In 1849 thousands of Americans rushed to California in search of gold. Some, however, did not have the greatest sense of direction. One of those with a less keen sense of direction was Onan Bananaberry. While his compatriots were fighting over gold-ridden tracts of land in California, Onan Bananaberry ended up in the small settlement of Snurdly, North Dakota.  Onan found no gold, but what he did find was worth its weight in plastic. Onan Bananaberry located the only reserves of phlogiston on the North American continent. Phlogiston is the amazing substance that has numerous industrial uses, but the most popular use is that it makes mood rings function. Onan was able to make a few dollars from the strange substance that changed colors for what were then unexplained reasons. He also managed to make a living as a subsistence farmer, professional gambler, confidence man, and Maytag repairman. He eventually married and had a son. Thor Bananaberry was a precocious but somewhat amoral child. By the age of eleven, he had swindled most of the local farmers out of their life savings. Onan had no end of trouble keeping the locals from taking Thor to task for his misdeeds in various ways. Onan was a man of little education, but he knew what he wanted. He wanted to get rid of his son, Thor, who was no end of trouble. So he sent Thor off to a college in the East. Thor was a successful college student, if you consider the ability to use bribery and blackmail to avoid the consequence of one's misdeeds successful. Thor's academic ability was beyond question. There was no need to use bribery or blackmail to improve on his academic performance. The bribery and blackmail were only necessary to avoid the consequences of his extracurricular activities. Those activities allowed him to accumulate a small fortune while in college.  Meanwhile, Onan continued to muddle through in Snurdly, North Dakota. His son's notoriety had made his erstwhile career as a confidence man a thing of the past, so Onan was forced to make an honest living the only way he could. He was able to market the phlogiston he could scrape together, but more or less as a curiosity and little else. Thor Bananaberry recognized the value of this natural resource and developed and marketed the phlogiston found by his father, as well as refined the methods of mining and producing it. As we all now know, phlogiston has thousands of industrial uses. In the 1960's, when mood rings became popular, the value of phlogiston grew even greater, and the wealth of the corporation grew. Thor Bananaberry and his bride commuted between the East Coast and North Dakota. They too had a son, famous millionaire playboy O. Julius Bananaberry. Today, Bananaberry Phlogiston continues to prosper under the leadership of its board of directors.  Thor Bananaberry recognized the best and highest use of the skills of his only son, O. Julius Bananaberry, as a figurehead Chairman of the Board, beneficiary of a blind, spendthift trust, and absentee hands-off owner of the majority of the non-voting stock of the corporation. |