You can yank me out of Yorkshire but I still want Yorkshire pudding
You can send me south but I’ll still go bargain hunting
Even though it is that I live in the South
I still have a hint of the northern mouth
Well that’s what the southerners say
But I’m sure to you it doesn’t sound that way
Anyway regardless where I am at
I’m Yorkshire bred and that’s a fact
To present this case to you
Some traits of yours; I have a few
I chose cheese to partner fruitcake
And forever search for savings to make
I always speak what’s on my mind
Which at times southerners think unkind
Though they themselves aren’t so good
When it comes to small talk in moments stood
A stranger is a momentary friend to a northerner
Whilst the southerner stands awkwardly waiting
I know which I would rather be
Let’s just say it has its’ own tea
So I am most pleased to see
That so much of you has rubbed off on me
For you my northern family
Are in my thoughts more than you know
And without you I would not be so

London fashion designer ­Carmina De Young is bringing her first ready-to-wear collection to market with the support of two local fashion mavens, wardrobe and image consultant Susan Jacobs, and business mentor Gloria Dona.

De Young’s Spring/Summer 2016 collection is now available by appointment at the Pop with Purpose studio,

The studio recently held an informal fashion show featuring De Young’s collection.

De Young was born and raised in Puebla, Mexico and discovered her passion as a young child, taking inspiration from her mother’s creative flair for fashion and design.

A graduate of Fanshawe College’s Fashion Design program, De Young’s clothing has been showcased locally and on national platforms, including at Vancouver Fashion Week and at the Caisa Fashion Show at Western University.

De Young started her own label in 2012 and now has a 25-piece ready-to-wear collection ranging from office to casual activities to a night on the town.

Each piece is available in size XS to XL with prices ranging from $79 to $259.

Instead of trying to break into the notoriously-difficult retail market, Dona and Jacobs offered to bring the De Young collection directly to London women through the Pop with Purpose studio.

“We love that we can offer women locally designed and manufactured clothing where they know the designer and know that they are helping make dreams come true,” says Jacobs. “There’s power in that. It’s incredible.”

Topspin scoops award

London-based Topspin Technologies Ltd., has been awarded the Synapse Life Sciences award for innovation in health. Their product, the Topspin360, beat out more than 60 invited applicants for products that demonstrate an innovation in health in Ontario.

This award follows the London-based Techalliance “Techcellence” award the company won earlier this year.

The Topspin360 is the first patented training device that helps improve neck muscles to reduce concussion risk.

Theo Versteegh, who earned his PhD in physiotherapy from Western University in 2016, developed the device after watching the Sidney Crosby hit in 2011 that caused his concussion.

Versteegh found that many sports concussions are the result of the whiplash effect.

The Topspin can be used in all sports, especially those at high risk for concussion, and also in military applications.

Northerner joins Fortune

David Ramsay, a former cabinet minister in the government of the Northwest Territories, has joined the board of directors of London-based Fortune Minerals .

Ramsay has more than 20 years of elected public office experience in the Northwest Territories. His cabinet portfolios included industry, justice, transportation and public utilities.

Fortune is working with three levels of government on infrastructure projects important to the success of the company’s NICO gold-cobalt-bismuth-copper project in the Northwest Territories.

One project is a 94-kilometre all-season highway to the community of Whati, northwest of Yellowknife.

The road is supported by the Tlicho Government, a Dene First nation and would reduce the cost of living and improve the quality of life in the outlying Tlicho communities and promote economic activity. Fortune has already received environmental assessment approval to build a spur road from Whati to the NICO mine.

Delta hosts bridal show

The London Wedding Professionals will hold their second Bridal Showcase at the Delta London Armouries on April 30.

The event offers a smaller, more intimate experience for brides to meet local wedding industry experts, ask questions, and get inspired for their wedding day.

The show features products and services from professionals including gowns, photography, florists, venues, DJs, hair and makeup and wedding planners.

The showcase also puts a focus on inspiring brides with Vignettes throughout the space showcasing different themes or colour palettes.

The show runs from 11 a.m-3 p.m. and admission is free.

Student makes his pitch

Sean Cornelius from St. André Bessette Catholic secondary school in London is one of 20 teenage entrepreneurs heading to Toronto May 8–10 to compete in this year’s edition of the Young Entrepreneurs, Make Your Pitch competition

Selected from the 204 two-minute video pitches entered, Cornelius earned the right to participate in a Dragon’s Den-style pitch contest at Discovery, Ontario Centres of Excellence’s annual innovation-to-commercialization conference, to be held on May 9 at Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

Hamilton Road looks ahead

Business people in the Hamilton Road will hold an information meeting Wednesday about the creation of the Community Improvement Plan that could lead to the creation of the Hamilton Road Business Improvement Area. The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. at the BMO Sports Centre on Rectory St. and guest speakers include Mayor Matt Brown and MPP Teresa Armstrong.Read more at:www.marieaustralia.com/****-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/vintage-formal-dresses

I am an exoskeleton
Falling to pieces
Half alive yet entirely dead
Crumbling and translucent
Delicate, and drifts, fluttering
With a single breath from someone
Nearby
I could be crushed or mangled
By a strike of the hand or a flick of a finger
But because I am considered beautiful and strange
I am kept preserved
The world revolves around beauty and
Oddities and I become one of these
Studied anomalies, a curiosity, merely
Because I am not like them
I am Oriental
And Occidental
I am a Southerner
And a Northerner
I am malnourished
Yet well fed
I am thin and short
But my stature belies my power
I am a geek, nerd, braniac, dork, and overachiever
But remain a stupid, ignorant, procrastinator
I am certainly an curio; a
Living
Breathing
Walking
Oxymoron

I reference this not as the flower just of nature but in this case for the fact it is our anniversary this is an
Oleander of my heart yes the heart is a house all of my feelings and emotions are housed there the
Flower I choose to write about is my sister my wife’s sister Liz it’s kind of appropriate since she was the
Only one in our wedding party as we were married before a judge I guess she was a witness a witness to
The crime as it were to describe her I can use Roy Orbison’s song pretty woman a blonde cutie with
Southern roots in Tennessee now she is a near Chicago northerner take southern nights and northern
Bright lights infuse them with grace and charm you have begun to see the Oleander that lies beyond my
Door yard along my walk and borders the yard of my heart the glistening in the spring rain if you get real
Still you can hear tiny sounds of laughter among the joy filled faces the scented bloom fills my living
Room where ever I am eye catching satisfying delightful spring and summer what a wonder the spilling
Forth of fruitful life she matches the rose in pose an attitude of significance tinged with just enough
Brashness to hold your attention until you become beholden to the inner life that shows character
Wisdom authority a driven wind that lays down in the most beautiful fashion only to arise and make the
Trees sing the glass to shake in the most enjoyable way all in unison they dance the eye stormed by this
Profusion of elegance and color truly a best friend to the wayward wind carried near and far secrets rest
Within the heart that the Oleander knows and claims in darkness unflappable a sweet ghostliness an
Arbor found sweetly remembered but never forgotten unspoiled withstanding the day’s heat showing
Resilience a buoyancy of sprit uncommon the thrill that runs with deep rootedness when the sharp wind
Does blow she through power of will brings calm a flourish of maturity so lovely that is outstanding in all
these gifts she provides the greatest is she calls me friend thanks sis

Perspective is everything darling.

Anything you put work into you begin to hate and anything you put money into you love, so its a constant cycle.

I was a mad independent individual and you broke me down to be a weak dependent among other people.

I loved feeling something new.

The stories I used to respect and look up to were becoming my own, even if they weren't much.

Always put your well being, career, and dreams before any person or thing. Your life comes first and that perfect kind of love comes after.

I hate feeling helpless more than anything in this world. Even in the small moments when your feet dangle while you're riding passenger with a person you don't know very well and you're having to laugh at every awkward topic the driver brings up trying to start a conversation.  'It's polite' is what you've been taught but whatever happened to a deep conversation right off the bat?  Whatever happened to meaning and opinion and stories and not just a casual small talk everywhere you go? I want to be told something that will make me remember you. Tell me about the time you got so drunk you ended up sleeping alone in a field and the stars were the only thing that mattered at that moment, there weren't any other issues to cloud your mind and your bottle of bourbon made the best companion. How you had this unexplainable feeling of living in the moment, like nothing else could ruin your peace.  I don't want to hear who won the most recent game, I don't want to hear about the current event taking over the news channels. I want a story.

Some friendships come together quickly and you wonder how you hadn't known this person earlier. They meet up and get all intertwined with each-other and go crashing like a comet, burst into the ground and destroy everything in sight. Some are gradual friendships, the two can spend time apart but still grow together over time. I call these perennial friendships because they will return every year.

My dad was always a big hairy question mark sitting on the couch. He watched brave-heart, liked old westerns and cheesecake, was an Elvis Presley fan and liked cars. Fast old cars. He loved God and hated Obama and his views were oh-so traditional that sometimes you wished you knew why. You wished you knew his whole story but he kept everything private. That's all I know about him and I grew up in the same house as him. 20 years together and that's all I could tell you. There was apparently a lot in his past and he didn't talk much. When we went out to eat we could have a full meal in silence and it wouldn't feel awkward at all. I was told I took after him in a lot of ways and one of them being that I was an extreme introvert. I called into a radio show when I was 8 on fathers day and they asked what celebrity my dad reminded me of, "John Wayne" I replied. The host sounded surprised to hear an older actor, "and why is that?" he asked. I gasped for some more breath because I was so excited I would hear my voice on the radio, "because, he always says, "thatll be the day"". There was an eruption of laughter on the radio and when they played it I blared the stereo so my dad could hear.

As I got older I sort of hated and loved when I would see patters in personality occur between my mother and I. I used to make fun of her laugh and her hair by calling them witchy, but then I noticed once I was a little older that I had both of those things and that I loved this description at the time. The sound and tone of her voice was another, I made fun of her for being a northerner but never pronouncing a G at the end of her words; "Goin, movin, talking, we'll see without pronouncing the break, so it sounded like well. I would catch myself pronouncing those words in the exact same tone and I'd say to myself *******.

Money is a trap as much as it is a tool of freedom. With money you can do whatever you want as long as you continue to make it, and making money can become a trap within itself. Without the need to make money constantly you can have the freedom to do whatever you like but without that money you are limited with what you can do with that time. So if time itself doesn't slap a pair of cuffs on your hands, money will.

I don't like playing games I like winning them.

I'm talking about defining our own personal generation, if we were to define our generation as a general whole it would be dubstep, iphones, social media, and street-culture wear. But we are an almost underground type of generation, alternative I guess. When the generics of our generation are going to sleep we are rising, with our Acapulco, our records, our high life tall boys, and our ink. The wolves come out at night.

I want to play piano on your black flag tattoo. I want to sit around the fire and watch you howl at the moon. I want to lay my head upon your chest and hear your heartbeat pace I want to sit back in your bed and watch the sun illuminate the place.  

His favorite song was Tom Sawyer by Rush but he reminded me more of a HuckleBerry Finn. Rolled pant legs, straw hat, and barefeet everywhere he went, always on the go, always yelling and dancing and even the way he smoked a cigarette was attractive to me and only me. He had a James Franco look about him when he was cheesing. It was those smile lines around the eyes, it killed me. He ruined the look with a head full of hair he was growing.

Rushing anything is never a good thing, good things take patience.

in exercising the rights of what most men want.
joy, independence and a way to make a living.
to be strong and to be able to hold on whenever
the northern winds decide to blow.

the northern wind blows and you know how cold
it can be at times. we need the shelter for protection.
a wall to hide behind when everything else that's pushing
us around seems to give away but not this wall.

it's tough and it has a job to do and that is to break the man
of weakness but the wall would rather you take it on because
it's designed to build character in all men who's brave enough
to fall into place at the right time and your protection will be granted.

blow wind blow, give it all you've got because here I stand as a man who has faced the tidal waves of the coldest seas yet I refuse to let it
take me down.

a good man who's down on his luck you can best believe that when that old northerner starts to blow again, you can look forward to meet another and greater challenge.

The morning air freezes in my lungs,
My chest tightens
My hands are too weak
To hold the panic down,
It rises up from the ground
And wraps itself around my ribcage

The cold has me exhausted
And it's only November

I need to stay focused now

More pain is coming

I take the frost on my windsheild
Like a glaring warning:

"Breathe now.
This is the calm
Before the storm"

I feel like the mountains are laughing,
They see what's coming before it
Reaches us
And they know how ill prepared
We'll always be

They think it's pretty funny,
The heats up all the way
But it's only circulating
Bitter air
In a tauntingly rhythmic
Motion

I am staring into blank space,
Snow blind
And shaking

You are where the pavement is warm
All year long,
And no one ever asks
You to feel their blue hand
On your pale cheek bone
So how do you know what
Sorrow tastes like?

Yeah, I've cried in the warm sun
But it's a unique depression
When it feels exactly like
the whole coast is crying with you

I let every call go to voicemail,
I need more bad news like
A hole in the throat

This is when the overdoses
Start to pile up

My friends are broken
I'm glad I never got there

The cigarette in my hand
Is shivering
While I hold it out
Into the elements,
Unprotected
It fights the stillness,
The thickness,
The grayness
Of Almost-Winter
With its small bit
Of raging fire
But it stands no chance
And as soon as the center
Gets damp,
It starts to taste like cancer
So I drop it over ice...
Watch it try to follow my car,
Watch it fail
And extinguish
Into the ground

That reminds me
I should really call you back
But I'm so tired baby

And sometimes
Maintaining anything
Feels pretty pointless

The earth inhales,
Kinda wheezes,
It sounds too much
like the last three gasps
Of a dying man

Do you know what it's like
To be as tired as the day you're in?

Days are never tired in the south

You'll never know darkness like a northerner

We can smell the bruises forming

Seven Foot Sickle Bar Mower

Lifeless on a patch of Wear farm swallowed
up by time marked in jimson and honey vine
milkweed to the eyes of a city boy, worse
a northerner, shoeless, shirtless, tanned but

for pale omegas of a low tide flat top wreathing my ears
white shading to blue at the temples, prayerful snakes
sleep late coiled around clutches of my nightmares.  

Oil can like the oil can that lubricated the Tin Man
brandished jail break file in the other hand
grandpa circled the scorpion striking at the lethal tail
silvering edges of serrated teeth, eyes shadowed

by the brim of his pith helmet, liquoring bushings
gone dry in the heat while I sat watching
from the open palm of the Ford NAA Jubilee tractor seat

bearing witness to the honing of blades against high grass
bearding the branch, touching but not touching
my father’s face swimming naked in the quarry
pond of grandpa in profile, angled low above

the linkage mechanism, steel on steel, shadow
against light, my hand rolling fine red clay dust
into thin snakes against my smooth cheek.

To drown is to feel more bleakly alive
Than the gold studded bees in a sapphire hive.

To choke is to breathe in the Northerner's wind
that exhumed itself from the smile he grinned.

To burn is to feel the passions he hides
that tear up his heart and corrupt his insides.

And to live is to feel like you're finally dead
Because life is not life, when it gets to your head.

We get our seniority
but
it's like bungalow priority,
you have to wait your turn.

I'd burn the flamin' lot of them
build houses fit for working men.

We are down there at the bottom of
the list
and they wonder why we're so *******

I think they're getting off
on poverty
it's
***** for high society.

I've seen 'em come and watched them go
it makes no odds to me,
I'm a poor old knackered Northerner
I don't get seniority
just a kick in the ***** from them
in the halls and the mansions on top
of the hills
but I thank my lucky stars
for the National Health and
its
wealth of pills that help me to
forget.

Is it so terribly rude of me
To say I couldn’t care
About this royal wedding *******
That’s hanging in the air

The fancy hats and celebrity suits
That flock round the regal brood
Spouting posh words and fancy nothingness
Really put me off my food

Not content with stealing the limelight
Theyve even wangled the sun
Scarcely a drink seen in the palace grounds though
Do they really call that fun

Here’s to Harry and Miss Markel
But sadly I won’t be sharing your day
Cause I’m a gritty moaning northerner
With far to much to say

Oh there is bit of excitement
Elton johns just dropped a *** of money
And a pigeon has flew down and nicked it
Now that is really quite funny

When I was younger, one of my co-workers
was an older lady, or so she seemed to me.
She was just always there,
a woman who ate at her desk from a clear plastic container--
some sort of salad.
She was just an ample,
stationary emplacement
as permanent as the pyramids.

I thought of her then as something akin
to those funky American clunker cars from the fifties
still rumbling around Havana,
something you'd smile at
but not feel had anything to do with you.
She wore a cross that rested on her *****,
like the ones that dangle from the mirrors of Cuban taxis.

She stopped coming to work, though, and someone said she was ill.
"Pancreatic cancer" they told me, sotto voce.
I knew, as a northerner, that weather can change in an instant.
What I hadn't known is that I am made of weather
blood and bone and breath
breezing through me every second of every day.

I went to see her with some other women from work.
There, in the hospice, she wasn't ample anymore,
just a paper doll watching episodes on tv through a narcotic blizzard.
British adventurers were removing treasures from the tombs
in grainy archive footage
as the knot inside her belly grew and her hand grabbed at nothing.
"Morphine hallucinations," someone whispered.

After she died I took one of her cats, a calico I had for several years.
I still think of that day at the hospice, though
and how the clown-devil can sit silently at one's side any time,
like a taxi at the curb, bags already arranged in the trunk.

He will watch whatever you want to watch,
at that wind-down hour.
He never complains, talks over the narrator, or changes the channel,
but though we protest that we were only in the middle,
we want to see how it ends
he will click it to black, pull into traffic, and say,
"Nada es para siempre, ni siquiera sufrimiento."

The Nordic Tribe

There is a great movement of Scandinavians
going to the South of Europe, they have their church,
cafes and shops selling the type of food sold in
the North. The Spaniards, say, accept and ignore them
because these strange northerners came here for
the sun and not take anyone’s work.
You can call the economic refugees, it is cheaper here
and that also keeps the heating bill low.
The people of the North dislike refugees coming to their
country a place to live and they protest loudly.
One day, when the economy in the south is par with
the Nordic one, the will leave, or seek other shores
where they can live as kings among the poor;
the Northerner’s are racists by nature but do follow
the money and its fluctuations and they have the ability to
see the local people where they have temporarily
sought shelter, as foreigners.

With the loss of his two greatest rebel heroes,
the evil Absolute enlists the enigmatic Winter
Blonde to find a champion to replace Captain
Confederacy, l'il Dixie & White Lightnin'...

With the aid of her faithful slave Mamma
Jamma, Winter Blonde raises the spirit
of L'il Dixie using the slave's mysterious
art of ancient African Hoodoo!  

Brought to Eerie afterlife, the disembodied
ghost hovers above them, Dixie's spirit flickering
in the shadow of the large fireplace's flames...

At the astonishing sight, Winter Blonde faints,
leaving Jamma alone with the ghost... the spirit
growing stronger as the old slave continues her
jumbled chant of magical African incantations...

Until at last, Mamma Jamma is able to direct
the wild spirit into the suit of 16th century
steel armor standing in the parlor, bringing
the shining metal figure to horrific undead life...
medieval weapons & all!!!

The Confederate Revengers
effectively destroyed; the evil
mastermind known only as
the Absolute devises a plot to
expose the Union spy in their
midst, hoping to prove the
pesky Northerner's undoing...

Summoning Winter Blonde,
Mamma Jamma, the Human
Locomotive & Moonshine to
a secret meeting in the bare
Kave of the ****, the Absolute
spells out his plan to stop the
Union from expanding the
railroad still further west...

"The red man will stand behind
us! But first we must show them
that we can stop the ******
Yankees in their tracks...literally!"

Rechristened The Confederate Crusaders,
the diabolical plot is swiftly set in motion...

Bribing the duplicitous Indian Squaw
White Dove with ample wampum,
Medusa is able to discover the evil plan...

The hyperactive Human Locomotive,
outracing the Iron Horse headed out
to the newly opened western frontier;
as the shining new engine steams
through Indian country, a surprise
attack by a horse-mounted wild Indians
emerges from the surrounding hills...

Armed with long Winchester rifles &
bows & arrows, soon the steaming
locomotive is under assault by the deadly
red savages!!! Medusa, disguised as a
genteel Southern Belle, going to the
caboose she quickly loosens her hoops
& pantaloons to the shock of the car's
frightened passengers & leaps from the
train's railing onto the tracks as the terrified
stoker feeds the belching furnace to speed
through the violent Indian assault...

Seeing herself hopelessly outnumbered,
Medusa has no recourse but to use the
Smaragdine Signet Ring bestowed to the
Gorgon Queen by Hermes Trismesgistus
himself to summon her compatriots
to help her defeat the onrushing red horde!
With the cry of, "3Ms!" at once appears
three of the mightiest warriors drawn from
the Classical Golden Age...

Mithra, ancient mysterious hero who can
single-handedly defeat a herd of charging
bulls with his super hard club that can shatter
every bone with a single blow!!!

Minerva...undefeated warrior goddess
& superlative archer!!!

& of course, the superhuman & blood-
thirsty Minotaur, freed from his labyrinthine
prison!!!

The vintage heroes making short work of
the startled red men...all the while being
watched from the hills by the cowardly
Indian Running Bear...who then sees
coming in a cloud of raised dust the swift
Human Locomotive racing to the Indians'
rescue!!!

Horses thrown through the air by bulging,
muscled arms & terrified Indians dropping
weapons & dashing off on foot... the Human
Locomotive plows through the scattering
red skins to charge the heroes directly!!!

His brawny legs moving too quickly to stop,
the Locomotive finds his face crumpled into
the Minotaur's stone-hard fist...

But also on board the train are Winter Blonde
in her everyday guise of a prim schoolmarm
along with her faithful slave Mamma Jamma...
Mamma mumbling the jumbled incantation
to raise the several spirits of dead Indians, but
as well the animated armored suit now dubbed
The White Knight!!!

Faced with an angry army of the undead,
the 3M's one goal is to ensure the train's safe
passage through the blood-haunted territory...

Realizing Mithra is fighting an empty steel
shell, his deft blows denting but not stopping
the brutish metal monster... until using her
ring of enchanted Emerald, Captain Medusa
succeeds in blasting a hole through the thing's
chest plate, the beast shuddering but unharmed
& tossing her aside to face the next oncoming
hero, the Mighty Mithra who easily smacks the
flailing arms right off the hoodoo spawned hellion...
but the detached steel fists continue to grip at
the Greek hero's bare muscled limbs...

Seeing the Arcadian champion gripped from
all sides, Minotaur & Minerva run to his aid...

Meanwhile, seeing the small bare footprints
appearing in the desert sand making their way
away from the stalled locomotive, its coal
supply exhausted by the feverish stoking of
the frightened train's crew...

Seeing no one, Medusa wondered how to best
an invisible foe until striking upon the idea
of raising a tornado of dust better to view the
figure's outline but when the ground is whipped
up into a whirling cyclone that rises into the air
not only is the female Confederate revealed to be
starkers but the spinning dust comes into contact
with low overhanging clouds -- the sky darkening
only to burst into a torrential desert rainstorm...

The Human Locomotive finding his feet mired
in mud, the Iron Horse remaining perched on a
high plateau beyond the reach of the amazing
runner's tired & weakened lower limbs...

Tuckered & unable to run uphill, the crestfallen
Southern hero slows to a brisk walk while the rain
poured in buckets... soon the unwieldy metal monster
begins to rust in place & become immobile, Mithra
is able to free himself from the ghostly armor's
fingers; the stiff suit rigid and unmoving as a statue...

The Winter Blonde standing wet & naked could do
nothing to shield her body as the ***** rain fell
all around... seeing her reddened embarrassment,
Mamma Jamma leaping from the train ran to cover
her mistress with a thin shawl...

Minerva taking up a red man's fallen bow & a handful
of arrows takes precise aim pierces the evil slave through;
Mamma Jamma collapsing at her naked mistress' feet...

The dead red spirits quenched, return with fading
howls to the red dirt... Winter Blonde taken into
Union custody, her body tarred so that she can no
longer deceive anyone with her absent appearance!!!

The man who wrote Dixie
Was a Northerner
From Ohio
Horrified to discover
Southern troops sang it in the Civil War

It was also a favorite of Abraham Lincoln's
Who requested it to be played
When Lee surrendered
At Appomattox
A gesture of good will

Mary Todd Lincoln
Elizabeth Shaw
Xanthippe
Kiss me, Kate

Oh I wish I was
In the Land of Cotton
Old times there
Are not forgotten

     But I'm gonna have to wait.

The Confederate Revengers
effectively destroyed; the evil
mastermind known only as
the Absolute devises a plot to
expose the Union spy in their
midst, hoping to prove the
pesky Northerner's undoing...

Summoning Winter Blonde,
Mamma Jamma, the Human
Locomotive & Moonshine to
a secret meeting in the Kave
of the ****, the Absolute spells
out his plan to stop the Union
from expanding via railroad
still further west...

"The red man will stand behind
us! But first we must show them
that we can stop the ******
Yankees in their tracks...literally!"

Rechristened The Confederate Crusaders,
the diabolical plot is swiftly set in motion...