10/04/2004 05:32:10 PM|||Toni|||Got this letter in an email from my Dad so I am not really sure of the author. But I liked the letter.


Dear Senator Kerry:
I am Designated Letter Writer for the guys down to Daryl's Bait Shop here in Lagniappe, Louisiana. Me and the boys done been shaking our heads over your stumbling campaign. It ain't so much we do or don't like you or your Party, but you are a fellow American, born in the U. S. of A., so we don't want you to disgrace yourself. We done some done home thinkin' all 'bout yore candidacy for President. Here are 11 helpful hints we have worked up for you. (More, if you want them. Just let us know.)

1. QUIT TELLING US THAT YOU SERVED IN 'NAM. You'd do yourself a favor if you didn't keep mentioning it every time someone pokes a microphone in your face. Geez, it was 35 years ago you did that, for what was it, just four-and-a-half months? Some of us Daryl's Bait Shop guys spent more time than that in chow lines when we were in 'Nam.

2. GET YOUR STORIES STRAIGHT. Admit you threw yours or someone's medals and/or ribbons over the Capitol fence in '71, and you went touring around with Jane Fonda, and you testified falsely to atrocities by US troops. Maybe that's what you and yore buddies did in 'Nam, but none of us behaved like that. You ought to say that was all a youthful mistake. We've made a few mistakes ourselves. We understand.

3. TALK FRENCH TO FRENCH REPORTERS , IF YOU WANT TO. It's OK, we don't mind. Smilin' Jack Boudreaux can talk French too, and we elected him Chief of the Lagniappe Volunteer Fire Company. We're not bigots (heck, a buch of us are part French, too). We call 'em as we see 'em and we make up our own minds.

4. BRAG ABOUT YOUR GOOD LUCK IN SNAGGIN' NOT ONE, BUT TWO RICH WIVES. Here at Daryl's we often wonder what it would be like to have a really rich wife. We speculate just how big a bass boat we could buy, along with one of those new Dodge Hemi trucks to pull it to the Bayou Blue boat landing. Smilin' Jack always points out how it's his cousins, Ti Boy and Dickweed, who appear in those Dodge Hemi commercials, but still they can't afford one of their own. We chuckle at how we could be fishin' all day without a worry about where the money is coming from, just like you. You don't have to cook all that ketchup, do you? Come on, tell the world how lucky you are! We here in South Louisiana respect achievement and don't begrudge anybody's good fortune, even if he is a politician.

5. GO TO THE WRASSLIN' MATCHES AND HUSTLE VOTES. We seen a videotape of you on the ski slopes. Man, you got some good moves, yeah! It looks like you already know how to take a fall. All of us here (except GooGoo Gondron and Tib Thibodeaux) are great fans of wrasslin'. Not that we'd vote for you just because you was one. Choupique Chastant is a wrasslin maniac, but none of us would vote for him even if he was running for dogcatcher! So you got to tread easy on showing you're "Joe Sixpack" who just happened to go to Swiss prep school and St. Paul's School and Yale College - Skull & Bones. All us guys finished grade school and a few of us even went to high school, so we ain't snowed by who went to what school. We'd see through that pose in about a minute and a half and mark you for a hypocritical windbag and general liar. Don't go to the trouble of hanging a black velvet Elvis oil painting in any of your many living rooms. Weren't none of us that recently fell off the turnip truck.

6. TELL US SOMETHING THAT YOU'RE FOR. We already know what you're against (which is just 'bout everything).

7. QUIT BOWING IN THE DIRECTION OF THE U.N. AND PROMISING TO GO THERE FIRST THING WHEN YOU ARE ELECTED PRESIDENT. We ain't all that impressed with the UN and we don't know why you are. Is there anything the U.N. has ever done right? Didn't they make a royal mess of that Iraq oil-for-food program, like BILLIONS OF DOLLARS that was skimmed off that just happened to land in their personal bank accounts? Seems to us they spend around 98 percent of their time passing resolutions that don't add up to a hill of beans. Besides, if you have to sit up and beg at the U.N., and then roll over and play dead if the U.N. don't help... that's what we call "Doggie style" national security. And that dog don't hunt!

8. QUIT FLIP-FLOPPING. If you're for lower gasoline prices in the morning, don't be proposing a 50 cents a gallon tax increase on gasoline in the afternoon. Saying one thing in Shreveport and the opposite in Baton Rouge don't inspire us with confidence in you as President. Maybe you should stay in the Senate where you got 99 other guys to share the responsibility with, especially since you've missed 89% of them roll call votes this year.

9. QUIT TELLING US HOW POOR AND UNEMPLOYED WE ARE. We got indoor toilets, color TV, cell phones, and computers. Give us Cajuns some credit for brains and understanding. We know economic conditions are good and getting better. Your telling us we're miserable, deluded fools just won't fly. And it gives us the distinct feeling that you're hoping for a relapse into recession to help your election chances.

11. QUIT SAYIN' YOU AIN'T GONNA LET COMPANIES "OUTSOURCE" JOBS OVERSEAS. We all know yore wife, TeRAYza the Ketchup Lady, got her many hundreds of millions from a company that's already sent two-thirds of its own jobs overseas.

11. GET IN TOUCH WITH THE REAL AMERICA. You have beaten all your Democratic opponents in the primaries. You still seem out of touch with yore own party and with America. Maybe you done been a Pol too long, been campaigning too long and you need a break after the Convention. We all think the best thing you can do is haul out your Harley, put TeRAYza on the pillion and take off for the Sturgis South Dakota Bike Rally. Meet the folks. A few of us from Daryl's will be there. Y'all don't have to get tattooed. We promise.

Sincerely, Yore friend and fellow 'Nam Veteran,

Pierre "Cooter" Jones - Daryl's Bait Shop, Lagniappe, Louisiana |||109692914890807164|||Dear Senator Kerry: