Incident at Haystack Rock
FRITZ BACHMEIER is a third generation dry land wheat farmer working the rolling hills of Washington's Palouse Country. For years he had dreamed of going to the ocean for a vacation. He wanted real waves, cool breezes and sand dunes with beach grass. Finally, this was the year and he packed up the family and headed west. Seven hours later they arrived at Cannon Beach with its famous "Haystack Rock." They lugged all their vacation stuff down to the dunes and fired up the bar-b-cue. And just like that, there was Fritz, on vacation, settin' in the dunes enjoying the cool breeze and cookin' fresh sea food. However, after the fifth helping of fried clams and his third or fourth of fresh raw oysters things began to go wrong. You see, the cool breezes belied the truth of how hot the sun was, and this deception had led poor Fritz to consume several-too-many of his favorite German brews with his batch of bivalves. He began to see things, he began to hallucinate. Then He saw it! A wheat/seaweed cross which would turn the beaches into a gold mine. A new food stuff for the world; one having both a person's grain needs and their vegetable ones, all in one plant. He grinned as he thought of it... No more wheat farming, toiling in the hot dry climate of the Palouse! Instead, he'd be pitch-forking profits on to the bank wagons. Running a cutting edge agribusiness from his luxury beach house. Sittin' in the dune grass in the sunshine with the cool ocean air. He dreamed of scything off handfuls of salaries, bonuses and stock options... yes, this was it, his path to fame as the inventor of "SEAWHEAT." With good Germanic resolve he and his draft horse, Bathsheeba, hit the beach and began readying the earth for her new crop. Arrow straight furrows soon lined the sand. Police found Fritz the next morning
in the beach grass, draped over a plow shaped piece of driftwood clutching several scraps of leather camera strap in each hand reign style. The area was littered with oyster shells and St Pauli Girl beer bottles. The beach was filled with neatly plowed rows, stirred here-and-there into a froth, surrounding haystack shaped piles of sand. A hospital spokesman said that Bachmeier is recovering nicely and he should be back home in time for the fall planting.