SRS - Tales of the North - Mad Mike's Mayo

Tales of the High North

Triple
- MMM -
'MAD MIKES MAYO'
Melts Your Mouth...hair and teeth
'Uses'
poltice, plasma, alternative fuel, embalming substance, Avgas,
Cures scarlet fever, athletes foot, scalp itch, and blood poisoning.
WARNING
May cause heart disease and liver damage.

In Praise of Mike Doyle's Mayo
a sourdough tale....
By Jay Danis

Mike left his home for the Yukon
intent on panning gold.
He laboured each day with his huskies and sleigh
but never complained of the cold

At night the wind howled and the wolves would growl:
leery, cautious, and sly.
He'd roll up cozy and warm by the fire
his lead dog and rifle nearby.

Mike pondered but never made out
why game was sparse all round.
No fleeting glimpse of bearded hare
nor pad of Grizzly he found.

No geese or ducks, no owl or mouse,
nor kick at a wary fox.
So strange it seemed where wildlife should team,
drove off by his larder box?

For tied to the sleigh and hidden away,
were jars of venting gas.
Tanning the hides and burning the eyes,
weeping through quarter inch glass.

I'll never starve he'd chuckle
though nature witholds at a whim.
Mike's homemade mayo was just the thing
that fueled and kept him trim.

One day there appeared a Mountie
sick as a boiled owl.
Oozing sores and all a fever
his shallow breath raspy and foul.

He ranted on of his southern home,
a mother's face glowed in the light.
The fever burned and Mike was sure
he'd never last the night.

Just a few leagues north a settlement,
the Mountie struggled to tell...
Where the fever had struck like a demon
let loose from the depths of hell.

Sourdough Mike sat all through the night
in the pall of the midnight sun,
Feeding the man his mayo grand
while awaiting the coming dawn.

Mike opened his eyes and to his surprise
the Mountie spry as a fawn.
I don't know how you cured me Mike
But I'll be damned if the fever ain't gone.

The mayo they both knew,
had cured the killer flu.
At break of day they tore away
to see what they could do.

Then cross the wastes a chorusing wail
and corpses all afire.
Headed for heavens sleuce gates their souls,
on the smoke of that ghastly pyre.

What they needed was old Doc Finch,
whom they'd regretably been forced to lynch.
A gambler's debt was paid,
o'er too many aces he'd played.

With the Fort Norman Doctor snow bound,
they'd never last till spring.
Mike and the Mountie never dispaired
for they had just the thing.

Now Mike Doyle's mayo is famous
all the way to the arctic pole.
He's likened to Ulysees and Bachus
and oft his story is told.

You can talk of Dan McGrew
and tales of the gold rush days
of knife 'n claw and fights that was fi't
in all those awful ways.

The one the Sourdoughs talk about
and tip their glasses in reverent praise
On Saturday nights at the 'Tenderloin',
....is Mike Doyle's cure-all Mayonnaise.

Copyright 2000 J. Danis All Rights Reserved

943