Which Reminds Me

I once wrote a term paper about Thomas Nast, an important figure in the history of journalism. However, I don't think I delved deeply into the subject of Santa Claus aspect of Nast. Machelle Bush might remember that. I really don't remember much about that.

Which Reminds Me

I remember that while I was living in Virginia in filling out some form I did not tick the box waiving my right to know. I don't remember why. So this means that if I could remember what that was I could still go back and demand to see the file or record except that I have forgotten what that was so whatever. Anyway, I am pretty sure that I was not applying for a job in television. I am so NOT photogenic enough to be on camera, NOT strong enough to lug heavy equipment, NOT techie enough to understand about engineering and managing the various dials and knobs and switches and whatever it is they do in TV land. I seriously doubt that God would have wanted me to waste time contemplating a career in television when I am so obviously unsuited for that field. Sandy got a TV job but she got there a couple of years earlier. Those who came later were turned away. Thus it was not necessary to rub in this point, as if the nattering nabobs of negativity of Agnew's parlance were still out there sawing logs. Notwithstanding the value of new agriculture, I suppose that my acceptance of illegal bribe funding would have disqualified me from running for office except that I had never contemplated politics of the electoral variety. And also I do not recall ever accepting bribe funding from specially interested parties. I never did seek employment in the field of advertising notwithstanding my having taken one copywriting class. Maybe I had a way with words, as the teacher commented, but my prospects did not seem promising. So many directions to contemplate, so little time. I just can't do everything and still have a life. And yet with no husband to share a life with, there will be nothing for me to do but work work work to pay for my own life. Which means that I am sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place in a manner of speaking.

Which Begs the Question

Who on earth is this Amy Harsh that we should be mindful of her? I never knew that Amy existed so I really do not see why the Harsh people imagine that I would be writing a book about them.

Which Reminds Me

Only by recent diggings around on Ancestry.com do we learn of the existence of Barbara Barth. Oh, I had not known of the existence of this product of Mrs. Jenkins and family. It took quite a lot more digging to figure out that her husband was Carl Harsh and this why their three children are Harsh by name. So? Were the Harsh ones expecting to get a prize for being obnoxious monsters? No, I think they are the ones who should apologize for treating all the distant relatives like garbage, as if we would know anything about it.

Which Reminds Me

At SCC while rooming with Cori I thought that I did my fair share of taking my turn at cleaning the room. However, when she came up with a whole new scheme in which she would be the boss giving orders to me, the maid, I rebelled. I did not cooperate with that pathetically stupid scheme and that was the end of that. After all, just because Cori's mother's maiden name was Jenkins, that did not mean that we were related in any way to the crude and vulgar Nipper family. My great-grandfather's brother married a Jessie Jenkins but I doubt there could be any family connection there to the Nippers. And even if there was, that would not make me the maid or employee in their family's business, thanks anyway.

And anyway, I do not recall ever signing any contract pledging lifelong loyalty to Cori Nipper and her dog Jody. There was no legally binding agreement requiring that I eat Cori's putrid cooking for the rest of my life. I like cheese, unlike Cori. I don't know where Cori got that pathetically stupid idea in her sick head that I would be her lifelong friend and property to be disposed of at her whim.

There is no reason for the crude and vulgar Dutch to assume that any obligation ever existed on my part to lift them out of hell that they built for themselves. Am I God? No, obviously not. All the books in the world would not suffice for mankind to achieve salvation on his own, which is why the Gospel writers including only the essentials. As John says in John 21:25: "Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written."

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I suppose that someone remembers how I used to come home from high school every day about 4:30 p.m. and head to the refrigerator for a snack, often a piece of wheat bread, so delicious all on its own, and a glass of water. My sister joked that I was like a prisoner subsisting on bread and water. The other thing I might snack on would be my own version of a pickle sandwich, something that nowadays I probably would not think of but at the time was something that I would make for myself. I don't quite remember anymore what exactly I used except I am sure there was cheese. I like cheese, unlike some other people I could think of. So it would be my sister, also the maid, and maybe my sister's friend Conchi, who would probably remember that about me. Sad about Conchi traitorously turning her back on Christianity and turning Jehovah's Witness. We thought those people knew better but my sister was the one who dragged her along everywhere. I really never liked having that pathetically dumb person underfoot but when do I ever get what I want?

Which Reminds Me

Yes, how could I forget the time that David Hoskins accused me of being a "Valley" girl. I had inserted the word "like" in some grammatically incorrect place of a sentence. Another common misconstruction is to place the word "not" at the end of a sentence so that everything you just said is categorically denied. Yes, and don't I know what I am doing? And don't we all have to speak the local dialect at one time or another in order to communicate with these pathetically simple-minded persons so that they will be receptive to the Gospel message which is our ultimate goal in communication as per the Great Commission which has not yet been revoked that I ever heard of? Did not Jesus communicate mostly in the Aramean dialect of his time? So whatever. I fail to recall David Hoskins ever having anything intelligent to say about anything so I am even less impressed to see this yet-another-tidbit in circulation.

Which Reminds Me

I vaguely recall noticing that Jack Bell lives near here. I vaguely recall that there was a Jack Bell in high school with us, a junior the year that I was a senior, but beyond that I know nothing about Jack. I could not tell you the first thing about Jack beyond that he was a somewhat tall and thin guy. But I would not need to ask whether Jack was related to the Bruce and Cindy Bell, brother and sister, who were Baptist missionary kids and also attended our high school. Bell is a very common surname, perhaps almost as common as Smith, so it would not be surprising to have a lot of unrelated Bells all in one high school. Anyway, I don't need to ask because I already know about Bruce and Cindy earlier from MK school which only went up to 8th grade. Bell is a very common surname, perhaps almost as common as Smith, so it would not be surprising or unusual to have a lot of unrelated Bells all ringing around in one high school.

A Lump of Cole

Yes, it is sort of hard to think of anything nice to say about Dana Cole from this vantage point. I could say something similar about Joanna Cole, the daughter of Ed Cole who was also a college classmate of sorts although I don't think she ever lived on campus. We talked a couple of times, as I remember it, one of these a walk around Fashion Island shopping mall with several other people. So wicked of her to steal someone else's husband, as I heard later. Oh, I did not know that. I see that she married some guy of whom I remember nothing. I looked at his picture in the yearbook but I really don't remember him. A lot of these people their faces look sort of vaguely familiar but we never talked and I couldn't tell you the first thing about them and how they got together. Yet somehow these rich and affluent Cole dogs can do nothing wrong while we poor Calkins are whipped and lashed for no particular reason except that maybe we are just too poor to pay for mafia justice, unlike his ex-wife. That would be such an un-Christian thing to do anyway. This whole thing just makes no sense to me. We were never the property of the Cole family anyway so maybe the Coles will get a clue that with Ed and Ralph gone they have nothing else to say to us. To us, they are just another huge museum archive to post online or something for posterity's sake, now that the past generation is mostly gone.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I was visiting the college campus, the church on campus actually, and I was walking along and there coming from the other direction was Tom Shirey. He seemed happy to see a familiar face. I had not seen him since 1981, the year I graduated from college and moved away. We talked for a couple of minutes. He told me that he was now divorced. Oh, I had not even heard that he was married so this news was a surprise to me. He said that he had married a South African girl but after their marriage he flew with her to South Africa and was appalled to see firsthand the racism of her and her family. So now they are divorced. Oh, I am sorry to hear that. I don't remember what I said to this startling news. It makes me uneasy to hear this. After all, if I were go get married I would hope that it would be for the sake of me, because I am loved, and not for the sake of my crackpot relatives. Don't we all of us have family stuff that makes us uneasy, that embarrasses us and that we would rather not talk about in a public forum? One would imagine that in a marriage some icky stuff would be coped with, dealt with, accommodated, tolerated, challenged, adapted, or something for the sake of the marriage vows. So I am sorry but I don't understand about Tom.

Which Reminds Me

I am suddenly reminded of my childhood delusions revolving around Santa Claus. My mother always thought it was a necessary tradition for us children to believe in Santa Claus as long as possible. Naturally the delusion was shattered in fourth grade when Cheryl sort of ridiculed us, particularly me, for still believing in Santa Claus. Don't I know that my Dad drinks the glass of milk and eats the cookies that are left on the table overnight for Santa's refreshment? Yes, of course. That makes perfect sense now that you mention it. How stupid can I be? Duh!

Which Reminds Me

I roomed for about a year with Laura Entz in California. She then moved in with some other girl, I don't remember her name. What was the name of the creepy Bolivian man who was a friend of theirs? I really don't remember. Laura was quite trashy so imagine her new roommate was also. It was a relief to be rid of her.

Which Reminds Me

It never crossed my mind to ask whether a high school classmate, Kelly Elliott, was related to the Mr. Elliott who was a music theory teacher at our college. We remember his daughter Leanna Elliott, also a college classmate of sorts. His son was an organist. They do share the same last name with Kelly Elliott but I really would not have thought of Kelly from high school as Kelly is remembered as nothing if not an obnoxious busybody and gossip, a nuisance actually of the dummies class variety. I saw those girls ganging in the hallways of high school but I never stopped to talk to them because, well, they were not friendly. They exude an air of hostility for the most part so there was no reason to bother myself about them. I am not aware of anyone actually liking Kelly or saying anything else about her. Kelly's opinion is important only in her own mind. Over here at my house Kelly is nothing.

Which Reminds Me

There is something weird and discombobulated about all of these references to Dakota dogs. We were never ever employed by the hateful Dakota district nor do we have any fondness for these Dakota riff-raff who occasionally surface from their little prairie dogs burrows to hiss and scatch and bite us. Nobody cares less about Dakota dogs than myself. Denise was shipped off to Finland so we no longer have to listen to her inflammatory screeches, fortunately for us.

Obviously the Dakota dogs have confused us with the Hunt family. The Hunts perhaps do have in-laws in Susanville or thereabouts as their father Eugene Hunt, he who married my Dad's Aunt Mary Olive, was from there as I see from genealogy records. Otherwise I would not have seen that connection to the Bealls or known anything about the potential Hunt in-laws from somewhere north of Sacramento. Only from reading the diaries, quite recently, do we learn that the Hunts at one time lived in North or South Dakota working at churches there. I don't know their story so I really cannot comment beyond what was in the diaries.

Also I would not know anything about the claims of the Dakota dogs regarding having fired us when actually they never met us. We always belonged to the SoCal district of which the Dakota dogs are obviously clueless or they would not be making such utterly false statements to the press.

I cannot speak in defense of the Hunts as I really would not know anything about them. We never really met or talked to Zoe and Nancy and Elizabeth. Their family were missionaries in Venezuela for many years but we really don't understand what their problem is or what they are expecting to accomplish by killing us. We never did anything to them.

Does Not Compute

So you stole my wallet and now you are telling me that I should give more, that I should pretend that my wallet was given voluntarily even though it was already stolen by bandits long ago and I probably never will see those pictures again, the only copies I had. And now you are telling me to forgive and pretend like it was nothing, that I was just a subhuman creature anyway, myself having crawled out of some Blue Lagoon in a rather peculiar way, so that nothing they do to me can really matters because only their interests count. I am just a tool to be used, not a person whose soul matters at all. Nothing that I want will I ever got so whatever.

Thus, I would prefer not to think about this in the future. Maybe I can manage to forget about you and find something else to think about because this whole thing is taking me straight to disaster world, as in nowhere, nothing, Never-Never-land. I don't understand why you can't see farther than the end of your nose. I certainly can see farther out than that.

Which Reminds Me

I remember Loren Popineau saying that he was afraid to get married because he did not want to be put in some woman's pocket, a pocket groom of sorts, a little puppet whose strings could be easily pulled by her. I had no idea what he meant by saying that. Well, fine, I thought, don't get married if you don't want to. I don't care. The thought of putting a man in my pocket had not crossed my mind nor did I feel any inclination to find out what he meant by saying that. The prospect of pocketing this type of useless wimp of a guy, so timorous, so cravenly afraid of women such as myself, increasingly hostile in fact, seemed ridiculous to me. So whatever. There was no reason for Loren to imagine that he was any kind of prize with that misogynistic attitude of his so openly on display. There was no reason for him to imagine that I would ever give him another thought, having shaken the dust off my feet in departure from that Sand Bar place I had briefly visited, only passing through obviously.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I remember repeating this pablum, "What you don't know can't hurt you." I don't remember why this thought was hammered into my head but obviously there really are many things that I can't know and that, if I did know, could have the potential to hurt me I would imagine, so there are some things that there would be no reason to explore, some questions worthless of asking, some answers more damaging than helpful. I really don't understand why some people seem to have a problem with this policy. I think it is a smart policy and makes a lot of sense.

Sure, some things we need to know for navigation purposes but also some things are not necessary. Delegation of duties, division of labor, etc., all of these things are beneficial in the long run.

Which Reminds Me

I vaguely recall rooming for about a year with Laura Entz, a German Mennonite. She loved hanging out with international students, a prickly bunch of friends had she. I did not stay in touch with Laura's friends later. I really would not be able to explain about her. She was an MK-Korea but of Mennonite radio ministry descent. I don't know anything about that.

Which Reminds Me

My sister's name, René, is spelled in the masculine way for Spanish and French. There should have be a second 'e' at the end of her name but my parents did not know that at the time. Later, during high school in Central America, my sister had to spend the first day of school each year down in the office getting herself switched out of men's P.E. class. I never had that problem. It was only her.

Which Reminds Me

When we were living in El Salvador, my parents being missionaries received every month donations from many people and churches. Every month they would get a huge list of all of the various supporters which was their job to review and do their accounting with to report to headquarters or something. It was complicated. My mother always took care of the bookkeeping stuff so I really would not know. I do remember that during a time when we were having a rough time financially there was one family in California that suddenly pledged a rather large amount monthly for the duration of the time that we were in El Salvador and this was like a miracle to my parents at a time when they really needed it. After we returned to the U.S. they stopped sending us that money and sent it to someone else overseas who they deemed more in need of it which was fine because my mother started working then anyway so were fine. When we first returned to California we visited them at their house and their two sons drove us around for a few minutes and we talked. Later we heard that they had moved from California to somewhere up north, maybe Idaho or Montana or some place like that. Since then I imagine having heard messages from those two guys, some gobbledygook about how they have wives now and they won't be sending me any money. That is fine with me because they never gave me any money in the first place anyway. It was only the parents who were our among our family's financial supporters anyway, not their spoiled rotten brats.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I was about 8 years old when I had some kind of fight with Judy Thompson. I don't remember why. I probably shoved or bumped her because she was annoying me for some reason. I don't remember anything very specific. Probably it was when everyone was gathering candy that had fallen from the piñata and was all over the ground and she was getting in my way or something. I probably should apologize but the point is so moot now given the extensive revenge of the vile wicked Thompson family which totally outweighs anything I ever did or said about the dreary Thompson people so I will spare myself the agony and just take it.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I sort of get it that with the Woods installed as our exalted leaders, someone would feel themselves compelled to make jokes about the identification of various trees in this forest. There is, for example, my college classmate Dennis Buchmiller, whose surname identifies him as a miller living near a beech tree. There also are the various blooming cedars who bear the surname of Cederblom, another classmate. There might be other tree jokes in circulation but those are the two that can be easily identified by me. The tree jokes were not my idea in the first place, obviously.

Which Reminds Me

I vaguely remember hearing that that Smeyas' relatives in Arizona won the lottery. This was given by the Smeyas as a reason for them to move to Arizona to be near their lottery-winning relatives. So that's nice for them. I acutally have no idea who those lottery-winning persons were nor did I give that another thought. Certainly no one here would ever imagine getting a dime out of their relatives when obviously they have the Smeyas' missionary account to subsidize. A million dollars only goes so far. I would imagine that the lottery winners, whoever they were, would also need to finance their own extravagantly luxurious lifestyle and high-flying retirement, not to mention health insurance and other expenses of maintaining a higher state of affluence. So obviously there was nothing else to say about that. So why all of these stupid pokes and prods? Come to think of it, it was odd that the Smeyas did not stay in Arizona very long but they did not explain. Whatever. I really don't know who those people are so it would be too nosy for me to ask for details. Anyway, I have no thoughts of Arizona. There is no one in Arizona that I would care to contact for any reason so there is no need to say more about that.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it will be difficult for God to bless the wicked French when they are failing to recognize that blue jeans do not a True Religion make. For me, the cause of feeding Cats is just not a compelling reason to share anything further on that subject. Enough said.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it is rather awkward to have all these pompously arrogant stupid French wimps poking their noses where they don't belong. While the streets of Paris itself are overtaken by Moslems, the stupid French dips are willing to sell their souls to knock out some innocently freckled Christians, a completely stupid display of stupid French hypocrisy as viewed from all angles of reality. I think that is what the English are trying to say, maybe, in a way.

Which Reminds Me

I remember reading somewhere that according to some accounts Bartholomew, the original one who was a follower of Jesus, sometimes confused with the Apostle Nathaniel, was later in life, after preaching to the heathen of the Mediterranean Sea, skinned alive. His skin was removed from his body while still living, similar to the torture inflicted by the Redskins upon early pioneers. Whether we are descended from him I have no idea. But that is a creepy, devilish thing to try to poke at other people's skin, as if it were wrong to be white or black or any other shade in between. And yet with freckles like mine it happened all the time so why should brown people be surprised if we should point out the crayon color they resemble? I wasn't being mean about it. I just thought it was interesting.

And if the people should decide by election or otherwise that all Christians should be devoured by lions for the entertainment of spectators in the Roman colosseum, would that make it right to skin them alive? And to the later ones also, the Christians brutally murdered, bodies mangled in unspeakable ways, during China's Boxer Rebellion? No, obviously the people can be wrong, wrong, wrong. But whatever. Only God knows why evil is allowed to rear its ugly head now and then, perhaps to help prove that might does not make right or something like that. I don't know everything.

And will worrying about skin color make you even one inch taller? No, obviously not. We see that Adam and Eve became aware of their own uncovered skins after eating the apple. Furs were recommended by God so who are we to argue with the beauty and comfort of leather shoes? Can we go back to the Garden of Eden and pretend that color issues do not exist in this sin-riddled world? No, of course not. No one ever said that affirmative action would solve all skin problems. Yes, I can see why black people would be fixedly in favor of special advantages for their own skin color in perpetuity given the centuries of oppression they endured in past generations. Someone is wanting to argue about affirmative action but I really would prefer to dodge the issue for now as, for one thing, I have no political power to influence these matters and might only get more flack back than I can handle. Yet there is no affirmative action program to fend of these freckle-hating devils, sadly, but perhaps it is just as well that the government is not involved in telling us what skin color we ought to be. It is really none of the government's business. Better to be free than to be have freckle regulations.

Which Reminds Me

I am suddenly reminded of Robert Pommier, an obnoxious theater guy who married that fat ugly theater blob Melia. Theater people live on their own separate planet where only they have the inside scoop on theater gossip, theater lore, theater secrets. So that's nice for them but it means nothing for me to hear Robert yapping in the background. We once went with Robert, Dauna and maybe someone else driving around some places and also stopped at a store near South Coast Plaza where Robert pulled some clothes off a rack and said he thought that looked like me. I thought not. Nobody really understood me at SCC. Perhaps I come from a different planet than all of these clueless people. Yes, I suppose that is one plausible theory.

Which Reminds Me

During girls' choir in high school Miss Marken coached us on the German pronunciation for Stille Nacht. We were to sing with a straight tone as we could, with no vibrato, in imitation of boys' choirs. Of course boys naturally have no vibrato at all in their singing, which is why some people really like to hear boys' choirs better, but their voices change so they don't last very long. Women's voices are always going to be there more or less the same until at least age 40 or 50. After that, well, women are put out to pasture and young ones take over. So whatever.

Which Reminds Me

All these jokes about winning the lottery are so dumb. The truth is that I can never win the lottery because I never bought a lottery ticket in my entire life. This is so despite being required to write more than one article on the Florida lottery for my newspaper writer job at the time, not a fun thing to do when I have no interest or devotion to such a pointless and silly institution. Even if you do buy a ticket, odds are better that you will be eaten by a shark or struck by lightning, not so rare as you might think hazards of life in Florida, but the editor would probably not let me say that in my article so why try?

Which Reminds Me

In high school I remember reading a very long novel about Scandinavian farmers in South Dakota. It seems that spending half the year snowed into an earthen hovel contributes to the mental illness of Scandinavian women. That is mainly what I remember about that book.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, that was quite a rage that Pam Hart worked herself up into even though nobody asked her. Did Pam drop into my room to chat in a friendly way, to shoot the breeze reflectively about the important facets of life not yet experienced as an 18-year-old? Did Pam ask me who said what? No, not at all. No, Pam staged a hostile confrontation in which I am supposed to defend myself or something, I am not sure what, after Pam and friends had already voted against me anyway on some unclear grounds never fully explained to me. Is my name Dareda that I would be able to explain what on earth Dareda was thinking when she said that? I just have no idea what their problem was. So basically this only confirms my low opinion of Prairie Dog Pam as a crude and vulgar person whose college companionship will not be needed by me. Perhaps I could say something similar about all of the seethingly stupid prairie dogs of Evangel as basically nobody there seems to have any brains in their empty heads.

Which Reminds Me

Nobody cares about the dogs of Oklahoma, native home of the most obnoxiously boring people I ever met at Evangel and elsewhere. Ok, so maybe I exaggerate slightly, but still I don't like prairie dogs that much. They have sharp little teeth and deep burrows. In order to mitigate the extensive damage caused by the chewing of prairie dogs we will need to put this poison deep in their burrows. It is the only way. Oh, did I mention that I don't like Prairie Dog Pam Hart? Yes, all Dakota trash are prairie dogs. Beware of prairie dogs chewing on the furniture.

Great-grandmother in her diaries talks of poisoning the prairie dogs in her backyard but obviously that was a whole different story.

Which Reminds Me

Not wanting to take orders from snarky stupid Edmundo, we will proceed as planned.

Which Reminds Me

We are Assemblies of God so we fail to understand the proliferation of connections to the creepy Roberts of ORU. We could not care less about ORU, a college much like many other Christian colleges, really not the center of Pentecostalism by any means. Things will be traumatic for them now that Oral Roberts is gone, finding themselves a voiceless bunch of nobodies that nobody is interested in hearing from. Not meaning to be rude, but we are not interested in moving to Tulsa where the Voice of China people have rented quarters in that huge office complex that Oral Roberts built. So that's nice for them. I am glad somebody is doing that but obviously Bible distribution in China is not my calling, no need to constantly remind. I have no fond alma mater thoughts to share with ORU, thanks anyway.

Which Reminds Me

In the diaries the name of Randy Bellows appears maybe once or twice. From the context we can see that he is the son or grandson of one of great-grandmother's Smith cousins. Of course, until I read the diaries and started doing my genealogy I had no idea there were any Smiths on our family tree. I had no idea that great-grandmother was actually born in New York/Pennsylvania depending on which document you are referring to, a small town near the border of these two states. I had no idea that anyone knew anything about the Smiths of Pennsylvania/New York, so distant is the connection and so insignificantly distant in our minds. Ok, so there is a distant cousin out there named Randy Bellows if he is still living but nothing is explained, just that she met with him while visiting the East Coast. Ok, so that's nice.

Which Reminds Me

Why is nobody asking me who said that? It was actually Dareda Embry of Illinois who said that unthinkable thing during the chat session in my dorm room at Evangel. Dareda is obviously much advanced in the wicked arts of dogdom, already imagining herself in that unthinkable position even though she has no known boyfriend and is merely expecting that the gender functions of wifedom and motherhood will belong to herself alone even when there is no ring on her finger and no license to prove it. Nobody asked her to say that. It just came out of her wicked mouth all unannounced and uninvited by the rest of us. Ok, so obviously some people get to talking and their jaws a-flapping and we just have to forgive them somewhat their excessive chatter because otherwise we would just go nuts.

So this begs the question of why is all of this harassment being dumped on me? Was there any reason to defend the defenseless trashy honor of the Embry clan at my expense? I didn't do anything to Dareda. Thus, someone really ought to make the Embry dogs pay for their own garbage because they are not my problem.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it is so nice of "sweet" Mary to volunteer to educate the Bueno dogs. I really would not want the job of trying to make nice with those nasty people, personally speaking, so the more power to those who are not afraid of getting hit later whenever the political winds of fortune are blowing from some other direction because they never really care about anyone other than themselves. They are purely self-interested in a drearily boring continental European kind of way. So whatever. To each his own.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely recall visiting campus and running into Tom Shirey there. I am still curious about what those people did the year or two after I left. That would be about 1982 or 1983 when the students engineered the firing of Mrs. Hummel or something like that. No one discussed it with me, not that it matters now. The music department is not my problem. Whatever. And where are those students now? Probably nowhere for the most part. As Tom so aptly proves, you can drive around campus in a little MG convertible and yet have not really anything intelligent to say. Of course, I could probably say something similar about vapid mindless Dana Cole, another boring person of no interest.

Which Reminds Me

In the diaries we see that great-grandmother greatly valued her friendship with Anna Beall. Many visits back and forth are recorded in the diaries, even a trip to Susan, a city way up in Northern California where the Beall family had moved. Even though there is no explanation of how they met in the first place, some clues indicate their friendship might date back to before they moved to California in 1900 but I really don't know. I don't see any evidence of the Bealls being related to us, however. They were maybe her friends from back in Ohio or Pennsylvania or somewhere but I really never knew these people existed until I read the diaries.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I wonder what makes those crazy people think that I would ever go to New York. I don't "get" any Dutch money for one thing and also there would be nothing for me to do there. I don't actually know anyone in New York and would probably just be miserable there I would imagine. In my mind I never was the New York type.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I suppose it is sort of interesting that Jacob Chamberlain, the missionary to India in the 19th century, was a graduate of Western Reserve College in Ohio. Nowadays we do not think of Ohio as being a western state but I suppose that back in the 19th century Ohio was already quite a few miles west of New York. Anyway, although there were many impressive missionaries serving in the 19th century around the world, it is true that Chamberlain's ability to tell his story in book form brings him into sharp focus in many minds even though many others could tell similar stories, probably, but did not write books about it so we only have Chamberlain, who wasn't the first or the last, only one more vocal than most, certainly. Only recently did I learn that my great-grandparents, the Barth ones, were actually from Ohio. Oh, I didn't know that. I never had any thought of Ohio as being a state of interest. I just thought everyone was from California. Perhaps it was the wimps who stayed back East and did not go out to the mission fields to witness so whatever. Now I am confusing myself. But which was which? Ok, sorry. Whatever.

Anyway, those guys made it so hard for me to be nice to them. They are always so angry with me. It is not like I could ever doing anything right in their eyes. If I say the world is round they will argue that the world is flat just to spite me. And even if they are wrong you can be sure that things will be rejiggered for them to win the "game "even if it really wasn't a game, just the truth, but if so they really deserved to lose. Which means that I need to just disappear from their lives entirely so that they will not get another chance to "hurt" me because basically nobody cares what happens to me. I am just not going to be available on that grounds.

I am not your Irish double, notwithstanding the fictions in circulation. I am actually not interested in getting the second-hand junk of Michigan's stupid Pammy-Puke. Maybe someday the Roberts family will get a clue and move back to Michigan where they belong because, really, I am not their slave property. I really don't care about them. I only care about my family and me, like everybody else on the planet. Hillsdale College means nothing to me.

Which Reminds Me

There are varying ways to interpret Revelation 2:17, the verse about the white stone engraved with a new name that will be given to the one who overcomes. There are those who interpret that as exclusively referring to a wedding in which the winning girl's new name is inscribed on the wedding invitations. However, that is not the interpretation that we discussed as children in MK school. I thought we were talking about the personal relationship between Jesus and each individual believer who is an overcomer in Christ. The church is the Bride of Christ and when Jesus returns to earth then history will change radically but not before then. Only Jesus has the authority to put all things at his feet. In the meantime many counterfeits and imposters may appear and deceive many.

Which Reminds Me

Someone said that the guy who my sister's college roommate ran off with, a sports guy, was also Portuguese. Oh, I didn't that. I personally would not recommend any close association with the creepy weird Portuguese, especially not the flaky stupid Santiago weirdos, but whatever. Who am I to tell people what to do? Whatever.

Which Reminds Me

At Southern California College, during the year my sister was there also, my sister's roommate, a pathetically MK from somewhere, I really don't remember which country, you could always ask my sister who probably remembers more about that than I do, one night came up to my dorm room to ask my advice as a big sister. I had mixed feelings about that because I don't really know her and I don't like being asked my advice when I actually don't know what this person ought to do. She said that she really liked this guy who was on the basketball team and he had asked her out and she wanted to go out with him even though some people didn't like him. So I'm saying, uh, well, if that's what you want to do, if you like sports guys, then, basically, do whatever you want. Who am I to tell her what to do? So basically she ended up within a month or two married to the guy and living somewhere off-campus. I really don't remember who those people were. You could always asked my sister. My sister came up with some twisted logic about how it was all my fault that her roommate had run off with this creepy sport delinquent pervert. Um... I don't see how it could be my fault. I didn't tell her what to do. I just basically told her to do whatever she wants because, basically, she is not my problem. Who am I to tell this people what to do? I don't anything specifically about sports people so I really wouldn't be able to comment. I vaguely recall the existence of Rich Jessup but that is about all I know about sports at SCC.

Which Reminds Me

I was not expecting anything from "IT" so it was rather strange to find myself slandered and defamed by those boring things who were of no interest to anyone, as if I had asked them a favor or something. If God loves me, what is that to them? Why do they so resent the fact that God loves me just as much as anybody else, just as much as them? And "Who is Sylvia" anyway? I really don't care that much what Sylvia thinks about anything. Sylvia is really nothing to me in retrospect.

Which Reminds Me

It was my mom's idea for us to watch the movie "Mary Poppins" at some time, I don't remember when or where. Still, that is no reason for the pathetically stupid Dutch dogs to imagine that I would ever agree to be hired as nanny to their dog Cori, hideous monster that she is.  No, I am not in any way interested in functioning as a nanny and play that miserable role, not withstanding the fakey movie stuff. I cannot even begin to tell how revolting the idea is to me. I would rather commit suicide if I cannot marry and have my own life and family. How utterly cruel these Dutch dogs are in imagining such nonsense.

Which Reminds Me

Never in my life did I apply for a job at Del Taco, where Cori was working her way up the ladder hoping to manage taco and burrito preparations, and she often prattled on about her job there, about how she hands out extra specially stuffed tacos and burritos to her friends when they drop in, about her creepy manager who was harassing her in weird ways that make one wonder why she would tolerate such behavior just for a lowly taco job, etc. etc. Whatever. Anyway, I cannot be expected to keep track of those snarky stupid people, especially when they are refusing to give me any credit for anything that I did say. I have better things to do than stuff tacos and tolerate the harassment from Cori. Thus, when Cori started ordering me around as part of her management training I refused to participate. They were not paying for anything so obviously I was wasting my time trying to pretend that Cori was ever any kind of friend to me. No, she was just some type of a monster machine who had to be replaced.

Which Reminds Me

We learned from the example of crude and vulgar Dutch dog Cori that the so-called Establishment is nothing but a farce. How ridiculous that these Dutch riff-raff would try to pass off their foul-mouthed sleazy trash Cori as some kind of "good" person. Utterly laughable. She is nothing but garbage, her brain full of stupid rock songs, who spends all her time with a gang of sleazy whiney guys who moved off campus mainly so that they can easily keep beers in their refrigerator without running afoul of campus rules. How virtuous is that? There never was anything good or nice to say about Cori and her gang of ruffians. I really could not care less about those people. They are just Deep South nothingness of which I declined to continue association because I really got tired of their drearily nonsensical chatter always so meaningless to me. I really wish these Dutch would get lost so I do not have to listen to them any longer. I am sick and tired of this Dutch drone garbage. I just don't care. I think that putrid Cori should own her own lousy reputation for being a worthless piece of garbage.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it was very scary hearing these Dutch dogs muttering threats against me, as if they were going to run my life and tell me what to do and order me around. How horrifying! Cori in college was trying to act like my employer and order me around but I refused to bow to her stupid whims. She then kicked me out of the room which was fine with me. I would rather be utterly alone than stuck with putrid Cori in my life. Thosee Dutch dogs are nothing to me, just a bunch of Linda's snarky stupid in-laws probably. I would rather commit suicide than take orders from the crude and vulgar Dutch, to tell the truth.

Which Reminds Me

These books, "Turn of the Screw" and "Room With a View," are not my books. I did not read these books. These books were only suggestions from somewhere in La-La land, probably by the same person who went into some bizarre harangue about Edgar Allan Poe, as if his existence were proof that the Calkins family is evil and must be wiped off the map, as if I were somehow related to that devilish cad who dreamed of a trip to the moon. Well, Ancestry.com's famous relatives button did churn up Poe as a distant cousin of ours, but I might as well fly to the moon as figure out how that connection works, so distant is it from us. So perhaps we and Poe are chips off the same tree way back somewhere but not being of Greek persuasion, we do not imagine ourselves as indistinguishable flames. We are much indebted to the Greeks for their contributions to philosophy, and yet we see that too much Greek philosophy contributes to gnostic error. To Christians, the individual soul is a unique treasure of value in God's sight, and God's sight is the only thing that matters in the long run.