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From: bls@Eng.Sun.COM (Brian Scearce)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Snopes
Date: 1 Feb 1995 17:16:16 GMT

As most alt.folklore.urban readers know, "snopes" is actually the pen name of David Mikkelson. What most people don't know is the story behind "snopes"' unusual posting patterns.

David "Mikkelson" is actually the son of Robert and Agnes McElson, a couple (not siblings, suprisingly enough) from the coalfields of New Brunswick who moved to British Columbia in 1955 to seek their fortune in the bustling coastal city of Vancouver.

Unfortunately for the McElson's, they were rounded up in one of the biennial Great Easterner Hunts. Nowadays, of course, the Hunt is only a "folk" tradition in the Canadian West; if you visit during the summer months of even-numbered years, you might be find yourself playfully pelted with rotten vegetables, or find that a suit of your clothes has been stolen and used to dress a burning effigy ("penny for the b'y, sir?"), but it's all in good fun. Prior to 1967, though, things were considerably more dire.

Sensing that she and her husband were doomed, and wanting to save her newborn David, Agnes put David in a boat and set him adrift in the Georgian Strait. She hoped he would come ashore in Victoria, or even Seattle, and be adopted by a nice family.

As we all know, though, this wasn't David's fate. In an eerie foreshadowing of The Penguin's story from Batman, his little raft ran aground in a Southern California amusement park. He was raised by mechanical presidents and pirates, and anthropomorphic mice.

Unfortunately, being raised by men^H^H^Hrobots like Jefferson, Lincoln and Nixon (no, I don't mean mean whose names end in schwa-N; I mean men of character) didn't prepare David very well for the mean streets of Los Angeles, where he struck out on his own on his twelfth birthday. Battered and confused by the rapid, smooth motions of the non-robots, David crept into an alley, bitterly cursing the fates that had put him in this position.

Eventually, David became a productive member of society, but his furious hatred towards Canadians and Disneyland still lingers. It seems to surface most visibly around major Canadian holidays and Walt's birthday, but it can be provoked at any time.