Ivan cut off another chunk of bear shank,

Ivan cut off another chunk of bear shank, refilled his mug of Kvass & returned to the Smoked Eels single table. Yuri had spiked the Kvass with vodka, & their little roulette game

ended when the Tavern went dead quiet. Ivan's Oar man closed his slaw jaw for him. It was Hagar the Horrible and he was

shouting someone stole his parking space. Turned out Bjorg Oleg had won $5 in a scratch card, celebrated with wine & carousing, passed out in his longboat & sailed into a ditch.

With all the alcohol fumes it didn't take much more than a spark to set the longboat ablaze. The longboat and Oleg had a Viking funeral. The gods in Asgard would be pleased

if they could ever get their lazy butts out of God-bed. But noooooo! So Oleg was lost in the annals of Viking history -- until his great great great great great great great great

Grandfather came back from the dead four years later on June 1, 2016. "Hiya!", he said as he walked into the kitchen to join me. He liked Lapsang Souchong tea and carried tea bags.

As soon as my sister lost her astonishment over "Grandpa, returned from the grave..?" She jumped up to put the kettle on. We were all talking at once. "Pawpa, how did you manage to

raise from the grave? (and please take off your boots you're tracking mud.) Grandpa stumbled to the table and scrambled for the whiskey. "Tain't dead. Just preserved."

Grandma thumped Grandpa on the head as he slugged back the corn squeezings and said,"Taint preserved, just pickled!" and the two of them laughed like rusty pullies. The zombie was

nonplussed by this turn of events and sat between Grandma and Grandpa, craving brains but too enervated to pursue them. They roused him and set him off to the damn witty neighbors.