Story of Josephville

Original Story by Benjamin Mako Hill. Feel free to edit and improve!

There once was a town named Josephville. Having been founded nearly a century before, the town mayor decided to celebrate the town's centennial by encouraging all the town residents to get together and build a coat of many colors in honor of the town's namesake. For months, the town members bought and saved scraps of fabric in preparation for the event.

Two weeks before the centennial, the townspeople brought their scraps of fabric to the town center along with needles, threads, and sewing machines. They worked and worked and built a giant multi-color coat right in the town square in the major intersection of the town. It was the largest coat ever built! They completed the project in a week and left the coat in the town square to be admired as the city awaited the centennial.

But the very morning after the townspeople had completed the coat, a large pack of bicyclists on a trans-state race road straight through the town. In their hurry, they ran right over the coat and left it in shreds!

The mayor assembled the dejected townspeople and said, "This is truly unfortunate but let's not be deterred by this setback! There's still a week to go until the centennial. Let's rebuild the giant jacket!"

So the townspeople went home and found scraps of fabric from old and discarded clothing and linens and brought them to the town center. Inspired and excited by the mayors inspirational speech, they built the cloak bigger and better than the first time. In just 4 days time, they had finished the whole garment again -- bigger and better than ever! The townspeople admired their work and then went home again for some well deserved rest.

But the next morning, a large pack of equestrians galloped through the town center on their horses, trampling and destroying the new coat!

When the townspeople woke up and saw their work ruined, they cried and swore but it was too late to do anything. Many of them said it was a sign that they should give up their project but the mayor encouraged them to persist saying, "there are still three days until the centennial. We built the second coat in 4 days, we can build the next one in three! We can make it even bigger and better than the first two times!"

So the townspeople went home and found fabrics where they could. They tore down their drapes and ripped the upholstery off of their couches. Women tore apart their wedding dresses for material to submit to the cause! They worked all day and all night for three days in the town center and built a new coat that truly was bigger and more beautiful than the first two! On the eve of the centennial the townspeople completed their work and went home to collapse on their beds -- now bare of sheets donated to the project.

When the townspeople were assembling for the celebration the next day, they heard a low rumble off the horizon down the main street. They saw a cloud of dust as a large pack of Hell's Angels on motorcycles approached, roaring down the street. They were coming right for the coat!

The townspeople yelled and screamed for them to stop but their pleas couldn't be heard over the engines! The motorcycles left behind them a trail of smoke and dust and the tattered remains of the coat. Standing in the pile of mangled cloth, the mayor surveyed the scene, thought deeply and said firmly, "There's still a half a day until the centennial ends! It's not too late to rebuild our coat!"

It makes one wonder how I'm ever going to finish this story if people keep riding in on my coat tales!