Story 2008 Village Idiot
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 1, 2008
Hoosier Hamlet Elects “Village Idiot”
*********************
Story Inn's "Improprietor" Selected for 2008 Honor
*********************
The tiny southern Indiana village of Story does not have a Mayor, Sheriff, Town Counsel, or any other form of government. Yet democracy is alive and well in this rural hamlet. On April 1 of each year, town elders a/k/a tavern regulars meet to elect a “Village Idiot”. “It’s a storied tradition that’s been going on for years, a tribute to the fermentation process”, says Rick Hofstetter, owner of the Story Inn, the town's only employer. “We don’t have a real government, so there's no need to hand out fancy titles to our idiots around here”
This year's "Idiot" designation has been bestowed upon Hofstetter himself, the Story Inn's "improprietor", as old college friends (Rick earned his BA and MA from Indiana University in nearby Bloomington) descended upon the little town in an effort to bestow the award for a lifetime of achievement. Liz Boothman cast the most persuasive of these, which simply read: "I knew Rick in college. I have more dirt on him than anyone else. My advice to Rick: accept the 'Village Idiot' award or I start talking". (Boothman, meanwhile, has not adequately explained how she managed to glue her own forehead onto a bar top.)
Likewise Rick, who is also a graduate of Duke Law School (Class of '82), cannot explain what possessed him to give up his law practice to buy the town in the first place. Story is known for its restaurant and he has no culinary training whatsoever. "Rick would starve if he didn't have somebody to cook for him" spouts Chef Eric Pratt, a claim that Rick does not deny. "Rick's career change has uncanny parallels to that old sit-com, 'Green Acres'".
"I got used to eating out" Rick says, in his own defense.
Rick is regarded as a bit of a wine snob, who dismisses the distillation process as the "concentration of yeast pee". This attitude makes him hapless as a bartender, too. He received a nomination for inquiring of a customer the ingredients in a gin and tonic as he attempted to prepare that drink for her. Rick also proved himself inept as a handyman, popping himself in the head with a hammer while attempting to hang a bird house, and dropping a rock on his foot, breaking his toe. He once employed a power drill to affix a picture frame to a wall, not realizing that the process was made more challenging by the bit having been set to turn in the wrong direction. He also fell off a ladder while attempting to cut a limb off a tree.
Rick's business acumen was also put to the test as he began to market the Story Inn's very own brand of equine fertilizer, "Appropriate Rural Meadow Muffins". The product is sold in pint-sized "stool sacks" labeled as follows: "Probable content analysis: Fescue (35%), Rye (25%), Kentucky Bluegrass (25%), and mixed Domestic Grasses and Sweet Clover (15%), with traces of wood shavings and urea. Probable digestive analysis: Hanoverian (20%), Azteca (15%), Lippezzaner (32%), Swedish Warm Blood (18%) and American Quarter Horse (15%)". The label also provides the following WARNING: “Since the passage of the Patriot Act, use of this product in a political context may no longer be protected by the First Amendment. KEEP OUT OF THE HANDS OF POLITICIANS”.
Professing himself to be a skeptic, "a believer only in the scientific method", Rick continued to debunk eyewitness accounts of the Blue Lady, the apparition which allegedly haunts the guest rooms above the Inn. A bar patron nominated Rick for having uttered this profundity over a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon: "I can't bring myself to believe in something that I cannot prove to be false".
Rick recently placed a call to Joe Bourne of WFIU-FM, while Joe was conducting a live show. Joe took the call as a courtesy, while music was playing. Rick's rambling so distracted Joe that it caused three minutes of on-air silence.
Rick's teenage son Rich proved that the apple did not fall far from the tree. He called his father from the car to inquire about the meaning of the "check gage" light on the dashboard--and promptly ran out of gas. Rick's wife Angela Hofstetter ('03 Idiot) mistakenly swallowed a piece of soap instead of her vitamin tablet. When Rick called her from a hardware store and asked her to measure the size of a floor vent, she dutifully called him back five minutes later, having measured only its length.
Customer Aaron Manifold was nominated--and nearly won--for imbibing the contents of his table's dump bucket at the conclusion of a wine dinner on March 28. He did so at the behest of his own wife, who egged four other guests to pony up $75 to witness the spectacle and then spent the winnings to purchase two elegant bottles of Spanish Tempranillo. Aaron's companions captured the event on camera, which appears below.
Deneb Lea ('07 Idiot, ironically named after the brightest star in the night sky) seemed determined to retain her crown. She received a nomination for sustaining a compound fracture of her leg attempting to carry her sleeping daughter down a carpeted stairway while wearing high heels (her daughter was fortunately unharmed). She also received nominations from her own father for failing to account for nearly a quarter million dollars of revenue while acting as his bookkeeper, and for flattening a tire and trashing the rim of her father's BMW M-Roadster on her way to the Story Inn for the legendary wine dinner described above.
Oenophile Lou Melillo proved himself inept at operating a digital camera, despite the fact that he makes a living designing consumer audio equipment. On a recent trip to Napa Valley, California, Lou attempted to document his visit to 17 wineries over a three day period. Unfortunately, he had set the camera on "Review Mode", thereby nullifying his efforts.
Inn guest "John Doe" received a nomination for taking his new bride directly from the altar to the Story Inn as a surprise, never considering that she did not have a change of clothes or even a tooth brush. She ate dinner that night--and breakfast the next morning sans make-up--while wearing her wedding dress. "The man is definitely heterosexual" astutely observes Rick Hofstetter.
Wedding manager Cathy Newhall once again proved herself to be a natural blonde. She hugged a Sycamore tree next to the Inn, mistaking the innocuous tree-trimming then transpiring to be the final harvest of the 168 year-old behemoth. The arborist in the canopy 50 feet above nearly decapitated her as he lowered his chain saw. "I just wanted to say good-bye" she says, not realizing how close that statement was to becoming a reality. Later, while admiring the paneling in the bar, she asked her incredulous colleagues "Where does Sycamore wood come from"?
Handyman Mark Carmichael is still sore that the Letterman Show never called him back after he won "Idiot" honors in 2005, remarking that he always wanted to visit New York "so he could see the sun set over the Atlantic". This year Carmichael uncovered a poisonous copperhead snake while "out scrapping". Curiosity got the better part of him, and instead of beating a tactful retreat, picked up the agitated serpent by the tail, which did the predictable thing and bit him on the thumb. (Mark was not seriously hurt, though the injury did confine him to the Columbus Regional Hospital for three days).
Honorable mentions went to bartender Arienne Miller, for ringing up a $200,000 sale when handed a $20 bill. Artist Holly Melillo won a nomination when she kept the Story IN Artists Studio open three hours past closing time, not realizing her watch had stopped. Ghost investigator James Kimberlin lost valuable data on the elusive "Blue Lady" when he dropped his EVP recorder in the toilet. Customer Sam Gilchrist was nominated for irrigating the hardwood in the men's room of the Bleeker Street Bar, resulting in his expulsion from that establishment. Another customer was ejected for performing a similar act behind a Florida post office.
Rick will hold the title of "Story Village Idiot" until March 31, 2009.
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Rick Hofstetter
(812) 988-2273
storyinn.com
