"Historical Blindness" with Maisie McAllister, Volume 1

Hello there, kiddies! Maisie McAllister here. The oldest working rancher in all of Crest Top, AZ. I'm older'n the hills (most hills anyway) but I kin still rope n wrangle better'n most o' these young fellers that call 'emselves cowboys in this sorry day and age. But that ain't neither here nor there.

I am typin' on this here new-fangled contraption my great-grandkiddies call a computer. Imagine that. I kin member when they put the telegraph wires up- I thought that was futuristic. I've been asked to contribute to this thing they call a "blog." That's funny to me, because blog's the name we usta give to a certain cattle ailment effectin' the excretory functions. As in, "Ye better put on the elbow-gloves, ol' Bessie's blogged up again."

Hoo-boy, do times change. In any case, the nice folks at Coyote Radio Theater have asked me to say a few words here about the history of my home town, Crest Top, AZ.

A few things you should know right off the top. First off, you don't pronounce it "Cresst Tawp." You'd sound like a dang back-easter turist and probably get de-pantsed on the town square. The proper pronounciation is "Cresttup." Rhymes with "messed up." Or, like my good buddy Earl Traymore likes to say, "Lestup." As in, "Lestup here for some grub. They got good fritters."

The other thing to know is that we are in no way affiliated with that OTHER North-Central Arizona mountain community. It's been said that if you re-arrange the letters in "Crest Top," you kin spell "Prescott," but I jes don't know why somebody would want to do a dang fool thing like that. There are some similarities betwixt the two towns, I'll grant you that, but in general folks in Crest Top have a touch more salt to 'em than them the wannabes in that other place.

The town of Crest Top was founded in 1863 by Cornelious T. Beaver, a mountain trapper of uncertain mental stability, when he found what he thought was gold beside Minx Creek. Turns out it weren't nothin' but fool's gold, but by the time anybody figgered that one out, enough greedy white folks had showed up to start a whole town. Point of fact, that there was the largest fool's gold deposit in all of North America. Counterfeiting was the young community's first industry, a proud tradition which continues to this day.

Well, that's it fer today. I got me some more to say, but I have been informed that I'm a bit long-winded for today's short attention spans. Seems folks today can't get through yer average newspaper article without a fistful of Ritalin. But whatever. Just be sure to tune in tomorrow to this same channel or whatever you call it, for the conclusion of my tur of Crest Top history.