Doicton, NY (PP) -- After almost five weeks, the crowds are still growing in this small central-New York town near Exit 1129 of the Skaneateles Turnpike. The six-room hotel has long been filled and surrounding pastures and cornfields are sprouting small tents and makeshift shelters like so many puffballs. StarWars followers (AKA, geeks), as well as the simply curious, are flocking here to the most recent manifestation of what has come to be known as a "random miracle". They come to behold the face and ears of Yoda, faithfully rendered by nature in the whorls of a knotty section of a fallen butternut tree. For those just coming for a quick look, the owner of the property upon which this sensation rests offers parking on his lawn at what he calls a "reasonable" five dollars per hour. The owner, Poodah Peckinpah, is easily encouraged to relate the story of how he discovered the "Wonder of Doicton". Once a professional scribe and accomplished nitpicker, Mr. Peckinpah fills his later years with splitting firewood, hairs and infinitives. He is also preoccupied with wool gathering and supposing. Aside from one conviction for intent to mope and two for highway gawkery (gaucherie?), he has led a law-abiding, although somewhat disjointed (his word) life in various locales which he declines to identify.
"I was splitting this big-a** log, must've been three feet long, as gnarly as Yoda over there," he begins his story, "Really havin' a devil of a time - had three wedges and a splittin' maul stuck in it - I'd been at it for about an hour and a half. I was killin' myself," said Peckinpah, sitting down on the Yoda bust.
"Had to rest, so I sat down on this section of tree and rested about fifteen minutes, sweat running off me like a [deleted]. Sat there thinkin' I only had one or two more swings in me. Then I'd hafta quit and leave the whole pile of [deleted] sittin' there until tomorrow and get a chain saw and dig all those wedges and other junk out of it and give up. I was downright disgusted."
"So I got up, finally, and walked up to it and took a kind of weak swing at it and it cleaved right in half like the Rock of Damascus, or whatever that story is. Can't remember - Stone of Scone? Nah. Gordeon Knot? Mm-mm. Red Sea? Well, sort of, but that's not it. Rock of Ages! That's it... I think. Hmmmm...," At this point there ensued a long pause as his eyes rolled up half-way into his head, staring blankly, seemingly through the open door of the barn into the high loft. Almost imperceptible lip and chin movements indicated that he was silently singing the song to himself. "Well, whatever, I couldn't believe it. Seemed like a miracle," he said suddenly, as if he'd never been away.
"I just dropped my sledge and started walking back to sit down again and ponder what had happened when I saw what you see before you now - the face and ears of Yoda! That's where I got the Force!"
The rest is history. The faithful have been lining up for almost a month to pay $10 to sit on "Poodah's Yoda" for five minutes in hopes of absorbing the Force through their sitzfleisch. A surprising number of them are seeking a form of investing Force, hoping to make enough money in the market to win items in the long-anticipated Christie's auction of Star Wars memorabilia.
"Yeah, man," said one fidgety young man in the queue, "If I can reconcile the interplay among market forces, I can maybe make enough to get hold of Chewbaka's hide. The real thing! Hope it's clean. I mean, like, what's up with the inverted yield curve, anyway? Are dividends a good thing or a bad thing? The Force can empower me to perceive the next killer app, maybe. There's something to this thing, I'm sure. Yesterday I sat on Yoda and last night Warren Buffet visited me in a dream. I didn't understand a [deleted] word he said, so I'm here again today to get some more Force."
It is said that when the weather is right, tears come from Yoda's eyes. Interviews with the faithful support this claim. Another opinion was offered by a young boy standing nearby, plinking dried beans at the worshippers with a slingshot. "[deleted], yeah! When it rains, water comes out of Yoda's eyes. Comes out of his [deleted] nose and ears, too! If he could turn around, it'd be coming out of his [deleted]-hole! Big [deleted] deal. Gotta cigarette?"
All is not calm in Doicton, however. Disturbances caused by Trekkies screaming "Heresy!" and "Apostasy!" are becoming more violent. Officials from the local constabulary and volunteer fire department are threatening to close down the circus and impose a 24-hour curfew on the village. "If I'm forced to shut down," says Peckinpah, "I guess I'll put Yoda on e-Bay. Should get more than that nasty grilled-cheese sandwich got!"
For further information, you may visit the Drooling Oatmeal Investment Club site, where no answers to the investing questions raised in this article can be found. We gave Poodah Peckinpah our email address and requested that he keep us apprised of any new developments. Surprisingly, we did receive an email from him. Not so surprisingly, the message was not pertinent to the Yoda miracle.
