PADUTCH-LIFE-L Archives

From: "Vee L. Housman" <>
Subject: 21-Boonastiel Runs for Office
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1998 12:44:25 -0400

BOONASTIEL RUNS FOR OFFICE

Often people ask me why it is that I don't come out and run
for a good fat office--for sheriff or for Congress, or for the 'Sembly,

I can explain. Once I ran for office, but I made up my mind I'd
never try it again. It was years ago during the Spring elections. I
ran for the township poorhouse caretaker. I tried to get the
Republican nomination, but they turned their backs on me and
nominated Bench Hess. Then I tried to get the Democratic
nomination, but they chose Dan Dushter. Then I came out as an
independent and had six hundred tickets printed. While
campaigning, nearly everyone offered me a handshake and said,
"Yaw, Boonastiel, you're my man. I’ll vote for you--you can
depend on it." I paid three dollars for the tickets and it cost me
between five and six dollars on election day. Everything went
alright so far. Then they counted the tickets, and how many do you
think voted for me? Here are the figures:

For Bench Hess, 147; for Dan Dushter, 117; and me,
Boonastiel, 1. And when everything was over, one after another,
the voters told me that if it weren't for his vote I wouldn't have
gotten any vote at all. Old Solaklupper, Billy Bixler, Bifflemoyer,
Honnaboker, Squire Lawbuck, Schnitzler, Kissinger, and all
contended, and each for himself, that he gave me that vote. But
then my patience ended.

I told them right in their faces that I was sure that they were
all damned big liars, since I knew who voted that one ballot--it was
my own vote, and this proved that there were no fewer than three
hundred liars in the township.

* * *

Note: This collection of Boonastiel stories was written by H. A.
Harter in the original Penna-Dutch dialect and were published in the
Keystone Gazette, Bellefonte, PA, between 1894 and 1904. They
were translated and transcribed by Bob James of Alaska and they
are being posted to this PADUTCH-LIFE mailing list with his
permission.

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• 21-Boonastiel Runs for Office by "Vee L. Housman" <>