Mailing Lists- (Off-track! Delete at will!)

[TunerJeff@aol.com]

Dear Ron & Gina,

I'd like to share a tale with you, re; Mailing Lists & Junk Mail.

     A friend of mine is/was a performer at the annual "Dicken's Fair" in San
Francisco. This event allows him (...and several score others) to dress in
period costume and harass the natives and tourists who come to gawk at
everyone that the fertile writing fingers of Dicken's created. It's a
combination of "Living Period History" and Handcrafts Fair with a dash of
theater mixed in. Colorful, it is.

     His 'troupe' is "The Miracle Sweeps of London" (...if it's a clean
sweep, it's a miracle!), and along with his fellow chimney sweeps, he's a
part of the festivities. They roam about the site searching for
'climbing-boys' to clear narrow flues, as their 'old' boy "Plug" has grown to
large to do the job. While searching, they consume gin, shed clouds of soot,
and freely offer the opinion "It's good-luck to kiss a sweep!" to any takers.


     Point being; His name with the sweeps is "J. Phlegmgrizzle", and as a
sort of joke... I neatly labeled his mailbox with this name while he was on
vacation last year. His house is 6 miles from town near the end of a
dead-end, narrow winding road. This name CANNOT possibly appear in any
published list of any kind... it flat doesn't exist outside of Dick-Fair.
So... isn't it remarkable he's now recieving junk-mail addressed to; "Mr.
Phlegmgrizzle"?

     Firms assemble mailing lists from EVERY imaginable source. From
phonebooks to lists assembled by workers who must be roaming the back-country
for names off of MAILBOXES, for Pete's sake!!! His Fair name first appeared
on a letter from an insurance company addressed to; "Tom Phlegmgrizzle"...his
correct first name mixed with the fictitious character name. I will never be
surprised that my name has made it to a 'shared mailing list' after his
experience!

Amazing huh?
Jeffrey T. Hickey RPT
Oregon Coast Piano Services
TunerJeff @ aol.com

ps-
     There is firm at Dicken's Fair that provides nearly warm bodies to the
medical field. In Dicken's time it was illegal to study bodies/corpses... but
the vivisectionists needed those bodies to advance the field of human
medicine, right? Thus the grave-robbers who haunted the local 'Potter's
Field" where the poor were (...barely) buried. A steady income from the
desperate medical students, but a dangerous business if one was caught in the
act by the police!
    I joined (...for one weekend) the prestigious firm of; "Digg & Hyde,
Procurers for the Vivisectionists". What was my name? "Runn". (Thus the name
became slightly longer and a bit more descriptive; "Digg, Runn, & Hyde!".)
:>)
jef