5

Chapter 5: Radar Meets John F. Kennedy

It was 1960 & the EISENHOWER administration was losing power in massive amounts too big to notice. RADAR knew that within a year he'd be up to run for a 2ND term as ITASCA COUNTY sheriff. Right now however it was time for MINNESOTA to elect 2 senators to represent the state in WASHINGTON, D.C. as well as ITASCA COUNTY deciding to rather or not re-elect their current Congressional District Representative, not to mention if they should put IKE'S vice-president RICHARD M. (MILHOUS) NIXON or go with the young MASSACHUSETTS senator named JOHN F. KENNEDY? The whole thing began with a TV special called "PRIMARY" which covered the WISCONSIN primary election between KENNEDY & MINNESOTA'S own HUBERT H. HUMPHREY. Well, when the the first of the votes came in HUMPHREY appeared to be a sure fire winner, but the votes from the CATHOLICS in the POLISH-AMERICAN ghettoes of MILWAUKEE still had to be counted, too!

Soon the MINNESOTA primary race for the WHITE HOUSE was in full swing. Then ITASCA COUNTY had to make the final decision. KENNEDY or HUMPHREY? Well, although HUMPHREY was MINNESOTA born and bred ITASCA COUNTY sided with KENNEDY. To celebrate the KENNEDY victory RADAR & all his friends went to a local watering hole called ROCKY'S TAVERN which was owned by a WW2 veteran named ROCKY BABRA formerly of INDIANAPOLIS. The bourbon flowed like never before in the bar. Now good ol' BLIGHT ADDAMS had to make a crucial & political decision. Would he side with KENNEDY or NIXON? He sided with KENNEDY. Although, KENNEDY was a distant relative to the ADDAMS FAMILY going back to IRELAND'S potato famine, BLIGHT had to put family 1ST & run NIXON into the trap! The Achilles Heel! The WATERLOO of every politician! Overconfidence! So BLIGHT'S relatives went to work. LURCH CRABWELL the butler to BLIGHT'S nephew GOMEZ ADDAMS went to the swanky OAK KNOWLES section of GRAND RAPIDS on that NOVEMBER day in 1960. GRANDMAMA ADDAMS (GOMEZ'S MOTHER) took care of the business district by parading up & down the street with her campaign sign & blowing her bugle. The assignment handed to FESTER FRUMP (the uncle of MORTICIA ADDAMS) walked all over town singing, lighting up, & passing out three-dollar-bills. They were only doing this to make NIXON lose the ITASCA COUNTY vote! & it worked, too! Then close to THANKSGIVING JOHN F. KENNEDY'S wife JACKIE BOUVIER KENNEDY gave birth to her son JOHN F. KENNEDY, JR. Once he was baptized a CATHOLIC in NEW YORK CITY'S ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL they headed for the KENNEDY family winter home in FLORIDA.

Of course, THE ADDAMS FAMILY joined their relatives. Even the O'REILLYS came to FLORIDA that year as guests of THE ADDAMS FAMILY. This gave RADAR a chance to meet a U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT for the 1ST time. Then it was JAN. 20TH, 1961. & then came the famous words "ASK NOT WHAT YOUR COUNTRY CAN DO FOR YOU-ASK WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR COUNTRY"! That evening at the inaugural ball in THE WHITE HOUSE RADAR took the opportunity to play the piano left there by former U.S. PRESIDENT HARRY S. TRUMAN. Soon it was APRIL 1961 & U.S. MARINES & CUBAN refugees prepared to go to a beachhead for an invasion of CUBA in which they were over powered by CASTRO'S men. This was known as the Bay of Pigs. A year later some U.S. astronauts were circling the earth & taking pictures. When developed the NASA boys saw something kinda quirky on the CUBAN countryside. The C.I.A. said the funny things in the photos of CUBA were missiles & the matter was turned over to the PENTAGON. An enlarged photo showed that the writing on the missiles known as CCCP was just another way of saying THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS!!! This alarmed our nation into total shock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! As our ambassador was leaving HAVANA he warned CASTRO that if the missiles were not removed within a certain period of time war would be declared by CONGRESS and CUBA would be bombed off the earth!

Then CASTRO got on the secret hotline to MOSCOW and squealed to KRUSSCHEV. Then a series of meetings were scheduled. Also, U.S. Naval ships were sent to block any Russian freighters from unloading cargo onto CUBAN soil, not mention keeping Soviet ships out of CARIBBEAN waters. All family members of U.S. Naval personnel stationed in CUBA were shipped stateside. Then in the meeting that stale-mated everything EISENHOWER reached across the table and grabbed both CASTRO and KRUSSCHEV by their throats and said "If you even try to aim a missile at AMERICA by launching it from CUBA I'll kill you both of you today the same way I killed GENERAL PATTON in 1945"!!! Naturally, the stenographer struck the mentioning of GENERAL PATTON'S death out of the record. So state department worker ROGER L. HARRIS took KRUSSCHEV'S 2 most top secret advisors MYRHI KLARPE & ILLYA HAAN on a visit to GRAND RAPIDS, MINNESOTA. For several days according to HAAN & KLARPE they were being given a phony tour. They wanted to see a real down-troddened, hard-working, typical AMERICAN family & when selecting someone to visit they opened the ITASCA COUNTY phone book. Then KLARPE replied to HARRIS' idea of sticking a pin into the phone book by saying "We use our own pin". Then at the address known as 0001 CEMETERY LANE MORTICIA ADDAMS let out a scream & her husband GOMEZ said "Is something wrong?" MRS. ADDAMS replied "All of a sudden I feel as if I've been stuck by a pin"! Back at the PRESIDENTIAL SUITE in the AMBASSADOR HOTEL in GRAND RAPIDS HARRIS said "ADDAMS! Oh! No! We can't go there! They're off limits!" Then MR. KLARPE kindly reminded of the deal they made that they'd go wherever the pin stuck at in the phone book & so they went. Upon arrival HARRIS said "Let's not go in. I know of a wonderful place downtown with lots of beautiful dancing girls!" KLARPE bellowed "ILLYA take note. Guide begs us not to go inside for fear that we have real AMERICAN family instead of phony bureaucratic set-up. Also, guide tries to bribe us not go in, but we are strong men. We refuse. & as for dancing girls we go later. 1ST we see typical AMERICAN family".

They were quite surprised when they got inside the place. The moosehead named PIERRE with 1 antler up & 1 antler down. The 2-headed turtle. The swordfish with the left leg of dear COUSIN FAROOK sticking out of the swordfish's mouth! HAAN had no idea the cigar he'd purloined from GOMEZ'S cigar store Indian (& which he was saving for later) was already lit up. Then upon looking at the cigar KLARPE said "We send this back home to laboratory". Then they got to see MORTICIA'S man-eating plants. Afterwards, GOMEZ showed off his LIONEL TRAINS & upon blowing up the bridge on the train layout They thought GOMEZ was getting kinda oddballed when he said it was a beautiful wreck. Then into the train room entered UNCLE FESTER FRUMP from MORTICIA'S side of the family. He then asked GOMEZ to give him a recharging, which got the interests of KLARPE & HAAN when they assumed right off hand that AMERICANS in order to get energy put electricity into their ears just like the vitamins in the human stomach which they'd always thought as having being invented by a Russian. MR. HARRIS tried saying that it was all a joke until UNCLE FESTER replied "Joke, huh? Touch!" & then MR. HARRIS got a rather mild electrical shock! Then UNCLE FESTER said he was going out to do his hobby of chasing automobiles. GOMEZ advised "Stay away from water, UNCLE FESTER". Then GOMEZ told'em about the last time that UNCLE FESTER had been recharged all because he blew out every fuse in the house all because he took a shower". Then during the lil' ol' luncheon they had KLARPE mistook the eye-of-newt for Caviar. HAAN mistook the breast of Alligator for Brisket of Beef. Afterwards, they saw a demonstration of PUGSLEY'S ran gun. This gave MR. HARRIS a nauseating shock. So GOMEZ rang for LURCH CRABWELL the butler to take MR. HARRIS to the playroom for some relaxing. So as he tried telling UNCLE FESTER about the possibility of disrupting international relations between AMERICA & RUSSIA, & of how he almost got zapped by the ray gun! UNCLE FESTER merely replied "That PUGSLEY! Such a showoff! That's how we lost COUSIN CREEP. There he was giggling & laughing. Suddenly, there he wasn't still giggling & laughing. It was kinda eerie! But that was old CREEPY!" Then after seeing GOMEZ & MORTICIA settle into their everyday routine they left the house. Then another meeting was held & this time the Russians backed down & agreed to remove all nuclear weapons from CUBA, including missiles. But CASTRO tried to talk them out of it and failed! Now as they were packing up HARRIS kinda eavesdropped on KLARPE & HAAN & then made a call to GRAND RAPIDS. It was made to the ADDAMS family. MORTICIA felt disappointed that MR. KLARPE & MR. HAAN were returning to MOSCOW, but found it strange that they'd planned to take LURCH with them for scientific purposes. GOMEZ replied "Scientific purposes? The things some people will do just to get a good servant!"

So things seemed a wee bit peaceful, at least for now!