Karl Mayörsohn Johannson
Mrs. Fjordson
English Class
Old Andy Andrew Anderson Anders was born in 1913, the same week the Berlin Wall fell. He is the oldest man in all of Rafferty Falls, and he will let you know it. So he knows the town history better than any of us. Like rings on a tree, his wrinkles are a testament to what he’s witnessed. When I went to visit Grütenpaggen Johannson, my grandfather, in Skogsfall, I had the chance to talk with Old Anders about Rafferty Falls.
Old Anders says that he was here when the town was founded and Old Anders says that the town is named Rafferty because the Irish that got chased out of Canada for getting the moose too drunk came and claimed the area for his clan, even though the Swedes were already there. Old Anders sighed and wiped a tear from his eye when he said this, which is strange because his wrinkles disappeared when he started crying like the girls from class. Old Anders says that Rafferty Falls was a lot worse before it got the mini-wonders of the world because the senile folks used to spend all day awake running around. But now they just sleep their days away in Old Man Anders’ Skogsfall Adult Home. Old Anders takes them to see the twin towers everyday every day at 4pm, gives them their special crunchy bread, and they get so sleepy from the food and the emotion of seeing the towers that they fall asleep quickly back at Skogsfall.
Mayor O’Connor, who “has the same filthy ginger hair that I do,” has been wanting to take down the twin towers for years, but Old Anders says that would be very very disrespectful. It’d be like doing 9/11 all over again, he says. The mini wonders of the world were created when the Rafferty Falls Swedish Heritage Society decided to recreate all the greatest Swedish wonders like the Taj Mahal and Machu Picchu. The twin towers were an exciting addition until 2001. Old Man Anders says he remembers exactly where he was on September 11, 2001: in seventh grade math class (he was “teaching odd numbers that day”), and his eyes were literally glued to the television. He wipes away more wrinkles. Anyway, he says that Mayor O’Connor is trying to take away the last twin towers left in the freeworld of America and if Mayor O’Connor does he will fucking murder that bog-trotting paddy.
— A. Beer
