspaper in lieu of the expensive blankets or towels of the day. This compelling evidence convinced world standards-bearing organizations to verify Buford’s claimed age, despite the fact no birth records can be found due to no one being sure of the man’s real name.

Family members began calling Scarsby “Buford� in the 1980’s, following the lead of Scarsby’s then-98 year-old wife Emma, who thought she was talking to Buford Cubbins, a local pharmacist. Since his great-grandchildren grew up calling him “Buford,� Scarsby’s real first name is thought to have been lost to the ages. Scarsby himself believes he forgot his name around 1982.

“Lemon time,� explained Scarsby, clutching a packet of powdered lemonade.

Though certainly the most famous, last year’s incident was hardly a first for Buford, who has been wandering off and becoming lost on a regular basis since his early 80’s. In one notable incident in 1992, while on a walk Buford climbed into the back of a mail truck and fell asleep on a sack of letters. Buford was returned to his family later that day, thanks to a return address sewn into his trousers after a similar incident with UPS in 1989.

Some advocates for the elderly have decried Scarsby’s fame, arguing that the media’s handling of his frequent confused forays into lostedness only serve to foster stereotypes about the aged. Relatives, however, claim that Buford’s ways have nothing to do with his age, citing as example the seven years he spent wandering around lost behind enemy lines in Germany during and after WWI.

Buford’s great-grandchildren, who now care for and corral the remarkably aged man, had hoped that Scarsby’s longtime wife and sometimes companion Emma might reveal her husband’s true name on her deathbed in 1993. Emma Scarsby, however, had different plans, leaving the world instead with her immortal last words, “cartoon pussy.�

Though certainly happy that the old man is staying in sight these days, Scarsby’s great-grandson Lewford Scarsby remains guardedly optimistic about the future.

“There’s no way we can keep an eye on him 24-7,� explained Lewford. “But we’ve gotten pretty good at learning this old guy’s tricks and keeping him reigned in. Ain’t that right, Buford?
Buford? Aw, shit.�

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In your travels, should you find
some oddball children, pay no mind.
But if you do, and you have learned
that they love candy recently turned,
it behooves you to flee at once.
And don't come back
that way for months.
For you have wandered
to a land forgotten,
where the children like
their candy rotten.
And this might not sound so terribly bad,
perhaps only slightly, or only a tad.
But I assure you, once I've filled you in,
you too will avoid these rotten children!

Avoid like the plague or like measles or beets.
Avoid them like odd-colored stains on your sheets.
Avoid them like murder and dandruff and stink.
Avoid them like things moving under the sink.
For this is the behavior I would strongly advise
unless you'd like a sandwich of mustard and lies.
You think I'm kidding? You think this is a joke?
Brother, I'm as serious as a mouthful of New Coke!

Their loyalty's shifty, their morals are loose.
They'd eat the heart out of a chocolate moose.
Their bedtime is no time their naptime is "GO!" time,
And they have never once heard of "The Answer Is No!" time.
They wipe their hands everywhere and belch like fat chickens
and after they're done, the buffet is slim pickins.
They'll throw a wild tantrum just to pass an afternoon
and then hide your car keys on the back of the moon.
They're nasty, dastardly, pompous and rude.
Oh, did I mention they're sick of Thai food?

Their rotten teeth are made to slide
out moldy, curdled, rotten lies.
They insist its gospel, but otherwise
is seen deep within their rotten black eyes.
They cheat at hopscotch, they cheat at darts,
they have no love for culture or arts.
They're dirty, nasty, selfish and mean.
They'd sell their own mothers for a black jelly bean.
They don't do lemonade stands and they don't mow lawns.
They'll ransack your rec room for something to pawn.
They'll name a dog kitty and they'll name a cat Rover
and they'll watch Disney videos over and over
until you scream "That's it! Enough! I am quitting!
This is the last time I agree to babysitting!"

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This week's Nedmiller Column is excerpted from "Spastic Diaper: The Ned Nedmiller Story" by Rolando Burf.

It's sad that in these glad-handed, capricious, "what have you done for me lately?" days that we live in, all but the most grizzled historians have forgotten the important role that Nedmonton Nicklefish Nedmiller played in making the American railway system a reality. Much of the credit has been lain at the feet of the feetless Chinamen of that day, for their thankless toil and unlikely balancing skills. And not to mention those of then-president Hubert "Bumper" Humper, whose administrative zeal was matched only by his fits of giggling when Germans said things like "Zeal ze enzvelope!". But in truth, when one truly studies the unpublished crumbs and discarded scraps of History, an entirely different story comes into focus. It is the story of Ned Nedmiller and the Laughing Machine.

The year was 1874, or damn near it, some claim it was 1974 but they're blind drunk, and anyway, it was 1874. America was in the throes of serious growing pains, seeing as in that day Manifest Destiny was more than just an R&B duo. In fact, it was a phrase that most thought referred to a barbershop quartet. But one man, a sawdust critic named Romulus Stinkleather, remembered from his third grade Social Studies class that it had something to do with the country. And armed only with that half-remembered factoid, America set out to conquer the land that would one day be known as America.

It took many years and the invention of the machine gun, but finally true Americans (those folks who had washed up on the East Coast after fleeing Europe like rats from a somersaulting speedboat) kicked out all of the tent-dwelling longhairs who were squatting on their rightful lands, and the American Dream stretched from glorious coast to coast, and north and south to imaginary lines drawn to keep out the riff-raff, be they too white or not white enough.

The hairy-headed Americans of that day conquered the country and got to the West coast in such a hurry that they completely forgot that they had left the wood-burning stove on at home. They needed a way to get back East, and fast. The answer came from a small boy of four (don't ask me how four people had one baby, these were not particularly religious times) who set the world on it's ear with one word: Monorail. Of course, Monorails didn't exist at the time, and he was roundly beaten for teasing the people of those times. And just to be safe, he was given the treatment for the "kissing disease", Mononucachusetts, which at that time entailed kissing a rabid weasel and being thrown in the river locked inside a gun safe.

An inventor from Bulgaria had a better idea: The Double-Monorail. Under his system, two nonexistent Monorails would run side-by side, and in case one disappeared due to not existing, passengers could simply board the other Monorail and continue their journey. The "DubbaRail", as it was called, was a huge success, and it's maiden voyage from the fledgling town of Los Angeles to the even more fledgling town of East L.A. was completely sold out. Tragedy struck, however, when both Monorails derailed and crashed into the Hollywood Fatburger, which didn't exist yet either, killing 17 people who were not yet born.

The inventor's brother, also a Bulgarian inventor, dedicated his life to completing his brother's work and providing the American people (the European ones, not the longhairs) with a mode of cross-continental transportation that was safe, cheap and most importantly, existed. Deciding that Monorails were altogether far too dangerous, the inventor's brother (also an inventor) decided to carry out his brother's vision, only without the Monorail part.

After making an impassioned speech, entitled "I Have A Dream About My Brother's Wife", the inventor's brother was able to secure funding from President "Bumper" Humper, and construction of parallel cross-country "Walking Rails" commenced.

Feetless Chinamen toiled under the most inhumane conditions in the building of these Walking Rails. The tortures they endured included gentle spring days, rolling green pastures and enormous cobalt-blue skies. Some turned to poetry and idle daydreaming as a means of escape. Few of these Chinamen left with their dignity intact. As a matter of fact, few left at all, it's rumored that many are still lazing about, their rail-building tools cast aside as they count the petals on daisies.

However, the Chinamen hit a figurative brick wall in their progress across the country when they reached the Plains states. For this was the land of the buffalo, and rumor had it that buffalo liked nothing more than eating Chinamen like they were peppermint sticks. The Chinamen had heard stories of these fiendish beasts, and pictured them with razor-sharp claws and teeth like dinner plates, maybe even wings like dinner plates. Naturally, they almost shit themselves laughing when they actually saw a buffalo, and reminded themselves to kick their friends' asses when they got back to California.

However, the buffalo did provide a real impediment in the building of the Walking Rails. Mainly because they just stood there, right in the path of the railroad, and were buffalo. Which, according to scientists, entails mostly standing there and smelling like a discarded sofa. And while it was legal to blow a mountain out of the way with TNT, there were strict environmental regulations against strapping dynamite to a buffalo. So, much like your average buffalo, construction of the Walking Rails stood still.

CONTINUED NEXT WEEK

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