"A NON PROFIT ESTABLISHMENT!" Boss fumed. His words were drown out by the cheering crowd. With an angry expression, he stuffed his cigar in his mouth and charged toward Bo.
"Mr. Hogg!" Howard Steelman shouted, stopping Boss in his tracks. The tall Frothy executive charged toward J.D. with a stern look on his face. "As you know, we didn't come to Hazzard County with the intent to construct a camp. I expect an explanation for all of this."
"It….it it wasn't me, it was the boy!" Boss began fumbling with words as he pointed in Bo's direction. "It was never my idea to put in a camp here. I promise you, we do have a wonderful piece of land in the county for a manufacturing plant." He began to speak loudly enough for Bo to hear as he, Jesse, and Luke approached the pair. "It's currently known as the Duke farm, and I can get you the rights to that land. I promise!"
"So, you're not responsible for any of this?" Mr. Steelman pressed.
"No, not at all!" Boss confirmed. He then walked around Mr. Steelman and grabbed Bo by the arm, dragging him to the side to talk in private. "How dare you do this? How dare you throw away all of my money on some non-profit organization?"
"It's for crippled kids, Daddy!" Bo exclaimed.
"Did you hear what you just said? You said 'Daddy'. I am your father, I should mean more to you than anyone. Anyone in the whole wide world, and you throw away my money!"
"First of all, I don't think it was your money. I found out from a very reliable source that it was our money. Second of all, I didn't just throw it away. Third, if you are supposed to mean so much to me because you are my father, then it only makes sense that I should mean a lot to you because I am your son, so why haven't you been there for me all these years?"
"Now you listen here, this ain't about us. If your share of that money isn't even considered, you have still just cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now you do whatever it takes to get that money back for me, or……"
"Or what?" Bo asked.
"Or we're through! I'll wash my hands of you! You'll never be my son!"
Bo raised the corner of one side of his mouth into a slight smirk. The old "Boss" was back, and as strong as ever. "Unlike some people." He began. "I never take what isn't rightfully mine."
He stepped around a befuddled Boss to rejoin Mr. Steelman. Boss rushed up beside him. "Mr. Steelman, let me explain. The boy is not a very good businessman. He had no idea that we couldn't possible afford to put such a sizeable investment into a non-profit organization. We'll be broke in a week!"
Mr. Steelman smiled. " Surely you realize I was joking, Mr. Hogg. I was scolding you for not introducing this idea to me earlier in the game. You should have more faith in your assistant. Frothy had always hoped to build a theme park such as Busch Gardens to increase revenue. There's no better way to promote your company than to offer your product to people who are having fun at the same time. Unfortunately, the money to get a project such as that off the ground was just never there. A non profit camp is an ingenious idea. It's will be a firm establishment that we can promote heavily, and get the same amount of advertising at a fraction of the cost. It's also a proven method that people will by a product if they know a portion of the profit is supporting a good cause as well. This, Mr. Hogg, will increase Frothy's sales tremendously, which means our stocks will go through the roof!"
Boss began to smile once again before offering another frown. "But it will take awhile to get things started, won't it? I'll be without anything to live on until then."
"Oh you will be fine, Mr. Hogg." Steelman continued. "When we went back to Frothy and presented the idea to the board, the members were so excited that they wanted a bigger piece of the pie, so to speak. So it was no problem to honor Mr. Dukes request to only invest half of your initial offer into stocks."
"So you mean….I still have half of my inheritance in the bank?" Boss brightened.
"Yes." Jesse cut in. "You still have the money that Big Daddy left to YOU." He finished, emphasizing the last word of the sentence.
"Well, I'm sure we will be talking a lot over the next few months." Mr. Steelman said, shaking everyone's hand before turning from the group.
Boss laughed and patted Bo's back. "Well my boy! You did it! Frothy is coming to Hazzard! Not in the way we expected of course, but the profits will roll in soon enough. And I want you right by my side every step of the way."
"I'm afraid that won't be possible." Bo replied. "I'm quitting."
"Quitting?" Boss asked. "You can't quit. You've brought the project this far. You're my son, I need you."
"You're son, huh? Seems I'm your son only as long as you can afford it."
"Well…..Bo you know I didn't mean it. It's………just that I was all upset. I mean, you gotta have money. Without that, you can't have anything, you know."
"Yes you can." Bo replied, putting an arm over Luke's shoulder and the other over Jesse's. "You can have love. The way it seems to me, I have a choice to have everything in the world I could want without real love, or do without everything but real love. And that's what the Duke family is all about. Real love. Now we're not born into the world with a choice as to who we are, but if given the choice, I'd proudly be a poor Duke any day. Thank God I am."
With that, Bo pulled a Xeroxed copy of his mother's letter out of his jacket and handed it to Boss. "Let's go home." He said to Jesse and Luke. As the trio began walking away, Boss unfolded the letter and began to read. As he neared the end, his face became crestfallen and his cigar nearly escaped his lips.
"Hey Boss." Rosco began, coming up beside him. "Good news, good news. They're shutting down the concession stands but I got them to bag up all of the leftover French fries just for you." He finished by holding up a grocery size bag and a 32 ounce bottle of ketchup.
"No thanks, I'm not hungry." Boss replied, waving his hand.
"Not hungry? You must be sick, little fat buddy." Rosco giggled. He then looked closer at Boss. "You alright? You look like you lost your best friend."
Boss sighed. "I didn't loose anything." He replied before walking away.
"What a week!" Bo exclaimed a few days later as he, Luke, and Jesse returned to the house following a trip to the bank. "First we're almost kicked off the farm, then we OWN the farm, now we owe mortgage payments on the farm again!"
"The rummage sale just didn't bring in the money for the new playground that they had hoped." Jesse replied, hanging his trusty red hat on the coat rack. "I'd rather see another year of payments that the look on those kids' faces if we had to tell them that they weren't getting their playground."
"Anybody home?" A female voice shouted from the front door.
"Daisy!" The trio exclaimed. They rushed to the living room where the took turns giving the leggy, lone female member of the family welcoming hugs.
"How's Susan doing?" Uncle Jesse asked.
"Just fine Uncle Jesse. That baby of hers is the cutest thing you've ever seen. Dark hair and blue eyes, just like Luke. I had to keep convincing myself that he wasn't Luke's!" Daisy laughed.
"Well there's never any guarantees you know. How long's it been since you seen Susan, Luke?" Bo teased.
"So, any changes since I've been gone, other than competing stacks of laundry and dishes?" Daisy asked.
The boys looked at Jesse knowingly as he replied. "I'd have to say…" He began. "that things are more or less exactly the same as they were when you left."
THE END