Gregor Mendel - Player?

Thanks to my biology book, I now am well versed in the findings of Greogor Mendel, the scientist and monk who postulated that heredity derives from particles rather than a blending of parents. He experimented with pea plant flowers and seeds. One night, after an excruciatingly tedious day of crossing some stamen and carpel of some F1 generation purple flowers, and with some encouragement from some of the other monks, Mendel agreed to go to the local karaoke bar. Now the local karaoke bar, being near the monastery, was pretty much a Gregorian chant revival bar where they had a scroll wrapped backwards on a crank for a teleprompter and with the occasional, though at that time experimental, lute accompaniment.

Gregor's father had named him such on account of his own love for the old chants, but Gregor, a shy and meticulous fellow, was largely tone deaf due to a childhood accident in a bell tower. But if you put enough of the grog in Gregor, he could be known to bark a few quatres.

So here is Gregor, squinting at the scroll, mumbling his way through "Alma Redemptoris Mater"(which was the Justin Bieber hit of its time) and sporting pollen all over his tunic. He is almost all the way through when he catches the eye of a lady in the back corner of the establishment. He finishes and, encouraged by the eye contact and the potency of the grog, makes his way over to her, desperately brushing to get the pollen off his chest. He has a mission. He knows that he is conducting all kinds of precise heredity experiments back at the monastery, but with the grog, being locked up all day long with a bunch of dudes and seeing flowers and pea pods get all the action, he wants to make memory out of this night by performing a little heredity experiment of his own.

"Hey baby, I saw you scoping me out while I was chanting. I had to come over because you are looking fine beyond all this age."

"What?"

"You know, the age of reason."

"Oh."

"I know you probably have a name, and that your mother and father gave it to you, but it's nothing compared to what they gave you that you've got going on all up in here."

"Thank you. My name's Lilly."

"It would have to be. I'm . . . my name is Stamen. Stamen Mendel."

"And what do you do, Stamen?"

"I make flowers do it while I watch."

"Wow. I just clean houses. I'm kind of a neat freak. You have a little pollen on your shirt."

"Why don't we get out of here and I show you what I can do."

And that worked. Mendel was a lot smoother than he looked. Most people don't know this, but the great great grandfather of Howie Mendel was created that night. You go, Gregor.

The Fantastic ForeFathers!

A little known fact about Ben Franklin, when Ben performed that well known experiment, tying a key to a kite string, a bolt of tremendous energy surged through the apparatus and electrocuted him, but not killing him. Rather, it endowed him with the super power to control electric currents. He swore to keep this secret and to only use his power to defend the American way of life and her precious Constitution’s ideals. With his power, Ben invented a time machine and travels through time to correct America whenever she steers away from her ideal beginnings. He has seen our current state and is not pleased. Forming a band with some famous, some infamous American characters, all having their own super powers, Benjamin Franklin has come now, conjured by the invocation of John Stossel, to clean up America and restore her to a pure, constitutionally sound republic. They are the Fantastic Forefathers. “This time, it’s Constitutional!”

George Washington: wields his Ax of Truth to cleft in twain the powers of deception in politics.
Thomas Jefferson: better known by his chosen superhero name, TJ Max, a shape shifter who has infiltrated American society on any number of occasions. His weapon, a radioactive quill known as the Hancock, is mightier than any sword.
Patrick Henry: with an indestructible exoskeleton, he is always willing to make a seemingly ultimate sacrifice . . . and then get right back up and “finish the job for liberty.”
Fredrick Douglas: the alien symbiote that takes the form of his beard is the source of his power, the Filibuster. The Filibuster is a shockwave, created by Douglas’ voice and enhanced by the alien symbiote beard.
Bionic Betsy Ross: upon one visit to modern times, when George Washington was trying to knock Al Franken and Rush Limbaugh’s heads together to “make a funny coconut sound”, Betsy was standing too close, she received multiple mortal injuries. Using the invention genius of Franklin and his electrical powers, Betsy was reconstructed to be stronger, faster and more just than ever. And she can shoot sewing needles out of her eyes.

Together, with their wisdom, insight and super powers, they will save America and return her to her precious Constitutional purity: a time when health care did not exist, slavery was legal and women couldn’t vote, except of course now we have health care, slavery is illegal and women can vote, but pretty much everything else will be just like it was.