Which Reminds Me

Yes, perhaps I should be asking why the dregs of New Jersey are imagining that we would ever want to do business with them? They have no contract on us there in New Jersey, in case they forgot, so I don't understand why they are yapping so loudly about nothing much.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it is a bit awkward, all of these snooty rich people blustering about how us poor people just want to live off of their money, as if we were just some worthless gold-diggers, as if we ever thought there was any money for us to get from somewhere other than by getting a job and working. It sort of creates the mistaken impression of us poor people, as if we would not be able to get jobs and pay our own way, as if we were looking for some horrible rich person to sucker and parasitically attach ourselves to. I don't have such a prominent public platform to puff myself up into a toxic puffer fish. I am just a poor person who has to do whatever I have to do to get a better paying job because Mr. Right never made his appearance on the scene and without a husband to pay the bills I just have to get a job to my own way. There is no other choice but to get a job. There was no reason for some snarky rich Hunt dog to interpose his snarky opinions about poor people so obnoxiously into my personal life. Sure, some people are satisfied to slave as a waitress or domestic worker but those are persons who never attended college and probably were lousy students all around anyway even if they did graduate from high school, whoever they are. We never discussed our plans with those people because they really wouldn't understand. So you can get an early advantage by skipping college and just getting a job and start saving earlier but then again the idea is that you might not advance so far because you are so thinly educated. At least, that was how it was supposed to work. But some snarky rich Hunt dogs have not yet gotten a clue that we don't give a hoot about what Viking whiners may think of us and so they will just have to rot in their own Viking stew.

Which Reminds Me

Perhaps someone is trying to make a point about cholera being a disease in English, whereas in Spanish colera is anger. If so, I fail to see why I should bother to note this minor point, myself not being even yet aware of the existence of the Miriam noted in the diaries and even now being aware, still not yet caring whether Miriam lives or dies, her being not my problem.

Which Reminds Me

With some historians it has become habitual to criticize the Victorian era as being too repressive and tight-lipped about various subjects, as if we should just all have loose lips and talk about whatever, when actually people of the 19th century were well educated for their time and sometimes very articulate about some things that are rarely mentioned anymore, such as the beautiful scenery, while some people nowadays do not seem to know when to keep their big fat mouths shut on other topics that are none of their concern because really nothing they say matters in the whole scheme of things. Many words, even an onslaught of Sknickerisms, will not make you one inch taller. It just makes us weary of your constant grandstanding.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it was a bit awkward for us the last two years in El Salvador, having to work alongside those dreary Southern corn dogs, the Lampps and the Kinseys. It is only sheer coincidence that we now live in the same state as they do, but I never really liked them. They were sent by the church so of course we had to welcome them, but they were always so weird, always so actively campaigning for the failed Confederacy, sharing in common with the Chinese their Rising Sun complex, as if singleness automatically qualifies a woman as a Union sympathizer. Ummm. Well, reality is more complicated than that. And why did God take their life's blood so soon? Not long after arriving, Mr. Lamp drowned at the beach. And they immediately sought to blame us, gratuitously or not, for various reasons. As if we were somehow responsible for what God did to snuff out the incipient Confederacy of Central America. All of their cat-calling cannot change the reality of what God did in taking Mr. Lampp out of the picture. Sorry, but it was more complicated than that. I think that God understands more than you know.

Which Reminds Me

The father of my great-grandmother was possibly French Canadian, although nothing is known of him, just that he died in 1895. The mother of my great-grandmother died when she was a small child and he later remarried and had another daughter named Esther. My grandmother is also named Esther but my grandmother is not the other Esther of whom nothing is known, just that she existed. Someone was talking about the other Esther but I have no clue what they are talking about. I only know of my own grandmother, Esther.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, because one of our distant cousins did marry a Puerto Rican man, that does not mean that some other one of us must be required to round out the racial picture with marriage to some "gay" Cuban, whatever that means, so notoriously hostile to white woman as we all know. Who drummed up this stupid joke on me? I really wish that someone would kick it back to them because I was not even consulted in the first place and it is not my problem. Personally, I think that they should be required to drink their own stupid potions.

Which Reminds Me

It is true that my great-great-grandfather might have been a French Canadian man of whom nothing is known. There are a handful of photos circulating and a couple of mysterious stories about him but my great-grandmother's mother died when she was a young child and she was raised in Pennsylvania by her Smith aunts and uncles and cousins so her father did not play much of a role in her life, only appeared once when she was 10 years old to visit and then I see from genealogical research that he may have died in 1895 so she was already an orphan when she was married in 1899 or 1900. I have 16 great-grandparents so the French ethnicity is not predominant in our family as compared to Scottish, Irish, Welsh, English, etc. And besides which, I never met the Smiths and I never had any knowledge of their mental problems. Just because Maria Smith was a high school classmate, that does not mean that she was ever even slightly friendly to me in college. She was quite nasty person actually in high school. I really didn't like her attitude. Of course, there are those cousins who are married to the French so that does complicate matters a bit, and then there are those who are married to Germans and whatever else. So whatever. So if someone upstairs in the creepy wicked Smith attic has decided that I should marry some pathetically stupid Cuban man to spread the genetic picture they will just have to be disappointed because that was not my plan. Since when do these horribly wicked Smith people get to decide who I am going to marry based on someone else's stupid racial quotas? How utterly insulting. It is just never going to happen. Sorry.

Which Reminds Me

During high school, maybe during 10th grade, a group of high school seniors clad in strange costumes were hit by water balloons as they walked along the first floor corridor. If I had been on the second floor I probably would not have seen that, but I was downstairs, walking a few feet behind them. I did not get wet but I do have a vivid memory of seeing the water balloon splattering them. Ha ha ha! Anyway, it was not like the Class of '74 did not deserve to get hit on some level, in my opinion, so there was no reason to comment further. This was Senior Slave Day and the seniors interpreted slavery by arriving dressed in unusual costumes, many of the men dressed as women, the women in pajamas and housecoats. Several outrageous yearbook yet commemorate the day. I was only a tenth grader at the time so I did not have to do that. So outrageous, in fact, were the antics of the Class of '74 that slavery was abolished later, so that by the time that I was a senior it was a huge relief not to have to do that. We just had game day and lots of relay races and sports events. Of course, Dawn Saword did not return after 10th grade so she might not remember that slavery has been abolished. Do I really need to explain this to that clueless pack of Canadian idiot Andersons? Where have they been these last 150 years? Well, Dawn might have been too busy yapping about the mean pranks she and her brother played on Miss Nafsker to notice that nobody was impressed with those outrageous antics. I remember my little sister saying that my class was so outrageous, but she never saw what came before us so she really does not know what worse means.

Which Reminds Me

During high school I was widely renowned in regular PE class for being able to hit home runs at softball. Some girls would tease me about this and there was even a song that certain people would sing to the tune of Davy Crockett: "Candi, Candi Calkins, Chiquita pero Matona." So I was good enough for regular PE class obviously. I don't remember which year, maybe 10th or 11th grade, myself and several other girls were invited to try out for the real girls' baseball team. We were all lined up to bat and somehow I was first in line. So I went up and struck out three times and I was out. Those were some hard-driving hardball serves that Kathy was pitching, nothing like the softball serves that we had come to expect at softball. So after I struck out every other girl that went up to bat didn't even try to hit the ball and just walked. And then later I never heard anything from Kathy about the results of that. I don't know what she said to other people about that. But whatever. It was just one chance at bat and no other training was offered. So, anyway, I really did not care enough about that to ask any question. There was really no shame in striking out at hardball when anyway I never cared that much about sports. Just because Kathy is a sports fanatic, that does not mean that I ever cared about sports very much. In fact, I find sports people rather dull company if truth be told. In fact, if I had suspected in the first place that the whole point of inviting me to bat a hardball was only to strike me out, I think that I would have declined the invitation in the first place and spared myself the agony of defeat because, really, who cares? I took the minimum PE requirements to graduate and nothing more is required.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, there was a guy in our high school whose name was Lance. That is the only thing that I remember about him, just that his name was Lance and he was very tall. Beyond that I have no memory of Lance to share with you. Sorry. Just that water balloons were flying on School Game Day but I don't remember, just that I was not close enough to be hit by that.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, what is all this chatter about me needing to go somewhere? I don't understand. Anyway, some things are just too personal to be discussed with shrill dogs named Stacy. If there were some logical place for me to go then maybe I would go there, but just to go nowhere in particular just because some stupid dog named Stacy has decided to scream at me, that is not a reason to go anywhere. If I weren't so blocked all around by shrill hags such as Stacy maybe I would be able to find somewhere to go but that would need to be my own personal decision, none of your stupid business. I don't take my orders from you.

Which Reminds Me

I might have mentioned to someone about how sometimes God talks to me. I might be doing something, anything, maybe I am in the shower washing my hair, and just thinking about things in my mind and God shows me something and the answer to my question just comes into my mind somehow. The Bible says to pray continually and I think that is what I am doing, so I don't know how I just am not worried about things. Of course, magazines and records have nothing to do with this. It is just me talking to God. I can't really explain this in so many words. Anyway, I probably should not be talking about this to some shrill pagan witch who does not understand about what it means to have a personal relationship with God. There are other spiritual things going on in this world, but the spirit of the world is at enmity with the things of God.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, Pat was so confusing. What did Pat mean by giving me a present that didn't seem to belong to me? It didn't make any sense to me but I followed her instructions and took it home with me because, I don't know, I thought she was in charge of something and knew what she was talking about. But I won't make the same mistake twice. The next time I see Pat I will just ignore her altogether because I can't let her do that to me again. Once fooled, shame on you.

Which Reminds Me

And then later my sister went out to California and got all buddy buddy with those shrill witches Linda and Jill, as if they were anything but a nuisance to everyone that I ever knew. Nobody actually liked them, and then my sister goes out there and hands over to them the kitchen sink, as if.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, don't I remember that Linda Harrington Smith was one of the financial aid staffers at college who were always so notoriously rude to anyone who might have the impertinence to ask any question of any kind, the principal Financial Aid Witch being Debbie Rush? If you really have to go go the financial aid office, just remember to take whatever you get and never ask any question. God forbid that you should have the impertinence to ask a question about grant eligibility. I have yet to hear the end of that. Given that the Financial Aid Witches are so notorious and infamous among the student body at large, it figures that Linda and Debbie must fall back on their witchcraft skills to get their message out, because certainly no one is going to "help" them later with that. My financial situation is really none of their business.

Which Reminds Me

It has become very evident that someone out there is angling for commentaries on Julia, who was my grandmother's sister, my Dad's aunt, Chris Gallup's grandmother, etc. I really don't have every much to say about her as I was rarely there and can almost count on one hand the times I was ever at her house in Carlsbad. Julia was very politically involved. But as she figures prominently in the diaries of great-grandmother, an accomplished seamstress, everything that is already known from the diaries is more than I could say personally about her. So she was a Republican and very political. Ok, so? Since when do we get to pick and choose our relatives based on party affiliations? Life is more complicated than that. If I say anything one way or the other about Julia I will just get all kinds of people angry with me on either side of the issue and for what? What do party politics have to do with the price of tea in China? I just don't care what you think about Julia.

Which Reminds Me

Someone keeps mentioning Maria, who was our maid when I was in the 10th grade. She was a nice person although a bit simple-minded and had a lot of personal problems such as being a single mother with two children. I mentioned to Susie that Maria was better at cooking than cleaning, parroting something that my mother said, and I have yet to hear the end of that. Maria might have mentioned working at other houses in town but I really don't remember the details of that. I wasn't paying that much attention to what our maids were doing in their spare time. Besides, my mother was the supervisor of them. Anyway, I thought that I was nice enough to Maria and our other maids at the time. Not to be mean or anything but the maids really have no place to come back later and make claims of that sort. They were paid quite well and got other benefits in working for American families so I am not aware of any problem existing on this point.

Which Reminds Me

During college I once sang in a girls' trio with Charlotte Rosser Hawkins and Cheryl Gansky. It was Cheryl who organized that. I really don't remember very much about those people. I remember Charlotte being there but I don't remember anything specific about her, just that she was there, maybe a couple of years behind me. I don't remember. I could say some not very nice things about her but that wouldn't be very nice of me, and also it would only be my uninformed opinion based on nothing else in particular, just that someone is wanting to pick a fight with me and wants me to fight back and thus get some scuttlebutt going. So there is no reason for me to launch into some bizarre communication with the Hawkins family to whom I am not related. I have become aware only recently that the Hawkins might be somehow related to the in-laws of my ex-Aunt Linda, who is the ex-wife of my uncle. Yes, it is a bit awkward having a divorce in the family but anyway no one on our side of the family wanted to be attached to Linda's mechanically Dutch-Hawkins machinery. Not to be mean about it or anything but we are not even slightly Dutch and/or Hawkins and we really don't care to hear more about that. I really don't care that much.

Which Reminds Me

Joan is pathetically stupid if she has mistaken me for the waitress, but then again I remember that there never was any intelligence found in those two shrill Italian hags Joan and Kathy. As if I should care enough to ask what was said in the private sayonces of Joan and Kathy in regards to Heather or anything else for that matter. To tell the truth, I could not care less. I never felt any sense of camaraderie with these horrid Italian hags Joan and Kathy, whose behavior was very puppetlike, as if someone else was pulling the strings. As if I should care. Ha! My life will be so much better after those two shrill Italian hags Joan and Heather have been entirely flushed out of me and mine. Any article I might have written giving some other false impression was a mere fiction clearly of the third-person variety for the benefit of someone else, obviously.

As a matter of fact there was a waitress on the board of the David A. Barth corporation but what was her name? Actually, her name was Anna H. Eber and she was apparently a single unmarried woman who worked as a waitress at a Pasadena coffee shop and who possibly hailed originally from a small Ohio town not far from the Lima, Ohio, from which my great-grandfather also hailed. I am only guessing on that point because I am not an official source and my findings are incomplete.

So? 

Which Reminds Me

Just because I do not appreciate the Hobby Lobby Heather Green meddlesome way of interfering with my personal life, always trying to upgrade themselves at my expense, by means of dubious comparisons, that does not mean that my opinions exactly coincide with those of the trashy gay Joan who sat directly in front of me in high school, in the alphabetical schemed of things. I have no idea why Joan and Kathy do not like Heather. I never discussed anything of the sort with them.

Which Reminds Me

Only by doodling on Facebook and Google do we learn that Heather married a certain Mr. Kohout, hence all of these stupid jokes about the "Out" Cohort. As if I ever cared about staying in touch with snooty horrible Heather, a nasty spoiled rich girl if there ever was one. I cannot these horrid rich people such as Heather pretending to know me. There really is no connection there. Just because Heather is all buddy-buddy with Patricia Cruz, that does not mean that I would have any connection to Nicky Cruz, the New York gangster. I don't know anything about that. I read the books but I have no personal connection there.

Which Reminds Me

How dare you send these ghetto trash New Yorkers to scream at me and tell me to go to New York! For one thing, I don't take orders from these New York ghetto trash dogs. If you had a specific job to offer me in New York that would be one thing. But I personally had no thought of going to New York. And why should I go to New York just to be chewed up and spit out by the exalted machinery of these horrid ghetto trash New Yorkers? I could not care less about New York, actually, so you should not be sitting on the edge of your chairs expecting my arrival there. Just because I read about New York in David Wilkerson's books, that does not mean that I would ever want to go there. I feel sort of sorry for those rude and horrible New York gangster people but I am not interested in hearing from them in any kind of personal way.

Which Reminds Me

After my first year at SCC, I remember that before going home for the summer I gave my address to Heather who lived in the room next to mine. Upon returning the next fall, Heather appeared at my door to berate me for returning the letter she had sent me. I told her that I had not received any letter from her. She produced an envelope that had been returned to her stamped as undeliverable. I looked at the address and it was not mine, as I told her. It was an address that would have been a couple of blocks away from our house, so obviously the post office automatically returned it to her without ever consulting me. And am I the post office that I should feel guilty about Heather's stupid mistakes? Spare me the stupid drama.

Speaking of Dutch

I am somehow reminded of Brother Andrew. What Christian has not heard of Brother Andrew's exploits smuggling Bibles into countries that were behind the Iron Curtain. Of course, that was the mid-20th century, before the fall of the Iron Curtain. Now that the Iron Curtain has fallen, without a Berlin Wall, a tilting windmill, to battle, how will the Dutchman keep those Open Doors propped open? Someone was asking this question but why were they asking me? I am not very connected to the Open Doors organization, although I do remember hearing the stories, reading the books. Who is to say that the Brother Andrew's smuggling of Bibles, all that prayer and care, did not have its intended effect in toppling the Berlin Wall and bringing down the Iron Curtain? Who is to say what is in store for Christians of the 21st century? Which reminds that while I was working in California at Hermano Pablo's for one year, they were renting space in the building to someone connected to Open Doors. I remember that Mark Carpenter, a co-worker, was saying some things about that lady and her ministry but I don't remember anything specific. What was her name? I don't remember anything about her now, just that she was a Messianic Jew, so I really wouldn't be able to say much. Of course, Mark Carpenter was tapping the phones and taking copious notes on every phone conversation, for which he was fired later, as we heard later, so you might have more luck asking Mark.

Which Reminds Me

I should correct one point. I only once attended Dr. Schuller's church in Garden Grove, when the college choir sang there one Sunday morning. But that was before the Crystal Cathedral was thought of. That was still under construction the one time I was there, when we all attended a concert there in maybe 1980 or 1981, but I never attended church there.

Which Reminds me

There seems to be some lingering confusion about our family. We are just human beings of Germanic and other Western European lineage who, if we are called to serve in Christian ministry, like everyone else on the planet are able to serve God in any capacity that God should call us. We do like a good steak for dinner but we are Christians so we obviously are not interested in learning more about animal sacrifices that are practiced by various witch doctors hereabouts. So all of this talk about us not being able to handle the things of God sounds very weird coming from fellow Christians. It is not like there was ever any genealogical requirement for becoming a Christian minister. Persons of many various family descents and lineages may become Christian ministers if they apply themselves to their Biblical studies. Like everyone else in the U.S., we would not want our children to think that their options for Christian ministry are limited by genealogical and family heritage considerations. That is just wrong wrong wrong. You are just Mr. Wrong.

Which Reminds Me

During my last year at SCC my roommate was from Miami and her brother was running the school newspaper. Although I heard that she later married Sergio Rivera, at that time she was dating one of those Oriental guys, Ken or Kent. Those Oriental guys always think they are so clever. One time I was talking to him and he was trying to corner me on some point and I don't remember what I said. It was just wasn't something that I could answer in so many words. Then he was acting like he had won some sort of contest even though I really didn't say anything. These Oriental people are just a nuisance and I would rather avoid them entirely so as not to have feel obligated to answer stupid questions.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I believe I did make some comment about Isobel. She allows looks so unhappy, her face always scrunched into a frown. Yes, and maybe that means something and maybe it does not mean anything. I don't know what people are thinking. I just thought she looked very miserable and cross all of the time. That was all I said.

Which Reminds Me

And why is it that the Robertsons are pretending to know our California relatives when actually they have never been there and have no real connection to us? In high school I had a dog named Dee-Dee but we gave her away before we left and I really don't remember what happened to her. I imagine that our dog Dee-Dee is long since dead so there really is no connection there.

Which Reminds Me

In doing our genealogical research, it was interesting to learn that the Davenports might actually be our long-lost cousins somehow removed from the Calkins line, tracing back to the 19th century, although am I really not sure how that could possibly be connected to us. I really never thought that we were ever related to the Davenports but then again there is this mysterious and secretive campaign to discredit the Calkins for no particular reason that we can actually see. It is always attributable to someone else somehow. And why should we care about unknown events and unknown persons of the 19th century when actually this has no bearing on our case? Honduras translates easily to El Salvador, but then again there are all those bullet holes in the picture. I am really not sure what that could mean.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, how well I remember Barbara Wilder in sixth grade talking about herself being flatfooted in addition to wearing a size D shoe. As for myself, I could never hope to fill the shoes of this D-feeted Barbara, who as I recall had long red hair, a lighter red than my auburnish. There were three of us redheads in sixth grade at the MK school: Barbara, Sammy, and me. But the fourth sixth grader, and there were four of us in sixth grade that year, was brownish haired Dawn. The Davenports were away on furlough that year so blonde Cheryl was out of the country. So anyway, you will never succeed in this effort of D-feeting me, you pompous old windbag, always so full of hot air. My feet were never that wide. So yours are quite the bizarre gymnastic contortions, perhaps a failed effort to pretend that Dawn Saword was ever somehow Pentecostal when actually the Sawords were quite the reverse, quite anti-Pentecostal. Just because we all attended the same school, that does not mean that we ever agreed on certain points of doctrinal purity. The Sawords actually belonged to a tiny exclusivist cult that is extremely legalistic and severe. The Sawords taught that women should never cut their hair and girls never wear pants or wear makeup of any kind, etc. etc., because they interpret certain Bible verses very literally. So we respected their right to live as they chose but as for me, I could not live under that sort legalism. I did wear pants even though a girl because, anyway, it was the 20th century and we interpret that in a different way. (Barbara Wilder and her brother, 8th grader Jeff, were Central American Mission, which is sort of like Baptist, not Pentecostal.) So just because these people were with us in school, that does not mean that they are of us. Just because in college I remember one roommate talked about attending the Crystal Cathedral, also attended by her then-boyfriend, also a college classmate, that does not mean that I ever attended any Dutch Reformed Church ever in my lifetime, only one time and only because the college choir sang there one Sunday morning. Otherwise, I have no connection whatever to the Dutch Reformed thing. Perhaps Professor Elliott, a music teacher at our college, attended there regularly, given that his son Chris was into organ music, and our churches cannot offer much in the way of organ music to speak of. But otherwise I have really no idea why these Dutch Reformed busybodies would imagine themselves connected to us. They might be Christians but they are certainly not Pentecostals. Not that we would not them to become Pentecostals later if so inclined but they have not been properly trained so they obviously have no clue what they are talking about. They are not very good listeners.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember meeting someone named Gay while I was there but I don't really remember very much about her, just that her name was Gay, so I suppose a name like that could be somewhat inconvenient in modern times. The word formerly meant something else but not so much now. Anyway, I don't speak Gaylick either so I am at somewhat of a loss for words as to what this relates to Kelly. I really have nothing to add to whatever someone else probably said about that.

Which Reminds Me

When I was studying journalism one of our teachers was Dr. Kelly. I really did not know them very well and remember very little, just that his wife is a Filipina whose name I do not recall. So I remember that Dr. Kelly was a rather cranky person known for having a bad temper and launching into some episodes of temper display, which probably has something to do with his Irish heritage, but which was not very helpful in career situations, or so I heard. I really don't know the details of that, only some hearsay. Nobody really wants to ask or to hear more of that. It imagine that it is another sad story but it would be sort embarrassing for the Kelly family. So I imagine that all of the Kelly family are prone to such temper tantrums, which is why I would not be interested in hearing from his shrill nasty broadcasting cousins. I really don't care that much. I don't even know those people so why are they shrieking at me?

Which Reminds Me

Anyway, I  wonder what makes all these horrible Irish Catholics think that I would want to be 'in' with them? I'm not Irish. I'm not Catholic. I'm really not interested in discussing anything at all with them so obviously they are wasting their time with all of this taunting of me. I am just never going to go there.

Which Reminds Me

During my senior year in high school I was chosen as a soloist for the musical prepared by the girls' choir. Ok, so I was the bad guy, but it was the largest role with two solos so that seemed somewhat amazing to me that I would be doing a starring role of sorts. Someone was saying that Kathy, our choir director's daughter, had expressed her jealousy of me and my being chosen by her own mother for a starring role in the musical. How rude of me to exist and thus by my existence thus to interfere with Kathy's relationship with her mother. Anyway, haughty arrogant shrill Italian hag Kathy was never in the choir because she was too busy schmoozing with snooty rich girls to give me the time of day so why should I care? So I am thinking someone was saying  that her mother told her that her schmoozy work would be rewarded later with a rich husband upon her return to the U.S. whereas I would be thrown in the garbage by them later because I don't really fit in very well with these snooty arrogant nasties. My existence is problematic for their Italian scheme. I am too white, too square, etc. etc. So now you are asking me why do I not feel sorry for Kathy's hurt feelings at not being chosen to star in a musical and I am saying that it is hard for me to conjure much sympathy for a nasty Italian rich bitch who was always so nasty to me during high school, meaning Kathy. I could say pretty much the same thing about pathetically stupid Dummies-class Kelly Elliott. Someone really ought to zip Kelly's mouth permanently shut because she obviously has no clue what she is talking about.