(Created by J.Knopow in memory of Dad)

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Benny Lee

 

 

The Poca River Postal Authority is pleased to announce the issuance of a new stamp commemorating Benny Lee and his role in helping Poca save the world from global financial collapse.

Benny Lee was born in Charleston, West Virginia.  He was the son of an entrepreneurial immigrant father who spoke a language so unusual that most folks concluded he must have been from the north, and a mother so particular of her household that young Benny was actually required to tongue polish the floor of the family home once an evening.  Later in life, Benny’s perpetually skinny legs in proportion to his robust upper body was attributed to these hours of masticular scouring, pulling himself around the floor on a rolling kneelcart of his own invention.  These carts were later to find use in physical education classes around the world.

Benny’s curiosity about the world was evident even at a young age, as he and his younger brother conducted numerous experiments in human survival on each other throughout their childhood.  One such experiment involving the potential lethality of a BB gun yielded particularly significant results, not only demonstrating the physical effect of the accelerated BB on human skin and the forthcoming emotional response, but also the surprising effect on a neighbor’s rusty gas supply line.  The disappearance of the neighbor’s house is credited as the first example of large scale illusionary magic, as well making for a much larger front yard for the growing youths to play in. 

Benny Lee’s preparation for Poca’s role in saving the world from global financial collapse began to take on a more concrete form when after extended education and much artistic fame abroad, he returned to Poca to found the first one room school house in Putnam County, alongside Heizer Creek in what once was his father’s grocery store.  Benny’s broad curiosity and intellect again came to bear, as well as his Poca Unit pinching ways, as he was able to save on teaching salaries by instructing the entire course of subjects himself, including Art, Science, Literature, Religion, Mathematics that could be done on fingers, and some curious version of Physics involving strings.

As Benny’s first crop of Poca Schoolhouse graduates emerged, he noticed that the students more inclined towards Math and Science always seemed to find more gainful employment than those more inclined towards the Arts.  Never one to leave his students wanting, Benny quickly founded an artist commune along the banks of the Pocatlico River in nearby Walton, West Virginia, where the artists were collectively able support each other, and later eventually became the foundation for an organization to be known as the, “Democratic Party.”

Benny Lee saw the coming global financial collapse long before anyone else, and as was his custom, began crafting a meticulous plan to fix it.  In a yet unprecedented feat of foresight, Benny Lee even went so far as to carefully research genetics and marital dynamics to create children who would be able to aid him in carrying out his economic recovery plan, including an insurance mogul, an engineer, and a mathematician who does not require her fingers to count on.  In perhaps his greatest feat of complex game-theory planning, he was even able to orchestrate a pair of granddaughters whose overwhelming cuteness inspired the first line of mass marketed childrens’ dolls, the Poca-Patch Kids, which provided the entire financial backing that fueled the Poca Global Financial Recovery Plan.

As the Poca-Patch Kids revenue streamed in by the wheel barrow, a safe location was required to store and protect the burgeoning funds.  Given his more artistic Poca Schoolhouse graduates’ cash-flow challenges, Benny Lee shrewdly surmised that no one would ever suspect that they would have the money, so he decided to stash it at their Artists’ Commune.  Fortunate that their previous human survival experiments had not fully concluded, Benny was able to recruit his brother to protect the now valuable Commune from the would be thieves of the day, who typically lived on the other side of the river known as, “Investment Bank.”

Later on, as word eventually got out about the true source of the funds saving the world from financial meltdown, the artists of the Pocatlico River Commune decided that they ought to change their name to something more befitting their global financial role.  An all night brainstorming session was held, but without any of the artists willing to give an inch in the name of creative expression, they ultimately decided to go with a neutral descriptor befitting their physical location, and decided to call themselves the, “Poca Valley Bank” (Member FDIC).  A catfish noodling exhibition was quickly organized in honor of the new designation. 

With the world saved from the brink of financial collapse thanks to Poca and it’s resident Artist-Scholar, and his family and students securely squared away, Benny Lee decided to travel home again.  Sailing up the Kanawha and New rivers for months in his friends rather oversized sailboat, the two were eventually stopped when the mast failed to clear the New River Gorge Bridge and Benny Lee was forced to go the rest of the way on foot.  Benny Lee was last seen climbing Bluestone Mountain on his way to visit his parents.  His progress, however, was reportedly slowed by constant examination and taste testing of the local fauna.

This commemorative stamp was issued on 2 June, 2009 in a plate of 16 stamps with a value of 35 Poca Units.

 

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