(Editor's Note: The following is a letter from Bruce Farr of Ludlow, VT addressing questions raised about the place of his birth. The alleged birth certificate is printed per Mr. Farr's insistence. Black River Today, by printing this document, does not endorse the legitimacy of it . . . and, anyway, if it is legitimate, we're sure that there are other questions that need to be answered by Mr. Farr.)
Dear Friends:
Attached, at your request, please find a copy of my certificate of live birth from Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton, Mass. I sincerely hope that by submitting this document, which you must know I am reluctant to do for many reasons--not least that it discloses my actual age, which I've lied about for years--will once and for all put to rest the irrational notion that I wasn't born in Northampton, Massachusetts at all, but, according to a highly vocal cluster of hysterical detractors, was discovered under a cabbage leaf in a small village in Outer Mongolia. In fact, let it be recorded that I have never even been to Mongolia, and don't even know a single Mongolian. (But, in the name of full disclosure, I would like to point out that the life-size tattoo of Genghis Khan on my back is merely coincidental.)
As you'll note on the document--which is neither a long form nor short form, but, rather, what is commonly known in Massachusetts as an "in-between" or "Tweener" form--it is "certified" that I was born on that day in that hospital. In fact, so familiar was I with the hospital premises that, for years, when people inquired where I was born, I would often respond using the popular slang moniker for the Cooley Dickinson Hospital. "So, Farr, where were you hatched?" a friend might ask, and I would always fix them with my laser stare and shoot back, "Cooley Dick." But what does that really prove? you might want to know. I'll tell you: it proves that I was one savvy customer, perfectly comfortable in my made-in-the-good-old-U.S.A. skin.
But I digress. You'll also note that the document is officially signed by two stalwarts of local Hampshire County affairs, William T. Lees, Jr., and Dr. George Genest. But, once more, in answer to the suggestion that, because both of these community leaders are now deceased, a whiff of foul play and subterfuge might be in the air, I can easily explain. Although I must admit that a rather high percentage of individuals connected with my birth at the Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton, Mass. are in fact no longer alive to offer testimony in my behalf, I would like to point out that, because it was 1949, most of the hospital folks I was palling around with on the day I was born would likely be over a hundred years old. So that explains it.
And finally, to put matters to rest once and for all, I have gone to the extra pains and length of placing a call to interview my mother, Mrs. Theresa Farr, in this matter. Once she got out of her system a few gripes regarding a certain sum of money I've owed her for a a couple decades, she racked her brain and finally admitted that she did indeed recall the events of Thursday, November 24th, 1949. As she stated, it happened to be that most American of holidays, Thanksgiving, and she was preparing to pop the Thanksgiving turkey in the oven when, as she rather grimly recalls it, "Nature and you came a'knockin'." "You were the only damn turkey I had in the oven that day!" mother exclaimed, in her usual jocular manner, because, as she regularly reassures me when I begin whining, I'm actually the light of her life.
With this disclosure, I hope that I can assuage some of the wild accusations swirling around the question of my American citizenship, and satisfy my critics as to the nature and location of my actual birth. With that, I would refer any further questions regarding the legitimacy of my national heritage to that master of rational thought, Donald Trump.
Yours Sincerely,
Bruce A. Farr,
Ludlow, Vermont
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