Episode 21
FADE IN
Our road weary heroes are homeward bound after their adventures in the big city. Relieved at the results of the paternity test on the Jerry Springer TV show, Radish can finally put his past fling with Roxy behind him. DP, still with mixed emotions about his live on-camera colonoscopy during the Oprah show, knows he must now try to forget his newfound friends, the three Brunos.
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their adventures are now just sweet memories
With few responsibilities urging them back home at any great speed, the boys decide to take the return trip at a leisurely pace and absorb some of the distinctive roadside Americana they have so often admired on TV.
share the wonders with DP and Radish
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They decide to bed down at one of several attractive hostelries that have drawn their attention with the creative and ostentatious application of illuminated polymerized substances and unstinting utilization of electrically stimulated rare gases.
so many inviting places to choose from
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The next morning they locate a fashionable roadside restaurant and instantly feel as comfortable as at any of the fine dining establishments where they sometimes treat Jolene and Mona. Crowded with canned goods, hardware items, fishing and hunting gear and clothing, liquor, souvenirs, ice cream novelties, a case of fresh meats, a box of rotten bananas, and assorted bits of small farm equipment, they find the limited but hearty menu just right.
a limited but hearty menu
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Over grits with fries and gravy they turn to their task of finding the perfect route home that will bring their expedition to a satisfying conclusion. Each of them has a few favorites in the remarkable realm of highway attractions and in short order they have their list.
Radish feels he must visit a tee shirt and bumper sticker vendor, the kind that has a wide range of choices such as "As A Matter Of Fact I Do Own The Road", "Plumbers Lay Great Pipe", "I’m With Stupid", "My Country Right Or Wrong" and "Honk If… "
a wide range of choices
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The must-see items on DP’s list are The World’s Largest Non-Stick Frying Pan, the celebrated Trish Stratus billboard across the river from Cincinnati and any really, really tall costumed figurine or anthropomorphic animal, especially giant comical rodents.
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their favorite attractions
During another memorable lunch break Radish finally remembers to call Mona to give her the news about the Spinger show test.
another swell culinary experience on the road
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This time he thinks to try her at her part-time job at the Speedway station instead of ringing the phone behind his own house. She has already heard the news but she has startling news of her own.
the good news has reached Mona at the Speedway
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It seems that her mother has suddenly decided to leave town in her infamous Airstream to become a NASCAR roadie. As a departing confession to Mona she has revealed at last the terrible secret of the so-called Airstream Incident and the origin of the troubles between once inseparable pals Sonny and Red.
the great Richard Petty was always her idol
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Not so very long before either DP or Radish were born, Mona’s mother was engaged to be married to Red, whom DP believes to be his father. One lonely afternoon while Red was spending the many long hours required to establish his used TV business, Mona’s mother reached out to Red’s best friend, and later to become Radish’s father, Sonny for companionship. The two of them discovered a fleeting shared bonding in the privacy of the Airstream.
Red eventually noticed Mona’s mother’s advancing fruitfulness and after a week of elation on his part she confessed that the expected fraternal twin boys were not his. Once he learned the awful truth, Red moved his things out of the Airstream into the shack at his appliance yard, switched his drinking business from Maf’s to the TipTop, dissolved his partnership with Sonny in their jointly owned boat which was promptly renamed and never spoke to either of them again.
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their friendship was shattered after a sweet interlude in the Airstream
Mona’s mother did marry someone else a few years later and Mona was born into that more conventionally recognized but short-lived relationship. Now, years later, she has finally recognized her true passion in the sound and the fury and the gasoline and burnt rubber smells of the NASCAR circuit which she has vowed to follow wherever it takes her, helping out where she can and tolerating the scraps of affection that can only come from such a life.
Her legacy to Mona is the revelation that she has two older half-siblings, previously unknown to her as brothers but acquainted with both.
but - there's still that pesky dream...
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Suddenly the dreams that someone has for years been anonymously submitting to Shvoo for analysis have taken on a new meaning for each of our players.
PROPHETIC MUSIC UP
