We had completely forgotten about Fred Ross’s Jackson Mahaffey until we ran across this great cover. We read the book back when we first got into pulp literature. Our version was a Riverside Press hardback, but we wish we’d had this Bantam mass market paperback. Note the stick at crotch level and the masturbatory motion that would be required to whittle it. Also note the unsuspecting lass and the mixing bowl between her legs. As it turns out, though the book is indeed about a man trying to get his stick in a girl’s bowl, it’s also a very funny square peg/round hole story in a broader sense.

Published in 1951, with the paperback appearing a year later, Jackson Mahaffey is set in Prohibition era North Carolina, and is told in first person by the eponymous Jackson, an orphan who has grown up to be a master liar, consummate hustler, and inveterate horndog. When he catches a glimpse of beautiful Molly Burns, he decides he simply must have her, but in order to do so he must appear to be a respectable gentleman. Just a few of the things poor Jackson gives up to woo the girl: cussing, brawling, smoking, cock fighting, and drinking. Pretty tough makeover for a guy who manages the meanest fighting cock on the Rock River and carries brass knuckles and a pistol in his pocket, but he gives Southern gentility a go anyway, even though the subterfuge cannot possibly last.

When he inevitably falls off the wagon, the only way he can think of to get back into Molly’s good graces (and hopefully into her panties) is to run for state senator. It should be an impossible task for a rootless hick like Jackson, but it turns out that everything he’s learned during his years of double dealing and raising hell suddenly work to his advantage. This is politics, after all, and he’s uniquely equipped with malleable morals and lots of friends in low places. Filled with backwoods humor and Jackson’s particular brand of countrified wisdom, this one is well worth a read.

One of the most enduring mysteries of North America concerns the existence of the apelike creature Bigfoot. As of yet, none of the 985 reported sightings of the primate has produced conclusive evidence of its existence. And a video shot last week in North Carolina by a man named Thomas Byers isn’t going to be reversing that trend anytime soon. Byers claims he and a friend were driving along Highway 226 the evening of 22 March, when: “we both observed a large, upright, brown, furry animal between six and seven feet tall come up out of the field beside the road and then it ran across the road in front of the pick up truck we were in.” Byers claims he grabbed a videocamera and recorded the creature as it fled into the woods. Unfortunately, what he actually recorded was not the creature, but a blur that should have him checking to see whether the auto-focus on his camera is broken. You can see the recording here, if you’re inclined. You’ll notice that the creature doesn’t run—rather, it lopes in a way that doesn’t seem a very effective mode of locomotion for a famously elusive wild animal, but might be appropriate for either a toddler with a load in his pants or a hick wearing a novelty ape suit. We suspect the latter, which means we’re calling this sighting a prank. But we’ll keep hoping. And we know you will too.