Fig Trees

The diaries of great-grandmother refer occasionally to the fig trees of Uncle Joe and the figs brought by him and Dora as gifts. Some unscrupulous persons have seized on this imagery of the fig tree and used that along with the fig tree cursed by Jesus in the New Testament, to wreak all kinds of havoc and destruction upon our family, even upon those of us who have no regard or respect for the idiotic ramblings of Uncle Joe. Yes, I suppose that Uncle Joe's children would want to kill me for saying that but, really, it is true. Uncle Joe was just some regular Joe who somehow was attached to our family tree even though I have no idea why. I don't understand all this emphasis on Uncle Joe as I only saw him once in my entire life, sitting around the dinner table and Grandma and Grandpa Calkins' house, and, really, nothing memorable comes to mind conerning that occasion. I imagine that Grandma Calkins probably talked most of the time as usual.

The Lori Logan Story

Yes, Lori Logan once told me a story about how she was hired by a bank in downtown Fort Lauderdale and for three months she was in charge of this cache of money which she carefully guarded. At the end of three months her supervisor told her that her services were no longer needed and basically she was fired or dismissed. There really was something odd about that story but I did not think too much about it at the time. The thought of checking her name at the courthouse did not cross my mind. I just thought that it was sort of amazing that the bank ever hired Lori in the first place as she really is sort mentally on the level of high school dropout, not really someone I would take very seriously for financial advice, especially as she often talks about her overbearing burden of credit card debt because she apparently spends most of her time at the mall shopping for clothes and gifts that she gives to her nieces and nephews and not really much time reading books or taking classes or anything of a serious nature that she would have anything intelligent to talk about. I mean, I try to be nice to these people from church but I really don't know very much about their personal lives. I might have seen Lori once a week on Sunday morning and that was about all. My sister is the one who had Lori living at her house for a couple of years and recommended her for a job selling mobile phones. However, Lori moved back to Atlanta with her sister's family several years ago and we do not hear much about her anymore. You could always ask my sister if you really want to know about Lori. I never really kept in touch.

Go Away

I cannot remember very much else about them so I will have to ask everyone to leave me alone and stop bugging me. I do not have this magic key to unlock more of nothing much, nor do I care to even try. Basically all this proves is that they don't have anything that I really need. I am just fine without them and their "teasing." So basically if they cannot be bothered to say hello then maybe I don't have time for them either. Thanks anyway.

Which Reminds Me

So HR Block did my taxes and I filed with the IRS just like every other year of my life and there is no reason that I know of for anyone to be questioning my taxes. Everything was filed based on the three W-4 forms that I received indicating my earnings for the year of 1989. I am fairly confident that HR Block would not be hiring incompetent people so there was no reason to expect the IRS to have any questions unless maybe Suzette Cuccio and all those people from church who work at the IRS office in Hollywood (Florida) are spending their lunch breaks checking on all their acquaintances from church. After all, if Suzette would report on her mafia cousins she would probably not be adverse to checking on everybody else in the entire church as well, I can easily imagine. I do not see why I should be afraid of those overzealous spies as I have no mafia connections. I probably cashed my usual tax refund like every other year. If I needed to pay California taxes for those four months then I am sure that the HR Block people would have figured out how to report that. Obviously, that was the whole point of having them take care of that headache so that I just sign the tax return and drop it in the mail. Sometimes it really is worth the money to have the professionals sort these things out.

Throwback

Yes, my mother called that girl a throwback. I don't remember why except that she was sort of weird as was her mother. They lived not far from us in El Salvador but that was the only time we ever saw them. They were too deeply strange so we apparently preferred not to get back in touch with them later and we have no idea where they ended up on the planet. By "throwback" I am not sure what my mother meant. She did not mean to just throw her back like a fish in the ocean. I think she was just indicating that those people were strangely obnoxious and difficult to talk to, hypocrites who pretend on the surface to be part of our Christian milieu while in actuality promoting other things in conversation, things that are mostly divisive and tear people apart. We were not interested in arguing with them about the system and all the things that are wrong with it, even if there are many things wrong with it. We just want them to go away and leave us alone.

"I Got You Babe"

I mostly disliked the TV show, "Sonny and Cher," and its dreary theme song. How could anyone of sane mind and body really enjoy the vomit-inducing spectacle of Sonny and Cher dissing each other every week on national television? Don't the sitcom people have anything better to do with their air time? No, apparently they haven't gotten it yet. I don't think I watched that more than two or three times and only because I was at my grandparents' house and someone else was controlling the channels. I don't think they had that in El Salvador. Fortunately for me there is no way that those dysfunctional Hollywood people such as Wicked Witch Cher and her hideous daughter "Chastity" would be able to get into my life and gum up the works. There are barriers and hedges and boundaries to keep them out. We would not want to be bound by their creepy "Bono" bonds. We have to keep those horrible Hollywood people on the outside of our personal lives so that we are not infected by their insanity. So true.

Which Reminds Me

My taxes were done by the HR Block office a couple of blocks down the street from where I lived in Central Florida. If those people were even halfway professional there would be no reason for me to later be getting all these weird messages about how they have put an "HR Block" on my future IRS filings to make sure I am on the up an up. I cannot even imagine what their problem is. I went to HR Block that one year because I had lived in three places — Virginia, California, and Florida — the previous year and it was going to be a bit more complicated than usual, not like the EZ form that I usually can handle myself quite well enough. However, that was the only year that I ever used HR Block so there was no reason to notify everyone on the planet in such a bizarre way unless of course they want their own professional licensing reexamined by the state or something like that. I don't know. I just think those people will get riled up about anything and I just want them to stay out of my way as I will stay out of theirs. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you is a good rule to live by generally speaking.

Bethany Jokes

I am starting to suspect that someone is looking to reexamine the extinct Bethany crowd of which the Thomsons are an essential part. However, I really don't have much in the way of fuel for that fire. I sort of suspect that probably Bethany was sort of ingrown but I don't have many details. Anyway, it is not my place to say so I am really not saying this. I really don't know anything so don't ask me. I never really understood what they were talking about.

Casting Agency Blues

It is clear that I would never get a part in a theatrical production, not that I care about that. Why should I waste time on these cattle calls? Just about the only role that might require freckles and reddish hair would be that of "Orphan Annie" and I am too old for that part anyway, while makeup and costume experts can easily remedy the external hair and skin requirements to fit the particular age-appropriate child actor. I am not needed so why go there? Not having a Daddy Warbucks to pay for all this excess drama, my actual parents would obviously be left holding the bag to defend something that I can't take to the bank. McClellan's castle is just a colossal boondoggle.

It is just not fair. It is not fair that just because whiney obnoxious Sharon Turner complained about my Dad's cliches, that I should have to spend years trying to explain that there just are not enough of Carter's little liver pills to go around. My Dad definitely has more cliches and sayings and quotes than Carter had pills so it would take eternity to sort all that stuff out. If the next generation is confused about these oblique references to drugs, they should ask their parents or look it up in the dictionary or whatever. I personally don't have time for this. I need a job now. I need a paycheck now. Now! Now! Now!

To Kill Or Not To Kill Barbara

Someone somehow forgot to resolve the problem of Barbara Miller of Mississippi who was living in El Salvador for maybe a year while working as a teacher at the MK school. She was living at the time with a local family, maybe the Navarettes although I am not sure, and teaching the younger grades. Ok, maybe she also spent some time at our house. I would not want those most embarrassing moments of my life discussed in public to which Barbara was a witness. The silly singing of "Oops there goes another rubber tree plant," and perhaps was a discussion of the dizzy "Flying Nun" show and the "Dominique" song and "Frere Jacque" and why Ole Miss is the only U.S. college that counts for anything, and blah blah blah, etc. etc. etc. Well, perhaps Barbara would be surprised to learn that her role in my life was not that important. I could have done so much better without Miss Miller lurking out there in the background pretending to know who I am. Barbara only remembers a few little things that have somehow been blown to smithereens even though I would really rather forget that. It is just that if you cannot pick up the phone and call me in person, I don't want to hear it from them and I am not going to take it from them either. Got it now? Goodbye! Yes, really, goodbye!

Which Reminds Me

Years ago, back when we still thought of Susie Stewart as a friend of ours, we were visiting her in San Diego some time around the New Year and it was her idea to go to The Breakers on New Year's Eve and walk around there and look at whatever. We walked upstairs and through a window we could see blow a band was playing some music but we could not hear it very clearly. And so we walked around the ground for a while. That is about all I would remember about that. I do not have that many memories of San Diego personally beyond the gigantic zoo that is located there.

Which Reminds Me

I am such a good Christian girl and thus I can have no future association with that putrid rainbow trash Joanne. What a disgustingly vile person she is, so pathetically bad and devoid of any idea of right and wrong. Perhaps someday she will get saved and then maybe she will appear in heaven, the place where I am going. But then again if she is Catholic she might not make it as those people can never be sure. Those people can never have any confidence and joy in salvation so they are tossed around by whatever wave. Sad but I would not to be dragged down by stupid Catholics. Basically.

Anyway, I cannot think of a more tediously dull and boring family than the Thompsons. Hopefully I will never have to hear another word from them ever again post-Mexico as I really could not care less about them and their tediously dull and boring agenda of Scandinavian self-aggrandizement.

Which Reminds Me

While we were living in Mexico, one day the Thomson girls were at our house playing the board game "Sorry" and I lost that particular game. This was novel experience for me and I got so upset that I threw one of the game pieces on the floor and broke it, a yellow game piece I believe. And yes, that was such a bad attitude I had to put on such a terrible display of anger. And if Lyle Thomson is still so angry with an 8-year-old girl who did nothing to his daughter Judy, except maybe call her a fatso, why does he not just to go out and shoot himself instead of murdering me? Like I should apologize now? Definitely NOT.

Which Reminds Me

Years ago Mrs. Lois Bueno was at Life Publishers checking on my mother's work and what she does. She made some of her usual comments about how boring that seemed to her, all that computer stuff and printing out the financial reports and whatnot. She has better things to do than all that tediously boring clerical stuff that my mother does. Why, all those details would just bog down her thinking processes. Yes, I just felt like kicking her out the door. My mom has a pretty responsible job that requires lots of organizational skills but it is not like the Buenos would ever give us credit for anything. That would not harmonize well with their agenda of self-aggrandizement as the sole pasha/emir of missions of whatever kind. They only like the rich people who pay their bills, obviously, and they would not want to have to share that with any other missionary families, obviously. It's just a system that was created entirely for rich people.

Interestingly

It is said that a certain American Baptist missionary in China, Edward Clemens Lord (1817-1887), had six wives. However, he was not a polygamist. It seems that after his first wife died he married her sister, a widow, and after she died another widow and so on until he had married six wives. And whose husband will he be in the resurrection, some may be asking cheekily? To the modern mind it might seem that such a marital record would invite police investigation. However, I don't know. Sometimes truth is just stranger than fiction.

Speaking of Joanne

Yes, that was so lovely of Joanne Calabrese to leave me looking like a plucked turkey, as if I would have no legal defense against this requirement of full disclosure. You see, the English language in general is in the public domain and thus everything I would say or do can be fairly used in any way they choose against me whereas their private languages — Italian, Spanish, Farsi, Arabic, Scandinavian — can be fairly used to conspire against me without fear of public domain intrusion as I basically cannot keep track of all that even if I could understand it. In this way they assume a one-way street in which the English speakers will be stripped of their wealth eventually whereas they will build up reserves that can be used eventually to ground us white people into hopeless poverty and despair. So this is why I would prefer not to disclose any personal information to coy and cagey Joanne who, as we all know, is just waiting for me to say something that she can use against me because she only cares about her own rainbow trash agenda. Or else I can just make everything public information for everyone, thus removing any advantage from Joanne's lesbian dike agenda. Just because Joanne sat in front of me in 10th grade English class, that does not mean that she ever had any special knowledge of me nor would I have any idea how it was that she turned to the rainbow agenda. I have no clue. And if Joanne's reserve is so fascinating, why is no one picking her brain apart? So we see that they were expecting something from me that I was not willing or able to deliver. Sorry but reserves are important. Just picking my brain apart is not going to solve anything.

Lowlanders

It is true that in Scotland the McClellans were Lowlanders, based as they were mainly in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbrightshire, located within the region of Dumfries and Galloway, whatever that meant. However, in removing from California to Texas, not the Oklahoma of the book, it is doubtful that my grandparents, the McClellans, would want to be confused with the lowlife rabble represented in that pathetically seedy low-class book, "The Grapes of Wrath." The Do-Re-Mi Dogs of California are bent on lumping us all together into one indistinguishable rabble of Okie migrants but it was not exactly like that. You see, our Uncle John owned the migrant camp in which the fruit pickers lived, having bought it with the profits he made from selling used cars to the Indians of Arizona, and our family stayed at first at their house, because Uncle John had already been there for a while, until they could get their own place, various places actually, having also owned and operated a motel at one time, among other things. My mom's Aunt Betty owned and managed the Dinner Bell restaurant which was located sort of near the entrance to the campground. There the migrant workers were able to rent little cabins at low cost and various amenities were provided to them I would imagine during their short stays. I really don't know much about that. I only remember visiting that place maybe once when visiting the relatives. So, yes, you could imagine some superficial similarities between ourselves and that trashy low-class book, "The Grapes of Wrath," even if it did win a Nobel Prize, but that is because you either don't know who we are or you are some Marxist farmworker activist trying to score political points by stirring up class warfare among the lowlife farmworkers in branding us as related to the oppressive capitalist campground owner who must be crushed, even though the events of the book actually represent probably some other campground owned by some other person and populated by some other migrant workers. So it is just all politics to you! So in picking sides you reveal that you could not rise above your lowly station in life because you just couldn't get out of the box. Sorry but there is no reward for that type of tunnel vision.

Which Reminds Me

Years ago when I was working in Costa Mesa, Calif., at Hermano Pablo Ministries, I vaguely recall sitting at the lunch table and listening to mostly Mark carrying on about whatever. Although I really don't remember, it might have been Mark who was talking about the Noble Prize and perhaps discussing its role as a vehicle of humanistic philosophy. Humanists tend to be atheists who do not believe in the existence God and thus do not perceive the role of Christianity in the awakening of mankind. Humanists tend to be spiritually blind and unable to understand certain spiritual matters. So Mark or someone was talking about this perhaps. I heard later that Mark and Carol were fired. I doubt that the comments denigrating the Nobel Prize were the cause of his firing however. After all, here in the United States free speech is protected whether or not you agree with whatever Mark is saying. It was more about the spying activities that they had coordinated, the wiring that Mark had rigged to eavesdrop on every telephone conversation in the building and that sort of thing. That I didn't know anything about until much later, after they were fired. I was not on the "inside" of that conspiracy you might say.

As for the Nobel Prize, I suppose that it is nice that they have such a high stature prize financed by some Scandinavians who like to recognize oustanding contributions to the world in areas of science, literature, economics and politics. That's nice. However, it would be somewhat naive to assume that there is not an internal politics to that. I suppose that Scandinavian prize-givers would tend to reward those who cooperate with their Gothic Vandal view of the globe, and obviously lots of people would be impressed with that dazzling gold medal even if the values it represents would tend to be of the green-blooded troll variety. I see that someone has already designated Swedish people as being frigidly cold and Max was expecting me to copycat that even though I had not heard that in the first place. It is just assumed that I know all about everything and mindlessly repeat things of which I was not previously aware. Brrr!

U.S. Nobel winners in the literature category have included Sinclair Lewis, Eugene O'Neill, Pearl S. Buck, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Saul Bellow, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Toni Morrison. That's nice.

Someone was saying that U.S. authors are not producing anything of Nobel quality nowadays so the Nobel Prize will not be coming here for a while. Where are the "Grapes of Wrath" and the "Sound and Fury" books representing a true ethos of the nation?

Ha ha ha! Of course, the notoriety of Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" was rather inconvenient for us. It was published in 1939, long before my Texas grandparents made the trip west to California during World War II to find jobs in the canneries. Thus any similarities to the book are only superficial and coincidental, never mind that there also was an "Uncle John" in our family and that there was a journey by automobile along the highway from Texas to California. The book was already out there, a nuisance to be avoided and shot down whenever possible, long before the green-blooded trolls of Scandinavia bestowed upon it the highest of literary honrs, the Nobel Prize, in 1962, thus perpetuating forever this perplexing mix of fact and fiction.

"Think On"

"Think on" is the slogan of the McClellan coat of arms, topped as it often is with that gory head of a black man impaled on the end of a pike or sword. There are those who question whether it was actually the head of a wandering gypsy on the end of the sword. Regardless, many accounts say that it was a notorious criminal known as the "Black Morrow." As the story goes, a certain William McClellan, at the command or else suggestion of King James of Scotland, slayed the criminal and brought the impaled head to the Scottish king's throne room and cast it at his feet. When the king's memory seemed to go blank as to the promised reward, the McClellan prompted, "Think On." This was apparently the right thing to say as the king apparently did reward William McClellan with the title of Lord Kirkcudbright created for him. Or else the title was given to Robert Mcclellan in 1633 by Charles I of England. Something like that. William McClellan was killed in the Battle of Flodden, 1513, defending the King of Scotland. The castle was built later, in 1582, by Sir Thomas McClellan of Bombie. The ninth lord of Kirkcudbright, Sir Camden Grey, died in 1832 and the title has been extinct since that time. The title can only be passed to a male heir but Sir Camden Grey had only one daughter, Elizabeth. Elizabeth married James Lambert and they had seven children. I suppose that it would be somewhat difficult for them to inherit the Kirkcudbright title as they are not really from Kirkcudbright anyway and not really McClellans. I may have that much in common with the Lamberts. Anyway, nobody really cares to rehash that staff all the time. You can always read about this in Wikipedia or the clan page so you don't have to get it from me that there can never be another Lord Kirkcudbright. Some other surname perhaps would not be able to claim the Bombie history and many of the original McClellans no longer live there. So these are matters for the history books, not for current affairs that affect my personal life in anyway. So?

Speaking of Kirkcudbright

My McClellan ancestor came to America some time in the late 1700s. As the story goes, two McClellan brothers, John and Henry, appeared in America at an early age. My ancestor, John McClellan was born in about 1770 in Scotland and in 1788 the public records mention his marriage to Mary Margaret Brownlow. They settled in Abingdon, Virginia, where he ran a tavern or farmed or something and had 11 children. Thus we see that our McClellan ancestors are completely removed from the Lord Kirkcudbright drama that was playing out at that time in Europe during the 19th century. In fact, there is no evidence that our McClellan ancestors ever lived in Kirkcudbright or any other city in Scotland, Ireland, or Great Britain. My grandfather's cousin spent some time in Scotland scouring church records there but never found any trace of our ancestor because the 18th century records are incomplete.

Coincidentally, in reading the autobiography of "Scotty Kid: The Life Story of 'Brother Tommy,'" we learn that this man, a railroad tramp, drug addict, and prison convict gloriously saved around the turn of the century through the Los Angeles Rescue Mission who later became an evangelist and missionary, was actually born in Scotland, in fact in the very town of Kircudbright. Anderson makes no mention of the McClellans in his book. However, Anderson does mention that after his salvation he tried to make amends with the townspeople back in his hometown of Kirkcudbright.

Thomas F. Anderson says: “I also had to write to owners of grocery stores in my old home town, Kirkcudbright, in Scotland, and confess to them how I had stolen fruits, soap, eggs, whisky, and tobacco, perfume, fish, and meat. They wrote back forgiving me."

Anderson speaks of his family coming over to America from Scotland but the book offers not much in the way of names and dates. I can see where a prison convict might be shy about presenting the full record on his whereabouts during childhood and adolescence.

Which Reminds Me

I vaguely recall at one time over the dinner table at our house in El Salvador the talk was of ancient European royalty and something about the glories of that. My mother laughingly made some flip and/or self-deprecating remark about how back in the Middle Ages she probably would have been the maid of the manor, not the aristocracy, probably not wanting to seem boastful and vain in attempting to claim some vague promise of royalty to which we obviously are not entitled. I don't recall whether this bit of conversation was connected to the discussion of the McClellan "Castle," a barren pile of rocks located in the city of Kirkcudbright, Scotland, which at one time was a house owned by the McClellan clan of my grandfather's ancestry. Upon more recent investigation, I learned there is also a title, the Lord of Kirkcudbright or something like that, gone extinct some time in the 19th century due partly to the deaths of the childless McClellan heirs and also a mass exodus of Scots people who would rather be free in America than burdened by the claims of British aristocracy on one's time and money. It just doesn't seem to matter here in America what happens to the pile of rocks that is mainly a tourist attraction over there. If I could afford to travel I probably would go there and spend the hour or two required for the guided tour but beyond that I really don't know why it matters that much to me personally. The fact that this was discussed in front of the Bueno family is perhaps unfortunate because those people latch onto every little detail and incorporate everything into their private fantasy world about kings and castles and whatever. The Middle Ages were a bleak and miserable time for most people so, yes, it is a bit hard to understand why the Tripletts would want to fuel that fantasy, to actually take that so seriously, not that I would want to make a federal case out of that. I mean, lots of people enjoy the museum tours and the history books about castles but would we really want to go back to that miserable time when printed books had not yet been invented and regular people like me were mostly illiterate? No, I think not.

Which Reminds Me

At a party years ago I recall that Byron Cox informed everyone present at the Emory's house that he would be willing to clean the bathrooms of Grand Central Station with his tongue. That was a rather shocking thing to hear told in polite company. Yes, those were the very words coming out of his mouth. That is how desperate those people are to make points, however trivial or worthless or insignificant their points may be. I did not drink of the water that David held out in front of my nose. But by just filling time with this endless babble these whiners steal time, forcing to explain what they already know, and time is money. That perhaps explains why I have not that much sympathy for them. How disgusting can you be? I don't even want to think about that.

Which Reminds Me

Probably the most obnoxious maid we had was Mercedes. Mercedes was our maid in El Salvador for about seven months. Even though Mercedes was not a thief in the vein of Toña, she was an extremely obnoxious person, always butting in when and where she did not belong. Nobody really cared what Mercedes thought about anything but she did not seem to understand her place. She was like a household spy. If we were in the family room watching TV she would always somehow manage to be standing there in the hallway sweeping the floor or something for a prolonged time and then she would come in and flop down in the family room chairs and pretend to be part of the family. This got very tolerated for a while until finally I had my mother told her to spend her leisure time in the maid's room because it was very distracting to have to drop everything and make conversation with Mercedes and answer all her nosy and impertinent questions regarding matters of no concern to her. It was nice that she was taking college classes and was planning to be a teacher but I did not like feeling myself compelled to compare my vocational plans with her. Just because Mercedes perhaps became a certified teacher, or not, I ha no diea, that did not mean that I had to also do the same in order to compete with Mercedes. I don't want to make any personal decisions just because Mercedes thinks that I should do this or that. I prefer to make my own vocational decisions for my own reasons of which the maid is not invited to discuss. This type of thing I only discuss with my mother. My mother is the one who gives the maid her instructions, like I was telling Susie. So thanks anyway.

Pointed Remarks

Ha Ha Ha! Horrid nasty mean Cousin Laurie pretending to be a nice person. Ha ha ha! There is no nastier piece of lowlife trash than Laurie in some circles but I try to avoid answering the Butterfield mail because it really is not my problem. I would not want to be mistaken for one of them. Even with Army Boots that nasty Wicked Witch cousin will never get a Purple Heart award in a million years. No, for traitorously backstabbing your entire family all you get is a dog collar around your fat ugly neck, in case you forgot. But you should already know that by now. You ought to know that Marvin is trying to yank us all around on a chain even though we are not even related to those people in actual practice and don't really care what they do. If Marvin ever gets promoted to Chairman of the Federal Reserve I really don't care one way or another. I just don't want those people calling my house personally to notify me of the latest interest rate fluctuations because I really don't care about that very much. I might be busy with other things and don't really see why that should concern me in any way. We are almost not related to those distant second or third cousins and while we hope they get saved someday we really cannot be associated with them on a family basis if they refuse to accept Christianity and try to bully us out of our faith. Sorry but sometimes walls are there for good and practical reasons.

The Lie of Abstract Generalities

Yes, that was so rude, not to mention stupid, of Holly MacGowan to make such a sweeping generalization about male music majors. Holly was saying that all of the male music majors were gay but that was obviously a lie. There might have been one or two obvious cases that everyone knew of or suspected, but the rest of the male music majors were obviously straight and expecting to get married eventually, even though not necessarily to me, not that this was a subject to give much thought to. Holly made this pathetically stupid presentation in Lynda Botsford's room in the second floor dorm at a time when I was there visiting with Lynda and Dauna. No straight person would appreciate getting stuck in such a crooked box, obviously, and Holly should have known better than to go around making such ludicrous and potentially damaging false statements. And yet we see that Holly is rewarded for her stupidity and easily finds employment as a "Life Coach," whatever that means, by virtue of having a psychology degree, which likely trains you to treat everyone else like mental garbage and imagine yourself the supreme authority over your pathetically neurotic clients and/or acquaintances. And then I was stupid enough to repeat that garbage later because, I don't know, the idea generally speaking had been planted there in my mind and the implications were rolling around in my head, sort of. If the "all" were true (and are not these psychology people trained to be experts on these matters?) then that would mean that each "individual" would necessarily also be gay, in which case there would be no reason to give serious thought of him as a marital prospect and thus he should not go around making false and misleading statements about his future intentions of marriage when actually he is off the market. But then again the "individual" cases considered on their merits prove that the generality is often a lie and many of the male music majors were not gay even if not attracted to me in particular. Thus we see that we would be better off, generally speaking, not to consult with the clueless "life coach" about these matters. We know that the weeds will appear in their own timing. It was not our job to weed them out of the front lawn, there being too many other things to do, class and chapel attendance and homework and such. They tend to weed themselves out without any help from us so no need to get ourselves worked up on this point.

Taxes

Given that Jesus Himself said that we should render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, I don't have a problem with the idea of paying taxes generally speaking. While the larger paycheck might theoretically render a large tax bill, the inverse also may be true. In fact, no income means no taxes paid, which means no money to pay the rent so the idea of making no money merely as a technique of tax evasion seems somewhat ludicrous in that light, as taxation in of itself is somewhat neutral to my mind, apart from the argument of whether the tax be just or unjust enough to merit the dumping of tea boxes into Boston harbor by persons costumed as native Americans. I vaguely recall some talk years ago of some man who was making a big point of not paying taxes at all and writing books or issuing publicity of some type about how to accomplish the status of tax evader and why eluding the IRS would be a meritorious thing to do. I cannot quite recall who that person was. The idea was discussed in our family and dismissed as entirely ludicrous, a foolish tempting of fate. Perhaps someone is still out there fishing for that piece of information but I have completely forgotten who that was.

Suicide

Of course it would be sort of suicidal for me to defend the advanced study of Biblical languages as my Dad mostly thinks that it is unnecessary to study Greek and Hebrew and that those Ph.D.'s mostly have their heads full of silly notions that are of no use to us regular folks. Also, I am a girl so it is none of my business what those Advanced Biblical studies people should or should not study. I don't know anything about that. I kind of like studying things for myself but I don't want to get involved in all of those gnarly issues of theological study that have people all worked up into a snit, as if we were trying to prevent Hispanic people from advanced study of Biblical languages, and my Dad would kill me if I got involved in that issue as if I ever had anything to say about that. Nor would I want to attend nursing school or to side with those who would require medical studies for all girls. There is not really a nursing shortage anymore, there being almost an oversupply of medical personnel available to staff clinics around the world, so it is not necessary to try to fit me into the box of nurses for girls and the tedious type of person who likes that type of profession. There are other jobs available for girls other than nurse that do not require medical training. The other conventional job choice for girls is that of teacher but I neglected to get a teaching credential when I was younger and it is too late now. It would be too much trouble to try to get certified with all of these people prepared to gun me down at every step. Better to resign myself to the suffering of old age than to try to do anything else now. My life is basically over and I really ought to commit suicide, as Stacy was saying. I don't see any reason to argue about it being more convenient for me to die as early as possible rather than to continue living in this pathetically horrible world. I would kill myself but then again it is not my place to say when I should die. Perhaps my presence will at least grate on the nerves of my enemies. Who knows?

Speaking of Tests

I would love to see the look of dismay on Max Yeary's face when he realizes that he flunked the Advanced Syriac Language test. He should have spent more time on Greek and Hebrew, not so much time trying to gain admission to the club of silly nurses who sit around gleefully exchanging their stories about bedpans and diseased body parts and roadkill, if he wanted a Ph.D.

Which Reminds Me

How many times do I have to explain that I don't know anything about the firing of Susie Stewart, who was the children's pastor at Oakland Park Assembly of God? Susie was fired by the pastor, Max Yeary for reasons of which I was only vaguely aware, maybe. Susie was very embarrassed about the whole thing and perhaps for that reason only vaguely explained to us her dismissal from that position. I have no doubt that her roommate at the time, Miriam Denham, who was also Max's secretary, is fully informed as to the details of Susie's firing if you really want to know more about that. I do vaguely remember once listening to Susie and Miriam talking about one of the girls in the church and how they thought that she was some type of lesbian. That was a rather freaky thing to say about such a young girl but Susie and Miriam were convinced that her attendance at church functions was a serious problem and they had expressed their concern to Pastor Yeary but said that he had refused to do anything about it, had refused to bar that girl from attending the class or children's church event at which her attendance had supposedly become a problem. I don't remember the names of these girls or the adults who were said to also be intervening in that issue. It was maybe a few weeks later that Susie was fired from her position. I cannot recall whether Miriam also was fired or left voluntarily but later Miriam became Bob Hoskins' secretary. I don't know anything else about that. Max is fired from being my pastor because obviously my name is not Susie or Miriam and he has no authority to fire me from a position that was never mine or for a controversy in which I was never involved. I only remember hearing something of that vaguely, something that Susie and Miriam said, but as we all know, if you know Susie at all, you have to take everything that Susie says with a grain of salt because although she speaks much, she does not necessarily know whereof she speaks. I don't know anything about those people nor do I care to be taken for Susie.

Which Reminds Me

My mother owns mineral rights to about 100 acres of land in Texas. My aunt's portion was 80 acres, which is now owned equally by her two surviving children Richard and Karen. So Richard and Karen each have 40 acres worth of mineral rights. And how is it that my mom got 100 acres and their mom only got 80 acres? I don't know exactly how that happened but I think that Richard and Karen are still angry about that and yet they are against me and friendly with my mother, their aunt, and also inexplicably loyal to that horrid Spanish lady, Anna of Oakland, who has no rights to anything, so none of this works to my advantage in any way. My grandfather apparently sold mineral rights on the other 180 acres to the farmer so he has half of the original amount, maybe, if I remember this rightly. So none of this matters or is of any benefit to me. I would not get any mineral rights unless my mother were to die and perhaps she has every right to disinherit me, and anyway I would just be horrendously old by that time and I would get maybe $100 every two or three months in oil revenues split with my sister and her family so that not be enough to even pay the rent, so this gas and oil stuff is not worth all of this aggravation. It just doesn't matter that much. It just isn't worth it to me personally.

Which Reminds Me

My mother owns mineral rights to land in Texas which she inherited from my grandfather who farmed there at some time in the 1920s. These rights are leased to a gas and oil consultant and these rights grant him access to the land to conduct various tests of a geological nature. In return for this concession, the gas and oil consultant pays my mother a small fee which reserves for him the rights to negotiate for future oil well drilling and reserve a small commission for himself on the proceeds should there ever be an oil well drilled at some future time. Years ago someone said that the farmer had expressed concern about not being able to legally deny access to his farmland to the testers. The testers apparently are a disturbance to the farming activities necessary to sending food to market in a timely manner, or so the issue was represented at one time. However, this controversy proves only that the farmer is perhaps a somewhat peevish fellow forgetful of the fact that every homeowner has a water meter in the backyard and a water meter man who comes to read the water meter. Access is automatically granted because the water belongs to the city. Unless he wants to pay for the building of his own water well, the homeowner has to pay for his own water. More recently my mother explained that my grandfather had sold a portion of the mineral rights to the farmer so that he also would get a commission on oil drilling on that portion of the farm land to which he owns mineral rights. Apparently the access issue was part of the discussion and I had only heard part of that. Anyway, the farmer ought to know that if someone is breaking into his house and rifling through the books on his bookshelf that would not be us. It could be those spies from Pemex but it would not be us. Anyway, this land is in Texas which the last I heard is part of the United States not belonging or owing any allegiance to Spain or Mexico that I know of. Perhaps those Mexicans would like to claim us for Pemex, which is the state-controlled oil company of Mexico. However, they will perhaps be sorely disappointed to learn that we are not interested in merging our gas and oil concerns with those of Mexico. Unlike Mexico, a country of group mentalities, we in the U.S. have so far left gas and oil well drilling to private industry. Any discussion of oil well drilling would have to be addressed to the oil and gas people who keep track of these matters. Oil well drilling in Texas is at a standstill currently due to various environmental concerns and bureaucratic red tape they tell me. I really haven't studied that very much. I don't know. Perhaps the people of Texas are opposed to oil well drilling, the Hobby Lobby having determined to deny me any benefit of existence on this planet. And yet the government of Texas does not belong to the haughtily arrogant Heather and her greedy rich Hobby Lobby cousins. The Equal Rights Amendment is a two-edged sword in some respects, and yet what can one poor person such as myself do against all of these fat cat rich people arrayed against me, prepared to gun down my smallest move? Nothing, obviously. There is absolutely nothing that I can do. I am as good as dead, basically.

Which Reminds Me

In October of 1992 I was hired as a staff writer for South Florida Newspaper Network and two or three months later Eva, the writer who sat in the cubicle to my right, was fired. I do not know very much about that. She rarely made appearances at her desk and when she did she seemed sullen and angry. I doubt that I ever said much more than hello to Eva. I just remember that she was suddenly gone. Some time later Bonnie, who sat in the cubicle directly across from mine, mentioned that Eva had been fired because she was apparently pathetically bad, her stories requiring major surgery by Cathy, the editor who fired her. Eva went home to Puerto Rico where she was soon hired by the Associated Press so I guess either our editors were overly zealous in demanding accuracy and writing skills or else it pays to be Hispanic for ethnic quota reasons even if your work is not exactly stellar or impressive to those who know how things ought to be. Something like that. Which reminds me that someone later brought up that song, "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina," as if she thought that I was Eva and was identifying whatever uninformed and ignorant opinions Eva might have with me and my job. I just don't even know where that was coming from. My name is not Eva, I don't know anything about Eva and I don't believe that I should have to sit and listen to this nonsense concocted by slobbering witch Stacy and her lowlife idiot husband Byron, with whom I prefer not to be in touch. Those Puerto Ricans live in their own private La-La land to which regular white people such as myself are not admitted without blood ties, generally speaking. Which reminds me that the youngest daughter of my Dad's cousin Murlene, who had nine children in all, married a Puerto Rican man and has a couple of children with him. We met at a family funeral and she was making some snarky jokes about the Assemblies of God hymnbook, which just goes to show that it will be hard to have any family unity or peace with those snarky distant cousins constantly stabbing us in the back on a regular basis. Latins are all linked to each other and they behave sort of like a pack of Pavlov's dogs, trained to bark and bite at particular codes that only they understand because that is their way of wreaking revenge on the white man's code of the century past and paying the white man back tit for tat. This dog pack behavior seems creepy wicked to us and makes us want to wring their wicked Latino necks, especially as their intentions toward us are entirely murderous. Which reminds me that there was some discussion of the Broadway musical that the Rivera Cheaters are planning as a monument to their victimhood at the hands of white people, headed by Scotty Kid, musicalized, no doubt, by Mark. However, the story was proving problematic because while the children were Puerto Ricans living in Hawaii, not exactly the Caribbean, and Scotty Kid is a reformed crook with a puzzling past only partially accounted for in his autobiography. I really don't know anything about it, nor do I care to participate in any Broadway project. If done properly, someone would have to persuade the Puerto Ricans to play their fitting role of villains redeemed by missionary intervention and that would require quite an argument. I really am not interested in getting involved in that argument. It is just not by problem.

Which Reminds Me

For some reason I am reminded of Laura Entz, a roommate after college who was a Mennonite MK and lived at some time in Korea where her father worked in some type of radio ministry. I don't remember very much about that. Maybe I am remembering something she said about that during the year or so that I roomed with her. I have no idea. Nevertheless, it goes without saying that never in my life have I taken up arms against American citizens for that reason alone. Just because you are an American citizen now, that does not mean that I must automatically like you and will invite you to my house for dinner, especially after you lied so shamefacedly and made everyone so confused about what the real issue was. The Word of God is a sharp and two-edged sword and mine is fairly polished to the extent I am able, no apologies necessary on that point. Just because the Apostle Paul claimed Roman citizenship, that only entitled him to a fair trial whereas otherwise he might have been torn to pieces on the spot by a mob of Diana fans foaming at the mouth in demonic fit as it were. So anyway, it was sad about the Diana toy supposedly thrown down to earth from heaven to be worshiped by the gullible denizens of Ephesus but, anyway, the Roman citizenship was a convenient escape valve by which to throw the idolatrous rabble off the trail and Paul's ultimate deliverance allowed more time to preach the Gospel all over the known world as far as he was able and called by persons open to the message of Christianity. If you have read Revelation you already know the end of the story so there is no reason for me to be intimidated by the Devil's pawns. I am not unaware that someone is angling for points about Aimee Semple MacPherson, and how could a female be preaching the Gospel when men ought to be doing it, and the Anglicans ripped her for that reason, but anyway I cannnot say that she did not do some good things, especially as some of my distant cousins belong to the church that she founded, the Fourquare church. I really cannot say whether she is above criticism from the Anglican vicars of Pentecostalism. I might have noticed something in my readings about that. However, I also cannot defend Uncle Sam's rotten, creepy wicked children either, especially as they never did anything to advance the Gospel, quite the contrary. So I don't see how this discussion is going anywhere or what point there would be to make in any discussion of Foursquaredom. The whole point of Foursquaredom is somewhat fuzzy in my mind as they have as yet failed to present any points that matter to anyone that I can think of. So?

Which Reminds Me

At times I think I hear Sharon Deras Turner yapping in the background like the dog that she is. Sharon was so horribly ugly that she had to go overseas to find a husband who would tolerate her hideous face and gratingly obnoxious personality, that is how ugly she is and also hard-nosed obnoxious Midwestern prairie dog who complains about every little thing. If you can't be pretty, get attention by being mean and nasty and contrarian. That is how those ugly Midwestern prairie dogs work to set themselves apart from ordinary mortals. She often complained in El Salvador of the way my Dad is always full of little things that he memorized somewhere, like, "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper..." or some other handy quotation or something that maybe doesn't always fit the particular circumstance but at least fills conversational space whenever it is apparently necessary to talk and seem cordial and friendly to everyone on the planet. Sharon finds these things irritatingly trite and conventional and apparently feels no need for herself to appear cordial or nice in any way, nor does she need to borrow the words of other people. In fact, so original and unique is she in thought pattern as compared to the rest of us that she probably has perfected the unique shrieking yodel of the head-hunting backstabber. Ok, so if Sharon wants to be mean and nasty, why should I continue pretending to be nice and friendly. Let's make that a two-way street. Of course, that was the whole point in the first place, to make me the enemy so that I can be stomped upon and crushed into dirt. So I can't really win this game. It's just the system.

Which Reminds Me

During college my roommate Cori was going on about time travel and how it might be possible to time travel. This topic of conversation arose after we had attended a movie about time travel, "Time After Time." Cori was of the opinion that time travel was possible. I opined that it was not possible to time travel. Maybe there is a scientific reason to think of time travel as possible but the technology does not yet exist in my opinion. Cori was very angry with me for saying that it was not possible to time travel. And yet it remains true more or less that there is no time travel. Where is the time travel ticket counter? Maybe someday the technology for time travel will be developed but it is not here now and we humans creatures limited by the confines of time and spaces cannot know whether we will live long enough to see that if ever. We cannot know for certain what the future holds for planet earth. We only have some vague ideas about how things might go. So we Christians prefer to hold onto the things that matter, like today and what I can do in the present time which is all that I can count on more or less. It was Cori who wanted to time travel. So I was persuaded to see the movie with them but I really don't see that happening in real life.

Which Reminds Me

Anyway, there was no high school rule requiring that I take chemistry so I didn't. I took the easy way out because I always hated science so much and I felt like such an idiot when my cookie analogy was given special mention by Mr. Schaeffer as a prime example of stupid answer to a biology test question. That alone was enough to prove that science was not in my future, at least not in any kind of vocational way. Lots of people do not take the full load of science and math and do just fine in life given there are not enough hours in the day to know everything. And that was only Dr. Schaeffer's biology class. Can you imagine how much worse chemistry class would be taught by a Hispanic teacher who despises and disdains white girls? Or at least that was the way I imagined it at the time. Maybe I said something to that effect. So I dropped out of science and never looked back. Overall I don't feel like I missed anything important, having no need in my ordinary life of access to a science lab for dissection of the rat that was found in the garage. Life is a lot simpler if you can just throw the rat carcass out with the garbage and not make such an issue of things that don't really matter in the long run. Two roads diverged in the forest and I took the non-scientific rout. I really don't care to know much more about the contents of the jars of strange and creepy things stored in the science lab closet.

Which Reminds Me

During high school, classes ended at 3:30 p.m. and usually by the time we get to the bus and ride around town and get off the bus and walk home it is about 4:30 p.m., just in time for the only half hour of English language programming on television all day long. If I should choose to flip on the little black-and-white television set that we have in the family room, there will be maybe fifteen minutes of cartoons, two or three of those really old cartoons from the 1940s or 1950s that are so full of cultural and political commentary that maybe goes over the heads of the little kids, and then after the cartoons, maybe two or three episodes of the "Three Stooges," featuring Mo, Larry and Curly. I never really liked the "Three Stooges" show but there they are, inescapable unless the TV can be turned off, the bumbling idiots of English language television prodding and poking each other's eyes out for the world to see. Everything else on TV the rest of the evening is dubbed into Spanish but apparently translation was not considered necessary for the "Three Stooges" as it is mostly sight gags that everyone can understand without wording.

Which Reminds Me

Although I was on the blue team in high school intramural sports, I seem to recall that the red team led by Thomas Hills was the winner at the end of the year. So that's nice for them but just winning an intramural sports contest does not necessarily translate into an automatic green card to the U.S. for those red team members, just because Thomas Hills was one of those guys who tries to make everything into some kind of game. Anyway, I never did care what blah boring Thomas Hills thought about anything. I do remember seeing him walking down the hall with his cardboard girlfriend Judy Stutler, she of no personality to speak and nothing intelligent to say that I can recall. I really don't care about those people. To repeat, I could not care less and feel utter indifference to the existence of Thomas Hills and his crew. I am aware that they exist but I do not see why those people should be heard from ever again after high school. The red team success was no guarantee that Tom Hills would ever attain four-star general status in the future, obviously, or get himself elected president, at least not if I ever have anything to do with that, especially after all the pain he caused with his fictional tales spread behind my back. I cannot imagine how or why they broke up later but I see from Facebook that Judy married a Mr. Link which means nothing to me. There never was any link between myself and Judy Stutler or any reason to get back in touch later with Judy and those other three blondes to whom I was never linked in any way other than I kind of remember seeing them walking down the hallways or at their lockers changing books between high school classes. There is no way that they could possibly know anything about me and my family and I just cannot imagine why they would even pretend to know anything.