Where in the durn-tootin’ heck is Ort? Y’all done got too fancy and professional to include his ramblings anymore? Or maybe Ort has moved on, started voting Republican and holds himself out to be too good to write for a rag like Flagpole anymore? Whichever one it is, dagnabbit, I miss Ort.

See if you can’t get one of the night janitors at the library to slip him a note saying “come home, all is forgiven,” or make a payment on his tab at Copper Creek or something. Anything to get Ort started banging on his keyboard again.

Athens ain’t Athens without Ort. It ain’t no different than Swords or Philomath or Mosquito Crossing without his take on things. Why, the Bank of Siloam would still be lending out cottonseed money if that community would have been favored with a writer like Ort. Don’t let it happen here. Don’t let us all become zombies!

J. Flester Philpot

Temperance Bell