Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, October 30, 1995                   TAG: 9510300066
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DON'T CALL ME UNLESS YOU CAN HELP ME

Now they tell us they've found this stuff that lives in the ground and stays alive by eating rocks and drinking water. At least I think that's what it does.

They say this discovery suggests that when we get some people up there on Mars they should dig in the ground to find life.

They say this stuff found along the Columbia River in Washington State might look like life forms found on Earth 2.8 billion years ago - which is not something I'd like to look at if it's all the same with them.

I suspect there will be people out there who won't see the clear and present danger of this new discovery to heartland America.

I am here to tell them that these scientists have started monkeying around with our folklore. Oh, sure. They have the best motives. So did Dr. Frankenstein.

Even English majors know that if there is life on Mars, it's going to be a collection of strange-looking people who are green. Other versions of life on other planets include green Orion slavegirls - a variety of inter-stellar life that I tend to favor.

We have learned to treasure such ideas about life on other planets and I refuse to believe that this slimy bacteria they found represents the kind of folks we'll find on Mars.

This might be all right for people who like movies in which slime or globs or other disgusting things take over the world.

But it won't do for me. You have to wonder what H.G. Wells or Orson Welles might think of such nonsense. Those guys knew that life on Mars was not a bunch of really nauseating bacteria.

You ever see a germ run a space ship? Or land it in New Jersey? Or ask you to take it to your leader?

Listen. If that stuff was up there, the Starship Enterprise would have run into it a long time ago. For that matter, Flash Gordon would have found it long before the common warp engine was developed.

Nope. I think these scientists can get back to me when they find a way to cure the common cold or find a miracle drug that will take you back to a 34 waist in five days while you sleep and eat.

They can call any time. I'm in the book, and anybody who has ever peddled anything from hearing aids to heating ducts on the phone - which is a lot of people - has had my number for years.