The Log Cabin Lady

And who is this Log Cabin Lady anyway? I never even heard of this book until today as I sit here rummaging through the detritus of yesteryear. It is not clear from the pages of her book whether this woman actually existed or whether the book is carefully constructed or deconstructed to conceal the author's true identity. Just because a diplomat's wife wrote to the editor of the Delineator telling her life story to help future young American women learn the importance of avoiding painfully embarrassing social gaffes whenever they go overseas, that does not connect her to me. After all, I am not my own grandma. It was my Grandma McClellan née Strickland who wrote to the May Delineator, a woman's magazine of the day, in response to some offer of personality analysis based on facial characteristics in a photograph no longer available because not attached to the faded letter, but her forecast was not that great in terms of future professional achievements, according to the editor of the May Delineator who kindly mailed the photograph back to her. Perhaps if my grandmother had been married to the incredibly wealthy Bostonian gentleman (only his first name "Tom" is given) who swept the author off her feet in the library and took her on diplomatic adventures to Great Britain, France, Austria and other parts of Europe, witnessing firsthand there the events of World War I, then perhaps my grandmother's travel forecast might have taken her to more important locales than just Central America. After all, Tom calls his wife "lovely" so that was enough to ensure her in to an audience with Queen Victoria. As the Log Cabin Lady says, "Motherhood is the great and natural event in the life of a woman in France, and no one makes a secret of it." What does that say about motherhood in America? Perhaps that you can run but you can't hide. They know who you are and what you've been up to.

Conspiracy

After I moved out of Cori's room, or rather was kicked out, I moved in with Dauna K. and Candice Higgins for a couple of months till the end of the year. Dauna said that she went up to the seventh floor to attend a meeting there at which she heard Cori conspiring together with Nicole and some other girls to make my life hell. Dauna did not go into detail on Cori's master plan to ruin my life so I am not sure what that was all about. I had no idea that Dauna would defect later to the devil's side because obviously these people are highly suggestible. Whoever is out there yapping loudly is the one that everyone listens to, it would seem.

Nicole?

Yes, I do vaguely remember that at the time I was rooming with Cori on the seventh floor there was someone living down the hall named Nicole who was some sort of reformed drug addict or prostitute or something like that. Christ had brought her out of a terrible life and redeemed her past and now she was planning to go from church to church telling her testimony. She offered to let me go with her and sing and then a few days later she said she felt like God told her she would not want me going out with her so I said something like Ok, fine because I never really wanted to do anything with Nicole anyway. It was her idea to start with anyway, not something I really cared about doing or ever volunteered to do in the first place. Nicole is a very troubled person with a lot of problems and that type of person is better left to present her bizarre testimony all by herself.

Sweat

I wonder why these nasty dogs have not yet figured out that I use deodorant. That is why they don't see me sweat, at least not most of the time. After all, never let them see you sweat, as they say, even though, well, I do sweat but that is why we have these modern conveniences, especially the strongest possible brand of deodorant for me. I wouldn't want to be confused with a smelly French person, or at least that is what I heard, not that I would really know anything about that.

The Pentecost Of Calamity

Although Ralph Waldo Emerson used the word "Pentecost" in his poem, "The Problem," for which I don't have a date but probably somewhere in the mid-1800s, Emerson having died in 1882, it was another author, Owen Wister, who borrows Emerson's poetic reference to "Pentecost" and throws it into yet another context, that of war. In a book titled "The Pentecost of Calamity," Wister, a friend and contemporary of Theodore Roosevelt, Wister is writing in 1915 to encourage America to get involved in World War II. He paints a disturbing portrait of the German people who have been "Prussianized" and brainwashed with a Germancentric map of the world. German textbooks teach that America consists mainly of three people groups: negroes, Indians, and Germans. Germans want to do away with the English language of pirates and elevate the German tongue which is thought to convey a blessing on the speaker. The Germans already in the early part of the 20th century believe in the ideals of building a super race, a super nation, a world run mainly by Germans, according to Wister. Wister says that the warfare already raging in Europe is purifying the motives of the French and English who are fighting to stop Germany's hostile advance.

Wister says: "But Calamity has its Pentecost. When its mighty wind rushed over Belgium and France, and its tongues of fire sat on each of them, they, too, like the apostles in the New Testament, began to speak as the Spirit gave them utterance. Their words and deeds have filled the world with a splendor the world had lost. The flesh, that has dominated our day and generation, fell away in the presence of the Spirit. I have heard Belgians bless the martyrdom and awakening of their nation. They have said: 'Do not talk of our suffering; talk of our glory. We have found ourselves.'"

Wister goes on to say: "These are the tongues of fire; this is the Pentecost of Calamity. Often it must have made brothers again of those who found themselves prone on the battlefield, neighbors awaiting the grave. In Flanders a French officer of cavalry, shot through the chest, lay dying, but with life enough still to write his story to the lady of his heart. He wrote thus:

“There are two other men lying near me, and I do not think there is much hope for them either. One is an officer of a Scottish regiment and the other a private in the uhlans. They were struck down after me, and when I came to myself I found them bending over me, rendering First Aid. The Britisher was pouring water down my throat from his flask, while the German was endeavoring to stanch my wound with an antiseptic preparation served out to their troops by the medical corps. The Highlander had one of his legs shattered, and the German had several pieces of shrapnel buried in his side.

“In spite of their own sufferings, they were trying to help me; and when I was fully conscious again the German gave us a morphia injection and took one himself. His medical corps had also provided him with the injection and the needle, together with printed instructions for their use. After the injection, feeling wonderfully at ease, we spoke of the lives we had lived before the war. We all spoke English, and we talked of the women we had left at home. Both the German and the Britisher had been married only a year. …

“I wondered — and I suppose the others did — why we had fought each other at all. I looked at the Highlander, who was falling to sleep, exhausted, and, in spite of his drawn face and mud-stained uniform, he looked the embodiment of freedom. Then I thought of the Tricolor of France and all that France had done for liberty. Then I watched the German, who had ceased to speak. He had taken a prayer book from his knapsack, and was trying to read a service for soldiers wounded in battle. And … while I watched him I realized what we were fighting for. … He was dying in vain, while the Britisher and myself, by our deaths, would probably contribute something toward the cause of civilization and peace.”

Thus wrote this young French officer of cavalry to the lady of his heart, the American lady to whom he was engaged. The Red Cross found the letter at his side. Through it she learned the manner of his death. This, too, is the Pentecost of Calamity."

So Wister makes a very convincing case for American involvement in World War I, which later came to pass, and yet his wartime Pentecost does not have very much to do with the Pentecostal movement and the Pentecostalism of the church. Wister's Pentecost is not the Pentecost of Acts 2 when the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit and preached the Gospel. Although many of the apostles later died a martyr's death, it was not by wielding swords that the early Christians changed the society in which they lived.

Wister's Pentecost is the sword of kings and emperor, something that is not commanded by the church. After all, the president as chief executive commands the armies of the United States, not the church. If the church were in charge today, who knows what holy wars and carnage would be carried on in Christ's name. Many people have their opinions about the Viet Nam War and various other armed conflicts, but we are fortunate indeed that the founding fathers put checks and balances in place so that we should not rush to judgment.

Clues

All of which makes me wonder what Rodger Gaskin might know about all of these events, but then again why would I bother to ask? Obviously, some Homecoming Queen has all of these people locked up and sewed up in her pocket. They all belong to her now so there is no going back there to waste time trying to make friends of people who are just a pack of liars.

Letters

Yes, I think I did write a letter to Cori Nipper's parents although I don't really remember what I said in the letter or why I wrote something. Maybe I wanted to explain to them what a horrible person their daughter Cori actually is so that no one would think that I actually agreed with anything that Cori says in her rambling rants about disbelief and rage or that I myself would accept any responsibility for having produced such a horrible person as Cori just because of the accident of being her college rooommate for a year or so. I tried to witness to that piece of trash but everything I ever said went in one ear and out the other so obviously it was a big mistake to have anything to do with Cori and her wicked friends and family. But I wouldn't want anyone to think that it was all my fault when actually Cori is just a huge mass of wickedness and stupidity, making it very hard for me to tolerate her constant verbal assaults, sort of like living with the enemy. So if Cori doesn't like the fact that I don't really like her, well, it's true. I think she is a worthless excuse for human being, just returning the favor. When I first started rooming with Cori there was some understanding that she was a horribly worldly person and that I would try to witness to her, like my Dad said, but it was a huge waste of time and effort, mostly fruitless. She really doesn't deserve anything from me. Anything said to Cori is liking casting my pearls before swine to be trampled underfoot by the District Swine because that is all Cori is, just a stupid mindless pig. If God wants to save her soul fine but don't ask me to witness to those vicious District Dogs because I am not equipped to negotiate the rich and powerful curve. I would just be killed point blank and there is no point to this stupid conversation, to be honest. I would rather be free and dead than to be a slave to the District Dogs.

The "Ralph" Problem

When they are talking about Ralph, they are not talking about Grandpa Calkins or Cousin Ralph. They are talking about Ralph Waldo Emerson, the famous American poet who uses the word "Pentecost" in a peculiar way in a famous poem he wrote called "The Problem." The problem with Ralph is not that in this poem he thinks himself not called to be a priest or bishop even though filled with sentiment at the sight of church and pew. Lots of Christians in heaven were just ordinary people. Although Ralph was quite the genius wordsmith, the real problem with his poem is found in a line near the end of the poem, when he says, "The Book itself before me lies!" These words make the reader think that perhaps Ralph is merely wallowing in religious sentimentality, his fond regard for the picturesque sight of cowls and priestly vestments being not based on any foundation of Scriptural truth or personal faith or relationship with God, but only because of some vague notion of religiosity. And yet earlier in the poem Ralph almost seems to understand what Christianity means. He says:
Ever the fiery Pentecost
Girds with one flame the countless host
Trances the heart through chanting choirs
And through the priest the mind inspires. 
In this context he almost seems to be talking about the Holy Spirit which is how God is manifesting Himself in humanity in this present day and age, according to the Bible. Jesus, Lamb of God slain for our sins, has ascended to heaven and now sits at the right hand of God but He has left with us on earth a Comforter, breath of God, the Holy Spirit. However, because Ralph interchangeably talks about the spirit of pagan religions of the Greeks and Romans, we are not sure that Ralph knows of what he speaks. The pagan spirit and the Holy Spirit are two very different spirits and manifest very differently in the fruits of humanity.  Ralph's poem is so vague that we cannot be sure from this poem alone what Ralph's understanding of salvation and the Gospel actually is. Maybe he went to church and heard a lot of sermons but he does not share the full Gospel truth in his poem and seems to be of skeptical mind. Anyway, while these poems are interesting expressions and interpretations of human thoughts and aspirations and hopes and fears and longings and dilemmas, which we can take or leave either way, we don't need them but often they are required reading in school because the world did not arrive at this present crossroads devoid of context which we ignore perhaps at our own peril, yet these poems are not the true source of our faith which is found only in the Word of God, the Bible. Only in the Word of God, the bread from heaven, will we find what our souls crave.

Pacifism

I wonder what makes the wicked Bueno-Hoskins think that I would ever contract to sell my soul to them? They will get nothing from me, especially not now, after they have ruined my life with their greedy quest for vainglory. I am not even related to those dogs and I don't remember sharing any personal stories with them. What were they thinking? How utterly rude to barge into my personal life this way. I don't want those hideous people pretending to be friends when actually they are the worst kind of enemy a person could have, pretending to be nice to my face all the while stabbing me in the back and picking my pocket. They are sadly mistaken and stupid if they think that I am a "Pentecostal pacifist" and that I would not put up some type of resistance to their relentless greed and theft of everything mine, my personality, my thoughts and ambitions, my goals, whatever I said. However, just because I am not a pacifist, that does not mean that I would care to take the military route. I never did see any point in enlisting in the army when I really don't think I would fit in the military world with its boring uniformity and its off-target mission to mindlessly kill and destroy without knowing what you are talking about, at least in this case. The Butterfield cousins signed their souls away to the army and got the devil's free ride contract for themselves but I never did understand the Butterfields and what their problem is or why people would actually take them seriously because I don't. I know that Pentecostal is not a synonym of pacifist even if you haven't figured this out yet. Lots of Pentecostals are not and never were pacifists, especially in our family. My great-grandfather's WWI draft registration card makes note of his poor eyesight and that he is a 42-year-old minister with three children so obviously he is not going to be considered prime material for the combat lines regardless. It was his friend Charles W. Storey, later a fellow missionary to China, who was registered as a conscientious objector in WWI, and Storey's grandson Jonathan Brooks is the one who now runs that organization in Tulsa, Okla., called "Voice of China." If you want to know about pacifism all you have to do is call the Voice of China. Now, does that mean that all the Chinese are pacifists like Mr. Storey? I really wouldn't know. It's not like there are any WWI draft registration cards on them. And also, it is not like I would be able to speak for China. I think we should let the Voice of China speak for itself.

More Bad Lines

All these horrible script lines have been written for me and the words just make me want to vomit. This is the point where I am supposed to scream and shake my fist at the wicked machinations of that foul-mouthed bitch Marie Hittenberger. She lived in Haiti for many years so she more than anyone should know that I never set foot on that island, either end of it, so have no clue about the goings on in Haiti and its wicked castle kings who sold their souls to the devil. And besides, don't I know that my sister's mother-in-law Marie Mingo was born in the Bahamas, not Haiti or Malta, so obviously this is all perhaps just a big joke by some obnoxious pirates who have not yet learned how we do things in polite society. If those Oklahoma pirates are going to live by the sword so violently then we are not going to be able to share our castle stories with them in the future because they would just try to steal the whole pie and leave nothing for me. And anyway, they have Jonathan Brooks and his Voice of China organization to keep them company so they will not be lonely living there in the shadow of Tulsa and the bitterly cold and wily snakes of ORU, as for example the Roberts family, Sharon Deras, Mark Rutland, David Davenport, etc.

Castle Tales and Lousy Scripts

Kirkcudbright Castle, Scotland

This uninhabitable pile of rubble known in the 1600s as the McClellan castle is located in the small town of Kirkcudbright in the Galloway province of southern Scotland, not far from the sea. The Bueno family and possibly a few others were at our house when my mother was telling the story of my grandfather's cousin's genealogy book, which makes some mention of the castle and the tantalizing thought that it sits there unclaimed by an unidentified heir of the McClellan clan. And if there were an heir I am sure that it would not be me, obviously, a girl and not the eldest of a branch of the family that was long gone to America when the McClellan title expired without heirs sometime in the 19th century. So all this encouragement to stake my claim to the title and the castle is ridiculous, way out of the realm of possibility, a figment of imagination wholly unproductive in the general scheme of things although makes for an entertaining genealogy book. We learned later that little Stevie Bueno was upset that night, after my mom told the castle story, and complained to his father about not having a castle, too. The story of Stevie's dream castle was somehow passed along to Don Triplett, who came up with his own castle scheme, a children's ministry called "Castle of the King" which purports to tell the gospel story using medieval symbols, castles and kings, and now operates in several countries of Latin America. But could Don Triplett be expected to present a Scottish castle as a worthy goal for children's aspirations? No, of course not. Obviously, the Tripletts are Frenchmen and because they own the Triplett company store the castles would of necessity have to be of the French persuasion. Besides, it was Stephanie Share in my high school class who was from Scotland, not me, and as we all know Stephanie always did have a lot of problems. As for myself, I was in high school a redhead and just as easily connected to the Stricklands of Malta through my grandmother, the Stricklands having some vaguely understood connection to Bloody Queen Mary and the redhead virgin Queen Elizabeth of the 1500s, so "they" have decided that I should have no claim to the "Castle of the King." After all, I am a girl and the boys always have to win the game which is being played according to their French rulebook. Have we forgotten that the Hundred Years War had something to do with driving the English out of France? So it becomes obvious that Loren Triplett did not write the book, "The Indigenous Church." That book was written by a missionary to Nicaragua. It was the French who colonized Haiti, which turned out to be such a disaster, the most densely populated and poverty stricken country in the western hemisphere, where people are trained to live on handouts and charity because there are no jobs, no adequate housing, rampant exploitation of resources, and many other problems not helped by the prevalence of voodoo and witchcraft. Which hopefully helps to explain why I hate this lousy script that was possibly written by some wickedly stupid French-Spanish Brizuela bitch, I doubt not.

Between Bells

Between bells we only had about five minutes to from one class to the next. I am referring, of course, to high school. The bell would go off and everyone would pack up and move on to the next class. I was always very good about going forthwith to the next class with little delay. Usually there is enough time to stop at the locker or else one has to carry around the necessary books to avoid having to go to the locker. Either way, I was already sitting in my chair in 10th grade English class with Miss Marken, second chair from the front of the room, when I heard Joan Calabrese standing at the front of the room talking to Miss Marken for a few minutes about the Patty Hearse story before going to her chair in the front row, directly in front of me. If Martha was late and behind the bell, or else not part of honors English class because assigned to dummies class, perhaps she missed overhearing this interesting information about Joan's connection to bank robberies and mayhem in San Francisco. So you learned about bank robberies some other way. Perhaps you are on the inside of the SLA organization and have access to other insider details that we did not hear whereas we who arrived on time to class only heard what Joan said to Miss Marken. I wouldn't need to say anything about that because I wouldn't want anyone to think that I was interested in learning more about how to rob banks and kidnap people, unlike Joan.

Fort McClellan

Louisiana might have a Fort McClellan, or maybe the haunted fort is actually in Alabama, but anyway that has nothing to do with our branch of the family. It is interesting to note that General George B. McClellan spells his name in exactly the same way that my grandfather's family does. However, if you were to look for a family connection in America you would not find it. We can only trace our McClellan family back to two brothers, John and Henry, who came over to America as children in the 1700s accompanied by unknown adults. We are assuming they had parents but we are assuming that we can never find the parents' names so our genealogy books only goes back to John and Henry, from whom the general is not descended. The Union general is not really related to us or is he? Well, in order to find a possible family connection to the general one would probably have to go back hundreds of years to Scotland to find it and that is where the trail gets cold. My grandfather's cousin spent time in Scotland scouring through old church records trying to find some trace of John and Henry there but to no avail. And anyway, John, who was my ancestor, never got out of Virginia and died in that little town near the Appalachian Trail from which my great-great-grandfather later ventured west, finally landing in Texas after a brief sojourn in the Deep South. Anyway, my mother already explained this whole story to John Bueno and family over dinner so I don't understand the need to Fix Or Repair Daily. The facts are what they are, or are not.

Joan and Patty

At about the time that Patty Hearse was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Front, I remember one day in 10th grade English class that Joan Calabrese was talking loudly to Miss Marken and maybe some other people about this event and I could not help but overhear this because my assigned chair was right there behind Joan's chair. Joan was talking about her vast social connections in the high society of San Francisco. Apparently she knows someone who is connected to the Hearse family or someone connected to someone connected to the Hearse family or something like that so Joan knows something more about these events through the grapevine and is not limited to what we have read in the newspapers and magazines of the day. So that was interesting to know that Joan and the Calabrese clan are connected to the upper echelons of the hoity-toity highfalutin snooty heights of San Francisco. I had visited the city as a child but only to visit as a tourist. As children my parents once took us there to see the Nutrcracker Suite and also we had driven around there sightseeing in the peculiar neighborhoods of the city, taking note of Chinatown, Telegraph Hill, Russian Hill, cable cars, etc. However, beyond the occasional tourist outing, I am personally not very interested in San Francisco and the sense of grinding and relentless despair that hovers upon that place. Joan Calabrese exudes an air that gives the impression that she holds the keys to some mystery about the city that she will not be sharing with me. She imagines that I am sitting there eagerly trying to overhear the details of her boring life. She does not seem to realize that we are not impressed because we know that Joan is just a pizza delivery girl. She does not really know anything that we need to know. It is just a wicked conceit of the Calabrese clan or the Italians or maybe just the rich people in general that makes them want us to be jealous of them when actually we are happy that Joan's problem is not our problem. Joan might be surprised to learn how NOT interested we are in her worthless secrets. I am content to read about Patty Hearse's horrible life in the newspapers without having to go there.

More Wicked Casting

Although Patty Cruz is perfect for the Wicked Witch role in my opinion, other worthy candidates might be Carmen Alfaro and Ivonne Chavez. It is just the aura of wicked superciliousness that they project I suppose, at least in my opinion. The blond sidekick might be Gwen Juneau although I know absolutely nothing about her so anything I would say is based on nothing. It's just that Gwen's face is there bobbing down the hallways with that supercilious air. I could say something very similar about Joan Calabrese. Other candidates for the blond sidekick might be Denise Hartzler who now lives in Finland. She was always such an utterly obnoxious person and not really that great of a singer as she imagines herself to be. Just because she spent her early married years cleaning toilets at the hotel owned by her ex-husband Randy, and we do feel sorry for her pathetically horrible life, that does not mean that I appreciate her constant sniping at me behind my back. My heart is not warmed to learn that Denise is going around trashing me behind my back and I really am glad that she now lives in another country so that her problems are not my problems.

Wicked Witch Casting

As long as we are casting for Wicked, I would nominate Patty Cruz as the green-skinned vicious Wicked Witch. The role suits her perfectly. Need I say more?

Louisiana

It is hard for me to imagine how people manage to live in that foul smelling swamp that is Louisiana. There is nothing in Louisiana that would make me want to go there.

Food Jokes

I get so tired of all these stupid jokes about my name. My name is spelled with an "i" not a "y" which means that I am not synonymous with the sugary tidbits dubbed "candy." Thus, I find all these stupid questions about whether I can be eaten extremely annoying. Don't be surprised if I bite your head off the next time you ask me such a stupid question, you thoughtless greedy cannibal. The answer is a categorical "NO" and there is no need for me to repeat myself on this point. You have no reason to be asking me any questions. When I was a child I would pretend to laugh and smile at these silly jokes and questions about my name but now that I am adult I have no time for your nonsense. Your wicked politicking is ruining my life and I don't think it is funny at all.

"Special" Interests

This is the place where I am scripted to rant and scream about how disturbing it is that the Triplett family is owned by the vile decadent Johnson clan and their idiot family members, which includes Mark and Carol and also mental retard Tim who is never seen at church because obviously he would have a hard time getting his 500-pound body through the front door. The Johnsons, who own a chain of nursing homes for senior citizens, are major donors to the Triplett family which only proves that the Tripletts will always have somewhere to go when they get old and senile. The Johnsons always pay for whatever the Tripletts want, which only proves that money is power. No money means no power. That is just the way it is in this cruel world in which we live. If I had money I don't know what I would do but obviously the Johnsons would have nothing to say about it. Just because Renell Barth's ex-husband Fred Hibbert is married to someone named Lenore Johnson, that means nothing to me. I never even knew those people existed. Obviously the Johnsons are playing some kind of divorce game on Lenore's behalf but I am really not interested. I am really not sure what their game or strategy is and I really don't care. What I do is really none of their business. Just because they are the moneybags behind the Triplett family, that does not mean that they own Pentecostalism in a general sense. It is especially cruel of the Johnsons to go over our heads in that way because obviously the Tripletts are my parents' supervisors in a sense so it really puts me in a bind when I don't even what their point is. To me they are just stupid whiny sidekicks who need to be ushered back to their assigned chairs.

Marks - Continued

Also, I don't remember the name of the Johnson boy who married his 16-year-old bride Carol Garlit of whom I never thought much. I always thought Carol Garlit was such an obnoxious little twit. We might have been obligated due to family friend circumstances to attend her bridal shower and wedding although I really don't remember anything. We try so hard to be nice to these uppity people but it is not like we really like them. We just endure their snooty condescending ways because we don't really have a choice in terms of social connections. We are thrown together with these Johnson dogs but we really don't understand why they spend so much time and energy trashing us behind our backs when actually they are so crassly vulgar in their ostentatious display of wealth that it makes us want to vomit, as if we are obligated for some reason to be impressed with their nothingness. Just having a giant screen TV in every room of your house and eating out all often enough to weigh five hundred pounds means nothing in terms of good taste in my opinion, but then again it's not like anyone would ever ask my opinion. But as far as I am concerned, the Johnsons are nothing but trashy flashy riff-raff who happen to be rich.

Other Marks I Forgot About

1. Who was that guy who used to attend our church who sang on cruise ships? I don't really remember what his name was to be brutally honest. I think he married the roommate of Carol the stewardess although I really don't remember. And whatever happened to Carol the stewardess? I don't even remember those people's last names so it would be sort of hard to look them up on Facebook. I think they all moved to Atlanta and I did not get their names and mailing addresses so they could be anywhere by now. I really have no clue.

2. Who was that guy that my sister and I once sang a trio with at Bethel Assembly? I think that his name was Mark although I really don't remember. He was a rather obnoxious prickly pear to sing with and best forgotten.

3. Whatever happened to Mark Solt? I have no idea. I vaguely remember that I was nine years old when he said hello to me outside of church the one time they were visiting the Evangelistic Center because they are actually Baptists and normally attend their own Baptist church but I knew him from MK school. That was nice and somewhat shocking. I think I even mentioned this to Susie. Cheryl would also remember Mark Solt if she were alive because she was there. Susie was on furlough that year. The Solts were in charge of the radio station which was located near the MK school.

4. It is best that I forget about Mark the obnoxious creep who attended the Popineau's church. He was always lurking around but he should have married Carol because she is down there on his lowlife level. I am really too well educated to feel comfortable with such a stupid high school dropout as Mark. I tried to be nice for a while but he started to really get on my nerves so it was a good idea for me to move away from there to get away from the lowlife scum that pretended to be Christians at the Popineau church in Diamond Bar. I would not want to be associated with those lowlife trash, to be brutally honest.

The Rentz Wedding

I am trying to remember if someone ushered me to a seat when I attended the Rentz wedding at Bethel Assembly. I had no choice but to attend, my parents having dragged me along with them, but I don't remember if someone ushered me or not to our places. All I remember is that the Rentz's son Mark married some Cuban girl whose name I don't recall. I don't really know those people and do not remember what happened to them or where they went. All I know is that he was the pastor's son so everyone felt sort of obligated to attend his wedding. I don't really remember anything about it, actually. So that was a nice event for him. The Rentz's later moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, but we did not follow them there. Not in a million years would I ever think of moving to Louisiana, no offense intended. I always thought Pastor Rentz was a great preacher but Louisiana would not be my choice of residence. It was once suggested that I apply for a job there but I never did that for some reason. I am sure they found someone more qualified than myself to do translation work for the Jimmy Swaggart organization. Of course, that was before the fall. I remember that later, when I was living in California, Alana Hays of the Popineau church yapping about how wonderful Jimmy Swaggart is. Of course, that was before the fall. Alana Hays is the type of trashy slut who would be impressed by that kind of thing but I never felt any affinity with the Louisiana way of doing things. It is not good to base your faith on what these televangelists say. Like I told Alana, I always remember that time years ago at home and my mom was doing the ironing and on TV Swaggart was working himself into a lather on the subject of how mothers should teach their daughters not to wear shorts and my mom remarked that obviously he has a problem. I mean, who in their right mind would be foaming at the mouth on this type of subject matter if they did not have some kind of problem. But that was before the fall so we really didn't know. It was just something my mom said, like I told Alana.

Fake Friends

Yes, I sometimes see ex-Pastor Mark Triplett's face out there on Facebook but in a million years I would never think of trying to friend him. After all, he hates me. I already know it. You don't have to tell me the sad truth. It was always just so obvious to me that he would act so fake-friendly to my face and then go around trashing me behind my back to everyone. Everyone felt perfectly comfortable trashing me and treating me like garbage because after all I am only an MK and everybody knows that MKs are to be trampled upon like yesterday's garbage, obviously. Besides, I was only tagging along that time years earlier when I was at Evangel College and some girl who was in one of his classes got some girls from the dorm floor to go with her to the Triplett house to talk to then-tripped-out long-haired hippie Mark and see his red Camaro and meet his then girlfriend Jeanette. I don't remember anymore who she was that was so fascinated with Mark. I really couldn't care less about Mark and Jeanette. I only went along that time for the ride.

Let Them Eat Cake

I vaguely remember that while I was an intern at a newspaper in Northern California, as part of my duties I wrote a brief item, maybe three or four paragraphs, about a civic event involving some type of anniversary. One alluring feature of the event was to be some kind of gigantic birthday cake topped with the appropriate number of candles corresponding to the number of anniversary years. I wrote an appropriate item but my editor did not like my lead paragraph and punched it up by rewriting it in a completely different way than what I originally had written. She wrote something like: "What's a birthday without a cake?" I can't really say that her rewrite was not an improvement over the original and, anyway, interns are there to learn the ropes from the editor, not the other way around, so fine, the clipping is there in a box somewhere and I could probably find it if it were that important to recall to mind but it really is not that important now. At the time of my internship I only had maybe those ten or so clippings to show for job hunting and it would be sort of hard for me to argue that I actually wrote most of those articles if I were to be scrupulously conscientious on this point. But now, many years later, I have plenty of clippings to show that I actually can write, sort of, even if the newsprint is not glossy enough to impress some people who don't appreciate me and my unique characteristic style, whatever that means. Anyway, most of the time in newspaper writing all you do is just regurgitate whatever they say and tack on the appropriate attribution in almost every paragraph. No literary flourishes are necessary, not in these modern times. It might have taken me a few months to really get the hang of it, but now I am not half bad even if it is only me that says so myself. Often I see mistakes in other people's writings so this proves that I am comparable in quality even if the BLOCK is against me. If it were not for the BLOCK, I would be able to have a happy and productive life but unfortunately the BLOCK will never give me a break. They think they are building a temple but actually they forget that I myself am a temple. My body is the temple of the Holy Spirit as the Bible says. I am not just some dog that was wandering along the streets. I am a human being and thus I must insist that it is imperative to drive out all these male chauvinist pigs who are attempting to besmirch the sanctity of my pristinely briliant mind. The more you obsessively grind on and on, the less I care about your sick and twisted mind. Sorry but your Wizard of Oz act has got to STOP immediately!

Back Cracking

I never have been to a chiropractor but Cousin David once cracked my back. Once when we were visiting them in the Bay Area David came over from the city and was talking about how he was taking a massage therapy class and he was offering to crack everybody's backs and pounding on people's shoulders. I allowed him to crack my back. All he did was grab my arms and sling me over his back like a sack. All of my ribs shifted into place. It sounded like strange, like a click-click-click-click-click. He said my back must have been very much out of adjustment. Yes, probably. It is not like I ever used chiropractive services. I probably mentioned this to someone which explains why I am now feeling myself compelled to retell this story. However, I wouldn't know anything about the chiropractive services that Dr. Riffle provided to the Catholic priests of the Holy Order of MANS under the supervision of Father Earl Blighton. Whether my cousins ever had any connection to Dr. Riffle I really can't say. However, Cousin David was never a chiropractic practitioner in terms of being professionally certified so it is doubtful that he was ever called upon by the Holy Order of MANS for chiropractic services although I really wouldn't know anything about that. Cousin David was certainly vulnerable to cults but he mostly went for the Hare Krishna Eastern religion type of thing unfortunately for him.

Paying The Dentist

It warms my heart to know that you pay your dentist his dues whenever you go to his office to have your teeth cleaned or to have those rotten molars extracted from your empty head. However, that does not mean that you are entitled to tell the dentist what he should or should not do with his money.
If the dentist wants to squander his hard-earned dollars on scams concocted by obscure and little known con artists who spent time at Sing Sing and wrote their own religious texts to rival the Bible, well, that is his choice.
If the dentist wants to send thieves to jail, I suppose that law enforcement will cooperate with that charge given that their sole mission in life is to prosecute wrongdoers wherever they may be found and thrown into jail for three weeks regardless of guilt or innocence, the facts of the case having yet to be ascertained by a jury of peers in a courtroom presided over by the appointed judge, not that other guy with the ethnic axe to grind, persons in this country presumed to be innocent until guilt is properly determined as per the U.S. Constitution, there being apparently some exceptions in practice for unknown reasons.
Nevertheless, regardless of your exasperation with the dentist's failure to refund your teeth projects despite your whiny demands, still, you have no recourse in terms of legal avenues unless you want to break into his office and steal his financial records, which is illegal and will put you in the slammer with Longwell, or else have an affair with the dentist and clean his clock for whatever you can get. Or else you could marry the dentist and save a lot of money on future dental bills. Those are your options.
Still, none of these options will get you anywhere in terms of cracking the code. Sorry to break the truth to you this way but that was just how things were.
No matter how proactive you are in demanding a refund for all that poorly done teeth work due to the pathetically retro procedures prevalent at the time, the system being what it was, admittedly corrupt human nature being what it is and people being programmed to behave in certain ways, feeling themselves compelled to avoid unspeakable subject matters at risk of utter humiliation and embarrassment, still you will not be able to undo the past deeds and set the clock backwards. You should have thought to set up safeguards and preventive measures and remedial research and demanded perfection in the first place but you did nothing so you do not deserve a refund.

"I Fire Writers"

I recall my Dad once suggesting that I answer the ad with the famous headline, "I Fire Writers." This was when I was in high school and the ad put out by Norm Rohrer who ran something like the Christian Writers Guild and administered a correspondence course for would-be Christian writers often appeared in Christian magazines that I like to read such as Christianity Today and Campus Life. I don't know why I never mustered the courage to do that, however. The ad is not talking about firing in the sense of dismissal. It is referring to getting the writer all charged up to go out and write a lot of stuff and pay your own way through life. Oh, did I mention this to someone? Anyway, you are not in charge of firing writers so obviously you are not in a good position to fire me. If only you could put me on your payroll, then you could easily fire and dismiss me from your employment but alas it is not possible for you to drop your atom bomb on me for I am just a little too off-target for comfort, am I not? If you would like to mail me a paycheck to do whatever I want, that would be nice. After all, Robbie gets to do whatever he wants and his only credential is the fact of being an MK. I, too, am an MK so I think that someone should be funding my luxury lifestyle so that I also can do whatever I want as determined by me. What's fair is only fair.

The Problem With Cousins

The problem with cousins is that they live on some other planet and only come down to earth very rarely so we really don't understand each other very well. I seem to vaguely remember Aunt Anita talking about the Italian judge from San Francisco as if he were some kind of hero when actually he may have been a problem. According to the paperwork, they seem to have gotten the case transferred to a German judge who dismissed some of the charges and sentenced only parole. No one ever said anything insulting about Italians, at least not that I know of. It was just that my great-grandfather's father was born in Germany in the 1800s so maybe those Germans understand each other better. The witnesses for the prosecution, Dr. Riffle and Mr. Schmidt, were not Italians either so I don't see what this whole thing has to do with being Italian. Just because you are Italian, that does not mean that this whole thing has anything to do with you. It was not about being Italian. It was Dr. Riffle's money that was taken under cloudy circumstances, not your money. Thus, the matter of 1950 had absolutely nothing to do with Italians. The Italian judge might have been a nice man and done other good things in his long life but as it turned out it was not his place to pass judgment in this case. That job fell to the German judge. The judge had a lot more evidence to look at than we know of today and Samuel Longwell, the man who actually ferried the money from San Francisco to the workplace, was the only one who got jail for a year. I am not sure why these things happened and there were perhaps other circumstances that are not clear from the evidence. Thus it made no sense for the Butterfields to be playing on the Italian team. The Italians never did us any favors, not that it matters now.

Dumb Dumbs

Yes, there are some divorces in my family. It is sad enough just that the two people could not get along. To make matters worse, Linda's extended family are apparently the most pathetically stupid people on the planet and at the same time waging war against us, extended family of Merle, even though we have no clue what their problem is. Linda certainly did have a lot of personal problems of which I know nothing so I can't really comment. We don't really understand what their problem was so it sort of isn't fair to have all these stupid games bombarding us. They have a lot of problems but they don't want our help so obviously we are not going to offer.

Irish California

It is really not surprising that California has gone to the dogs. All of the churches are mostly empty and most of the people moved out to get away from the grinding monotony of these tediously boring and stupid Irish Catholic dogs who are now running show and act like they are at war against us. Adversarial is the word. They don't even try to make friends with us and they constantly bombard us with garbage that puts us always on the defensive because, obviously, we are useful pawns in their Counterreformation movement, especially me. They use their Catholic connection to win friends with Italians and Hispanics, but the issue is not really skin color. They are planning to turn the country Catholic, obviously, and then we will have no choice but to merge into their putrid and disgusting culture and dismantle everything that matters to us. Sad but at least it will not be my problem. How can an intelligent Protestant flourish in such an obnoxious culture as that, overrun by Irish Catholic swine like the Hoskins family?  I cannot imagine. Really, it is sad to see that the conservative cause is mostly taken over by the Irish Catholics anymore. It kind of gives the impression that the Protestants and Pentecostals don't stand for anything and obviously that is what they want, to make us look like garbage. Trashing girls, especially Protestants, seems to be a strategic component of their strategy to reduce the population of white Protestants and Pentecostals while opening the floodgates to incoming Catholics-pagans. I am not saying what should happen, I am just saying what I see. Future generations may have to decide on returning to mainline Protestant denominations if they want a local church because obviously the local AG churches belong to the brown people and white people are no longer welcome unless maybe you are Irish Catholic like the Yearys.

Bowling

Yes, I vaguely remember chatting with Dave Hoskins when we all went bowling with the church youth group. All he could talk about was Bruce Springfield. That is about all there is in his empty head, just some stupid comments about some weird rock star whose name I vaguely remember hearing somewhere. Apparently Dave's theme song for life is "Born to Run," which means that he really is an outlaw in the most worthless sense of the word, and not a talent agent that I would ever consult for any reason. What kind of stupid assignment would I get from that loser? I would not want to find out.

Who Let The WV Dogs Out?

Yes, and who let the dogs of West Virginia out of their cages? I am referring probably to Dave Hoskins' extended connections up there, including all of those mountain riff raff Younguns who spend their summers growing pot in the mountains and then come down here flashing their trash cash. We want none of them. We are Christians so we want to give no room to those drugged out losers from WV. If they cannot even clean up their own mountain snake lairs then obviously they have not earned the right to tell us anything, and that refers especially to Dave's horrid little witch Wendy. I want no connection whatever to those horrible people. I feel sorry for Wendy but not really. She doesn't deserve that much pity. I think she knew what she was doing in her sick little mind. I only feel sorry for the poor children who didn't have any choice in the matter.

Just because I once read the novel "Christie," that does not mean that I would want to go there or hear from those people either. I am sure that they have a lot of personal problems and I can't help them. Sorry, but their problems are too much for me.

Jokes That I Don't Get

Yes, I do not have the foggiest idea where all of these "I ran for president" jokes are coming from. It's just ridiculous. I never ran for president and never even thought about that. In fact, the one time that Steve Brown nominated me to run for something in high school, I immediately had my name erased from the blackboard because it would be too problematic for me to try to get elected in high school given all of the unfortunate circumstances of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, a white person temporarily displaced in a brown world or something like that. I would rather not run than be utterly humiliated by the tide of public opinion, now that's one way of looking at it. Later, after tenth grade Steve Brown moved back to Arizona and disappeared into the American landscape never to be heard from again. I probably should have had my name removed from the blackboard also at the Musician's Guild meeting because nobody elected me and also I never did anything to help with the talent show anyway because it was not my problem. So there is a positive side to not being elected. It is good not to be saddled with the opinions of the stupid public in my opinion. Like the Bible says in the Old Testament: "And every man did what was right in his own eyes." Now there is a recipe for anarchy and chaos, as any Sunday School teacher will tell you, and I specifically remember teachers at the little school emphasizing this point. You could give the people whatever they want and crown some powerful king but you might not like the results anyway, being chained into forced labor to fund the king's glory. Sometimes it is just as well to not be saddled with the problem because the solution you are seeking would only invite judgment and, anyway, it's not my problem.

Information Hoarders

Yes, I really resent being thought of as the hoarder when we all know that Dauna was the one who had her fingers into everything and everyone and knew a lot of stuff about people that I have no idea how she got. I really don't know very much about those people. I never had a lot of connections to them and there is nothing there for me to go back to now. The very little information that I may be induced to recal would not be worth very much anyway so I fail to see any point in continuing these discussions. I really don't remember anything important.

Basketball Games

I wonder what makes the wicked Hoskins brats and their bitchy sidekick Sherie Turnbull think that I would want to watch their disgusting display of midnight basketball? I had never even heard of that dubious sport before their impromptu performance at midnight during MK Retreat in Oklahoma. How shocking! Obviously there is a lot of filth and sleaze percolating in their sick little minds. At first I really didn't believe such a thing could be happening. It seemed unreal, like people were just lying or exaggerating something, but no, it was true and that is why, as I walked toward the gymnasium, people were streaming out of the gymnasium with expressions of shock and horror on their faces. So finally I turned back and returned to the dorm and did not try to enter the gymnasium. The camp counselors are dealing with the situation and there is nothing that we can do about that, like someone said. Everyone has been ordered to evacuate the gymnasium while they "counsel" the three of them. She was an MK from Africa. That is about all that I remember said about her. She was removed from the camp immediately and no one saw her after that. Anyway, this explains why nobody wants to have anything to do with the wicked Hoskins boys. This proves maybe that rich people are more wicked and evil than us normal poor people who play by the rules. This explains why it is better to avoid rich people whenever possible because they can really mess up your head and then they will be living it up high on the hog while you are left holding the bag for them when actually it should be the other way around. That is why it really is sick the way the Hoskins are demanding my head on a platter when actually it is no my fault that their sons are wicked and worthless. I don't know anything about it and it is not my problem.

The TV Whiners

It is so ridiculous the way those TV whiners sit there on their TV sets moaning and groaning and complaining about how everyone is out to get them. They are so paranoid that it make us want to vomit. So, like, do they think that I have nothing else to think about than their monotonous monologues? Like, do they think that nobody does their homework or their job and everyone just stands there watching what they are doing. Actually, most of the people on the planet are not in league with blithering spy-idiots Mark and Carol so we have no clue what their problem is. Carol had formerly worked for the TV people and said she was sick of hearing about all their personal problems from Jan so she quit and went to work for Hermano Pablo. That's about all I remember about that.
Sharon said that Mark and Carol were fired for doing something rather illegal. They had wired the building and had accumulated all kinds of notes from tapped phone conversations that were stashed in a file cabinet in a back room, maybe in the bottom drawer where earlier, before I had quit and found another job, I used to store the corrected lesson papers for the correspondence course that I was in charge of correcting and mailing out the next lesson among other things. Ok, so that was a weird conversation that I had with Sharon. I cannot imagine what Mark and Carol were doing and I no longer care to get back in touch with them, a thought that is not neceessary for me to verbalize. After all, Carol was quite nasty to me after she learned that I was in college with her former piano student Debbie Tracy and said some things about how wonderful she is and about how they have no use for me or something like that. So, like, Ok, like, those people always hated me anyway. I really need to get another job where I can meet other people and go other places where I can make friends who are my friends, not persons who are actually the property lock stock and barrel of the Debbie-Sharon-Rose-Carol-Jan gang, as if there were some kind of contest going on. Actually it was Lynda Botsford who had some sort of cat fight with Debbie Tracy in the presence of Mrs. Hummel maybe, I think. Lynda said something about it but did not explain clearly. The nature of their disagreement was not clear to me. Perhaps Dauna knows more about that than I do. It is also not clear to me whether Dauna and Debbie also had some sort of cat fight also or whether that tidbit is actually just another red herring bait dangled there, luring me to unload my opinions about them. It would probably be better for me to resist temptation and avoid saying what I really think about her. After all, I owe nothing to Debbie. She got paid for her piano accompaniment duties long ago so there is nothing else to say about that. Everybody hated my stage presentation so I can take a clue.

Philippians 3:19

It is really not my job to pound on these whiny fascist dogs like Robbie and Noel but the Bible applies and so obviously this is already in the script anyway. In fact this is their whole point. Although it is never said, we all know that the TV upppity-ups are big-time whiners. That is because their god is their belly. Far be it from them to forego certain alcoholic beverages that satisfy and quench their own consumptive carnal pleasures, even if ministerial license requirements technically forbid it, because, when it all comes down to it, they only care about earthly things. If you are not a minister then nobody can fire you from your pastoral position. You can just own your own ministry organization so nobody is able to take you to account for your drunken rages and fire you. Yes, they try to make us feel stupid for not going with the flow, and some of us may have our moments of being suckered by their devilishly clever tactics and manipulation and our thoughts get jumbled on this point, but anyway, actually, when all is said and done, they are the guilty ones who are trying to cover their tracks and make it seem like the rules are stupid and that we are all wrong for being too persnickety about rules. And which rules are important anyway? Just because Debbie Tracy doesn't like me and always hated my guts, that's not a rule. The rules are determined by the school or denominational organization or God, not by the whining of dumpy dogs like Debbie Tracy or Dauna Kammerer. It was not my job to go around putting the dogs back in their cages. So you might be able to get away with whatever you want and you might have to pay for it later but it is not my problem as long as the denomination basically agrees on what the rules are and ought to be. But if the uppity-ups aren't even playing by the rules anymore, then what is our reason for being? Maybe they would like to change the rules but what kind of church would that be, anyway? Catholic? Anglican? Whatever. They have plenty of other choices but then we wouldn't really be Pentecostal anymore. We would just be a lot of lukewarm nothingness to be spewed out of the mouth.

Noel

And who is this filthy dirty fascist slut Noel Baca who married into the Barth clan up in Northern California? Obviously, she is a worthless piece of garbage who does not deserve the slightest regard or respect from us. What an utterly rude and obnoxious way to introduce herself to the distant relatives! Hopefully, Noel's wicked schemes will go down in flames as being utterly undeserving of any respect from intelligent Christian Americans such as myself. We have zero desire to get in touch with those stupid people. If they want to mail the paperwork we are willing to take a look at it and see what they are talking about but otherwise we remain completely unimpressed with the blithering idiot cousins of San Jose.

Robbie the Fascist Swine

I think that Robbie has a lot of nerve trying to offer me a job when he has declared himself an enemy of everything that I believe in and care about. He chose for himself a whiny Italian-Latina bimbo wife and placed himself squarely in the category of fascist loser burning in fascist hell so I think that he has to pay the price. He cannot just dump all this Olympic sports garbage on me and expect an intelligent public to care about his not-so-illustrious career. Just being an MK is not enough. He has to assume responsibility for the emptiness of his sick head and the futile stupidity of the direction his worthless life has taken and stop trying to blame it all on me. Robbie cannot expect me to just hand over my heritage when obviously he has done nothing to deserve it.

Speaking of Mental Retards

I seem to recall someone saying that mental retard Debbie Tracy is babysitting mental retard Heather Wilson. Now there is a case of the blind leading the blind. Ha ha ha! We all know that Debbie Tracy is one of weirdest psychos on the planet so obviously she would not be babysitting my children assuming I ever had any, which I don't and neither does she, but if I did, well ... obviously someone already said this so there is no need for me to go around repeating the contents of your empty head, whoever you are, mother of the Antichrist or something like that. Enough said about that, not that I would ever think to say this but since these words have been placed in my mouth for delivery, I find myself obliged to vomit them back in your face.

Scripted Lines

As per the script concocted by those dirty dogs, I am now supposed to run around screaming and yelling and trashing that Dumpy Dog Debbie Tracy and her whiny dog friends Sharon Whetstone and Rose Wilson. My abuse of Debbie Tracy will garner sympathy for her and thus Warren will be won back to her side, as if I care about that. And when did those people ever have anything to do with me? My existence is basically unknown to them so nothing that I say matters in their world so there is no reason for me to carry out this scripted exercise in futility. And besides, I never did have any respect for those nasty bitches. Were they expecting me to be impressed with their mechanistic ability to perform the role of player piano despite the lack of any signs of intelligence in their empty brains? Sorry that I cannot oblige but just because they are a couple of years older than me, that does not mean that I have any desire to be caught having to converse with them. Besides, I never watched Diana Ross and the Supremes on TV, never attended the Barry Manilow concert, so I have no clue what they are talking about. Don't they realize how stupid they sound and that they really are supposed to keep their mouths shut and carry our orders from me and nothing more? What Debbie wants counts for nothing because she is just a Warren's stupid dog. Besides, they are so worldly and decadent it makes us want to vomit watching their display of glittery decadence but we have to remember that they have very powerful connections so we dare not cross them. After all, Debbie Tracy's parents are powerful faculty members who could make our lives miserable, Sharon's parents pastor a church, and, needless to say, Rose Wilson is one of the Wilsons who are the most horrible powermongers on the planet as everyone knows. It is better not to have any fellowship or ever have a conversation or encounter with any Wilson person because they are horrible people who think everything is just all about them. So basically those people are worthless to me and will have no place or role in my future life whatever that might be. College was not supposed to be like that. I was not expecting college to such a worthless wasteland. Conventional wisdom says that your college friends are supposed to be important components of your professional network in adult life but that was not the case for me. College was nothing, unfortunately, but it is not necessarily anyone's fault. It was just the system.

Roasting the Rainbow Riff Raff

It really is not necessary for me to point out that there would be no reason for us to mix and mingle with the vile wicked mafia riff raff delivery stooges of the Rainbow pizza restaurant on Market Street, not to be confused with those other reputable pizzerias that we patronize. We hope those pizza stooges get saved someday but we are not personally called to a ministry of pizza delivery in the San Francisco region and thus, basically, it is not our problem. If you cannot offer free delivery of the pizza to my front door then obviously you are not qualified to open your mouth in my presence because, basically, you are a clueless idiot, just a whiny tempest in a teapot. That is about all that I have to say about that, basically, because no other evidence to suggest any sign of intelligence in your empty head has as yet presented itself to us and thus we are completely unimpressed with your blithering idiot presentation.

Speaking Of Sarah

Yes, it is interesting that Sarah Kugler's name appears in so many of the books written by early Pentecostal missionaries to China, what few books there are, two or three, whereas hundreds of other missionaries are not mentioned in the Dixon and Haist books. This may give the unintended impression that Sarah K. is the only game in town but that would not be exactly right. Sarah has her significant place in history and her voice and that is nice but there are other things to say about Pentecostal missionaries in China. Sarah may have gone the UPC route but others took cover in other denominational organizations and so there is not one "Yellow Brick Road" to China, so to speak. There may be a lot more to the story than just Sarah and her little dog Toto but very little was written down, unfortunately, so the picture is very blurry. Sarah may remember with glowing nostalgia the early days when everyone agreed with each other back in the Garden of Eden but those days are long gone and can never be again. We just have to agree to disagree on certain points. We don't really have any use for this argument, to tell the truth, if they are just going to be that way.

Food Fights

Overdosing on sugar might not be the healthiest thing but at least I was never responsible for instigating cafeteria food fights. In my opinion, those guys get way too aggressive in slapping each other with pieces of cake or pie or walking away and leaving piles of slop all over the table but, well, am I the police? Is it my job to regulate and remember the names of all those food flingers? You could always ask Dauna. She is one of those who has a way of remembering all that trivia. I just wasn't paying that much attention.