The
Chronicle of the Tennessee Valley Authority
Michael
C. Paul
These are the narratives of the
bygone years regarding the origin of the Authority
which spread across the length and breadth
of the Valley of The Tennessee and came to touch the grazing lands of the tribes of the
Kentuckians, the Tennesseeans, the Georgians, the Alabamans, and the
Virginians, peoples whose lands were watered by this River and who dwelt in the
valley since time memorial; also does it regard the great King Franklin the
Second, who is called the Great, and from what source the Tennessee Valley Authority had
its beginnings.
Let us accordingly begin the narrative. In the first year after the thirty sixth Gathering of the
Electors, the one hundred and fifty seventh year after the Great Founding,
which is so called because it was truly great and it was a founding, the one
hundred and forty fourth year after the Magnificent Ratification (that is, of
the coming of the Constitution into force throughout the thirteen Realms), the
sixty seventh year after the end of the Time of Troubles, when the Southern
Princes had rebelled and with great effort, Great King Abraham the Emancipator,
and Prince Ulysses, who was later King in his own right, (and whom the Devil
caused to be slandered when it was said he was much fond of drink and was a
drunkard) put down the Revolt of the Southern Princes, that is of Jefferson of
the House of Davis, Robert, Earl of Lee, and Prince Thomas, called the
Stonewall, and others, and in the third year of the Great Evil or Pestilence of
the Black Tuesday (which was nigh as fearful as the Black Death to some), the mighty Prince Delano, (for he was then
but a prince) son of James, Lord of Hyde Park and voevoda of the stronghold of
Albany, defeated King Herbert, son of Jesse the blacksmith, Lord of West
Branch, in a great battle in which Delano's army of 22, 821,857 defeated
Herbert's forces of 15,761,841, give or take a few. Among Delano's forces stood 472 of the Great Electors, and with
Herbert stood but 59.
King Herbert, the Merciful and Gracious, it is recalled, had fed
and clothed the Europeans after the Great War and in three years saved perhaps
200 million souls, though chroniclers such as myself would exaggerate this
figure and say it was more like a billion souls, not counting women and
children. He saved the Belgians and
the Poles, and even the Russians and Ukrainians, and many others too numerous
to count here. But the Great Evil or
Pestilence of the Black Tuesday, which had been sent from the Devil to afflict
us, overtook the whole land in the first year of his reign and spread across
all the earth, and Herbert reigned but four years, and was overthrown because
the Electors and the people believed that he had brought about the Great Evil
through sorcery or the divining of the entrails of chickens, or heating up the
pelvic bones of sheep to extreme temperatures and pouring cold water on them so
they cracked, and then reading what was said by the cracks, or by other such
devilish undertakings. They called the cities built during his reign
"Hoovervilles," for he was of the House and lineage of Hoover, though
the learned know that he did not cause or command that these cities be built
but that they sprung up like mushrooms or snails after a rain, as if by their
own accord. Likewise the learned know
that Good King Herbert was not the bringer of the Great Evil.
The battle, in which Herbert - called "the Great
Engineer" and "the Great Humanitarian" - was deposed, took place
during the seventy second Great Gathering of the Legislators, who met for two
years at a time, while Kennesaw Mountain Landis was the Serene and Most Eminent
Commissioner of Baseball, Howard Hughes was president of Hughes Aircraft, and
when Prince Huey was voevoda in Baton Rogue which we call Red Stick even unto
this day. Herbert fled the battle with
his entire retinue and made his way to the stronghold in Palo Alto, by the sea.
He later deposited his archives at the great university at Palo Alto and
patronized that university, for he loved knowledge and the arts and higher
culture. He served valiantly later
Kings, advising them with wisdom, and a square was named after him in the
Capital of the Poles, not far from the statue of Copernicus, who found that the
earth, much to our egocentric chagrin, was not, truly, the center of the
universe. Herbert Jesseson was not
forgotten by those who cherished greatness, though many only remember the
slander that he brought about the Great Evil and did nothing to stop it. And he lived past his ninetieth year, and he
died. And they took him and buried him
in West Branch, where he had first seen the light of day and he lies there to
this day.
Thus, In the Year 1932 after the great battle,
the Electors and the people said one to the other: "Let us call Prince Delano,
son of James, from his place in Hyde Park, to rule over us, for he is a goodly
man and will save us from this Great Evil which the Devil has sent to afflict
us, or which, perhaps, God has made as a punishment against us," for they
were much afraid of it. But some
objected (and these are the 59 Electors who had stood with Herbert Jesseson)
and to this day they are called "Republicans" while Delano's men have
been called "Democrats" just as some men are called
"Tories" and others "Labor" and others "Liberal
Democrats" and still others "Pinko-Commies." And they fought on elephants against
Delano's men, who fought on wild donkeys, and Delano's army prevailed.
In the Year 1933 came Delano to reign in the city of Washington and he took the
name of Franklin and was Franklin the Second, for there had been another
Franklin before him, though he was of the Dynasty of Pierce and not of the
House of Roosevelt, as Franklin the Second was. And Franklin the Second came before the Great Electors and
Elders, the Legislators and the Judges, and all the people, and he took an Oath
to serve, defend, and protect their rights that had been enumerated in the
Great Constitution. Then he said boldly unto them that they had nothing to fear
but fear itself, and they marveled at his words and were afraid no more. Thus they made him King over the
forty-eight realms of the land, and all the tribes therein paid tribute to him.
And he lit many fires, and chatted with his subjects by these fires, so that
they knew him and he was like a father unto them and so, when the time came,
they wept at his passing as a son weeps at his fathers passing.
And in that same year, that is, the year seven thousand four
hundred and forty one from the Creation of the World by the Greek Reckoning,
the year one thousand three hundred and one after the Hegira, which is the
journey of Mohammad from Mecca to Medina, the year one thousand nine hundred
and thirty three from the Birth of Christ in Bethlehem of Judea, the thirtieth
year since the flight of the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk, the third year
after the Fourteenth Laborious Counting of the People after the Magnificent
Ratification, in the year of the rooster, and in the first year of his reign,
while J. Edgar was Procurator in the District of Columbia and Franklin the
Second was but one and fifty years of age,
he established, with the help of the Great Gathering of the Legislators
a great Authority in the Valley of the Tennessee, which came to be known as the
Tennessee Valley Authority, for he was a
straightforward man and called things what they were. Since this was an authority in the Tennessee, it came to be called such.
The Great Act or Charter, which the Legislators passed and which led to
the establishment of the Authority, was duly called the Tennessee Valley Authority Act
at its promulgation. And the authority
built many dams and they came to be called the Nine Great Dams, though there
were lesser dams as well.
The first great one was the Norris Dam on the Clinch River, and
it was built in the third year of his reign, before the Great Electors met
again and before he tried to undertake the Great Packing O' the Courts which
angered many of the elders and the people.
Some say the dam was named for Chuck Norris, the Great Ass-kicker, but
the learned know that this is not true, for he was not yet alive. The size of the Norris Dam on the Clinch
River was very large, much larger than a breadbox and even bigger than a
giraffe. If you laid hotdogs end to end along the base of it, you'd waste a lot
of hotdogs and most likely the place would be crawling with ants, for the dam
numbered many cubits in length and width, though I don't know the exact number
but could probably look it up for you if you check with me later.
The Nine Great Dams were built in eight years, being completed in
the eleventh year of Franklin the Second's reign, during the second Great
War. And the dams brought enlightenment
to the people, or at least they brought them light, and they made great lakes
behind them, and they controlled the dreadful and furious floods that had once
ravaged the Valley of the Tennessee.
The people dwelt in peace in the shadow of the dams; dams which, as I've
said were very large and couldn't fit in you backyard really. And though they lived in peace, some of the
people were, as a sainted monk once said, "married within prohibited
degrees of consanguinity," which is to say that they were married to their
first cousins (and some say they even were married to their sisters) for it was
the custom in those lands to do such things.
And when Franklin the Second came into the Valley of the
Tennessee to chat with his people by the big fires and to call up the levies of
the armies of his Democratic princes who fought against the Republican princes
every two years, and to smile a lot and smoke cigarettes with those foppish
black filters, he looked upon what had
been built at his command and he marveled and called out "Solomon, I have
outdone you!" which was obvious,
because Solomon is not known to have built dams, only palaces, and stables ,and
the Great Temple. It was thought that
he was copying from the Eastern Roman Emperor, Justinian, who built a great
cathedral in Constantinople, exclaiming that he had outdone even Solomon, but
only a historian would know such things and I am but a simple chronicler.
In the Year 1945 - the twelfth year of
his reign, Franklin went with his retinue to the Crimea and there, with great
treachery, the Emperor Iosif, whom it is said, was advised by the Devil
himself, and who had reigned seventeen years with great guile and cunning, fell
on Franklin the Second and defeated him at Yalta, and Prince Winston was with
him, and Franklin left the field of battle grievously wounded and went back to
the Kingdom of the Forty Eight Realms and told the Great Legislators what had
taken place. He then withdrew to the
castle of Warm Springs and was grievously ill, suffering from a head wound.
And Franklin the Second reigned twelve years and he died. The people wept openly in the streets, like
children, and were inconsolable when his retainers carried his coffin
past. And they said to themselves
"What shall we do now, for the Great King has passed and we are left
orphans?" For none had ruled
longer than Franklin the Second, and many felt as if they'd known no other
King. And Prince Harry came to rule in
his stead and he ruled as King nigh eight years and he ruled well, though when
he took the throne he was much afraid and told his retinue that he thought that
the sun and the moon and the stars had fallen from the sky onto him, and he
asked them to pray for him. And they
prayed for him and he grew in courage, and he nationalized the steel mills,
though the Nine Wise Judges anathematized him and he gave the mills back and
stood in their good graces once again.
In the Year 1948 - though some say it was
sooner, King Harry led a great army into battle against the Evil Empire. And the battles waged for nigh fifty years
and almost twenty after Harry slept with his ancestors in the bosom of the earth. But the Kings that came after him ruled
well, or at least OK, (except for King Milhous, who fled from the throne in
disgraceful fashion,) and they prevailed over the Evil Empire and it rotted out
from within and fell hard, like a one-legged man at an Ass-Kicking Contest, and
the Kings which followed Franklin the Second kept peace and authority within
the Kingdom of the Forty Eight Realms, and subdued the tribes in the lands of
Alaska and Hawaii and added their realms to the other forty eight realms so
that there were by reckoning Fifty Realms.
And most importantly, they maintained the great Authority in the Valley
of the Tennessee. They took the
strongholds of all, and slew Kings and Princes, particularly in Guatemala and
Iran in 1954, Chile in 1974 and some in Africa, though they denied it. And the Earth was quiet before them, except
for King Fidel the Havanan, who raised a lot of hell and gave long speeches,
and also the Princes Qaddafi of Bengazi and Asad the Asadian, and Hussein the Husseinite, who is often
confused with Hussein of the Hashemite Dynasty, which ruled in Amman, and
others whose names are known only by those who read the papers and don't really
have lives.
And this chronicle is compiled in the Monastery of St. Michael the
Archangel, by the Church of St. Michael with the Golden Tower in the reign of
King William the Lewd and Lecherous, and Liberal, by Michael, a monk, in the
Year 1998. May whoever reads it say a
prayer for me.