Which Reminds Me

During my senior year in high school, Vickie gave me a copy of Seventeen magazine with some pages cut out of it. Comparing that with the copy of Seventeen magazine with that in the high school library, we see that it was an article about Linda Blair, the star of the exorcist, with photos of Linda her head twisted around backward and a strange grimace on her face. Ok, so perhaps Vickie thought to spare me the trauma of seeing the real Linda. Oddly, Linda Blair bears a slight resemblance to another Linda who was in our high school but who had graduated a year or two before. I don't remember her so I really can't comment on the meaning of that. I am really not sure what that meant. I can also think of several other people with the name of Linda. So who is calling who a stupid magazine witch? I don't know anything about it.

Which Reminds Me

Ok, so I was born in May, which puts me under the sign of Gemini, the twins. Even so, there is very little meaning to that. I always consciously averted my eyes away from the horoscope column in the newspaper, which unfortunately happened to occur near the favorite cartoon page and Ripley's Believe It Or Not item. I vaguely remember discussing this with Barbara Miller of Mississippi. Certainly I do not take my orders from the dreary Whitaker twins. I really shouldn't say anything about them as they never volunteered any information to me nor invited me to their birthday parties. So the twin signs means nothing to me.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, Libby from high school might seem like an obvious choice of casting as the Tudor Queen, what with her frizzy red hair and freckles, not to be confused with the freckles of Maria Smith. You would never guess that Libby is actually Porto Rican. Oh, I didn't know that. No one ever mentioned that. Only after the dreary Porto Rican statehood lobby poops in my front lawn do I learn about Libby's true identity as a spy for Spanish Porto Rico. As if I care. The rain will wash that away into the proper channels. There was no reason for me to do something about that. I really have other things on my mind than the status of Porto Rico's bid for statehood. Basically, I couldn't care less.

Which Reminds Me

So just because your face appears in the alumni news from time to time, that does not mean that I know anything about you or would want to know more about your personal life behind the scenes. Your private theater club is not the sum total of everyone's college experience, needless to say. There are probably many things that you don't know about us but, anyway, we would appreciate it if you would respect our privacy as well, rather than using your platform to pose as a martyr, as if you were being persecuted by us, when actually we just weren't that into you. Enough said about that.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, how well I recall that I was not allowed to learn the typesetting codes at Life Publishers. That job was reserved for Judy Thomson and her gossipy cohorts. Funny, with all these advances in technology and desktop publishing, we really won't need Judy's malicious viral coding for anything anymore, which is a huge relief to me. I am just saying. We're just all sick and tired of hearing about Judy's coding disasters.

Which Reminds Me

You Dummies Class whiners have your consolation prize already, obviously, so why are you still complaining? Do you have something to complain about? You want to have your cake and eat it, too. Even so, you cannot remotely commit me to the Know-Nothing Party against my will, without my consent. I will still know enough to know that you are not my friends. You are worthless to me, you liars and hypocrites. Where is my freedom? Where is my liberty? How can you stand their crowing about America as the beacon of the free world and yet privately practice this most obnoxiously genocidal program imaginable? Have you no pang of conscience whatever? I have zero sympathy for you. I wish only to expose your mental duplicities to public observation so that you can be dealt with by the proper authorities. I am just saying. So is this the speech you were angling for? I would only be guessing. Whatever.

Which Reminds Me

Well, I can see where the people in Dummies Class English might find it difficult to understand what was going on over in Honors English class. They were never there so they wouldn't really know about that, which would include Stephanie, which I suppose proves that the U.K. has its share of Dummies, which is one way to explain that. I was never in Dummies Class English so I find it difficult to understand what their problem is. It just wasn't that important to prove myself a Dummies Class know-nothing.

Which Reminds Me

We are only travelers and pilgrims in this life, according to what I always thought. So it may seem odd that someone is very insistent on taking my house away from me, the truth is that I never owned a house and can live without one. There were no guarantees. I wouldn't want to anchor myself to such a large piece of concrete. Wouldn't I prefer to avoid the headache? In ancient times some of my ancestors may have lived in a castle in England, but in our generation, well, we are just regular folk with no claim to fame. The castles are mostly owned by the UK government, which is just as well considering the high cost of maintaining that, what with the hiring of a crew of gardeners and servants, domestic and otherwise, plus an entire lack of privacy. I might need a place of retirement, but a castle would be just too ridiculous for words.

Which Reminds Me

In college we were talking about how mean some of the guys were, how they are so rude and treat us like garbage, so that we don't even feel like girls, just "it." So that was what that meant to me, that if Mr. Right came along I would probably would forget about that, but Mr. Wrong is such a horrible person, such a huge waste of time.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, someone is reminding me that the Whitaker twins and someone else, maybe Anita Stone, performed the song, "Teach Your Children Well," at a school program, and I thought they performed it very well if you wanted my opinion, if you are into that sort of music, Crosby Stills & Nash, some of the popular music of our times. At another program, Lance and his Japanese friend performed something, maybe a Beatles number, I don't remember what. So that was some of the music in high school.

Which Reminds Me

During ninth grade, in Miss Marken's honors English class, Lance Starin, during his oral report on the subject of, what was it, Greek mythology, made some flippant about the virgin birth of Mary and speculated about how maybe there was some other explanation or omission in the Biblical story, pointing to various scenarios suggested by Greek mythology, because, anyway, Lance cannot imagine that the Biblical story could be true as it is. Which was a rather shocking thing to hear him say. Why do we have to prove that? The idea that we know this by faith without explanation of the technicalities that are beyond our human comprehension is an essential part of the Christian faith. We don't really need to know more about that to bolster faith. We just believe that it is true, never mind about Lance's odd angling on the subject. But when you say stuff like that in a Roman Catholic country, in a classroom of somewhat militant Catholics, obviously you are going to have a problem with making people believe you, because, anyway, you are only a clueless ninth grader with a guitar, not really trained in the finer points of theological instruction. I am just saying. Why do I have to be the one to explain this? Don't you know anything?

Which Reminds Me

Why all this to-do about the lunchables charity program that is operated by the Stewart family? I always thought that was their private family thing. If they want to operate their own private charitable feeding program, who am I to tell them what to do with their money, whether raised from donors or else their own private monies stowed away somewhere? That wouldn't be my choice of what to do with my own money after tithes and taxes but I really don't see how I can tell them what to do with their own money. I am just saying. I don't know very much about that.

Which Reminds Me

You are looking more and more like a dead ringer for our Japanese classmate. Just because you have a few tidbits from 9th and 10th grades, that does not get you very far. There has been a lot of water under the bridge since that time. Not meaning to be mean, but I actually don't need your catty jokes, thanks anyway. I have enough problems already without all your catty jokes.

Which Reminds Me

Susie and Miriam have this in common, they were both fired by Max. But the details of their firings have never been explained to us and I don't think that is my problem. Max only wishes he could have fired me too but I was never his employee so he is just out of luck on that point.

Which Reminds Me

That is so weird, all this talk of me moving to Louisiana. I turned down the one job offer from there and never have heard of another one. Even if there were another one, why would I want to rent some redneck low-class no-account Johnny to ensnarl my life in a pile of red tape? Truth be told, nobody really cares about the idiotic opinions of your "For Rent" redneck Johnny, who will be remanded to Utah for bigamy prosecution proceedings if I ever hear another peep out of him, thank you very much.

Which Reminds Me

I think that I vaguely remember hearing that Dean Best was fired when it was discovered that he was having a fling with someone not his wife, I don't know who. I don't remember details very well.

Many things I choose to forget, such as the way Judy from Pennsylvania always did have a propensity for twisting everything around in a way most inconvenient for me, especially as I don't know anything about her, only something about being from Pennsylvania. I only roomed with her for two months until she pitched a screaming fit and moved downstairs, which was a huge relief to me. I have enough problems without this Pennsylvania whiner screaming at me. I don't understand what her problem is. I don't need that.

Or maybe it was someone else who threw me into that picture in a wrong way, such as Jan or Rhonda. Jan loved to pick a fight for no reason, another reason not to go back there.

Which Reminds Me

I remember once in California when our family was visiting at some people's house and my mother was nervous about us using the bathroom because the man's wife was known to be an extremely meticulous neat freak who would probably want to keep her bathroom in such a state of extreme cleanliness that you could eat off the floor if you wanted to, so we were very nervous about having to visit with them, because those people were so neat freaky weird, but they later moved to Montana so we never saw them again. If I had my druthers, personally I would rather not have to eat off the bathroom floor, thanks anyway.

Which Reminds Me

Reading more about the AB blood type can be a scary thing.

Some people say there is no correlation between blood type and personality, but others in pop psychology are distributing lists of personality traits that supposedly correspond to blood type. In particular, the AB is said to be very rare. On the positive side, the AB blood type personality is said to be cool, controlled, rational, sociable, adaptable.

However, on the negative side, the ABs are said to be forgetful and ineffective at work, irresponsible and too critical, having split personalities.

That is very scary, that such a negative assessment of the AB blood type personality should be frozen into pop culture in such a rigidly petrified set of rules and regulations when actually I think that my work is brilliant. What should I do, not work? How can I not work and still pay my bills? Ok, so I am AB, but you already knew that.

Which Reminds Me

We noticed that Japan has a large percentage of persons with the AB blood type, which is neither A nor B, just AB. But what about those people who came out AB because their mother was A and their father was B? Does that also make them Japanese? No, I don't think so. I think the Japanese connection is irrelevant in this particular case.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I think that I did read the Pollyanna books, and then promptly forgot about that. Why say yes when no will do the job?

Which Reminds Me

Yes, that wasn't my idea to retrieve Thomas More's detached head and make the attempt of reattaching it to his body buried at a separate location. Why should I trouble myself with such a question? Do you really think that could ever happen short of divine intervention? And even if that were to happen, would that be enough to resolve the Protestant schism? No, I think that the problem goes deeper than just Thomas More and his failure of conscientious objection. It has something to do with a nation's sovereignty but, anyway, yes, I am sure that it is every complicated. I wouldn't want to get into that thorny question. Enough.

Which Reminds Me

I now see that you are asking for the story of our landlady in El Salvador. The house we rented had a little grotto in the backyard with a statue in it which the landlady removed before we moved in, so we never actually saw the statue, because she knew that we were Protestants and would not want to have to look at that Catholic thing all the time. We had not asked her to do that. She just voluntarily did that of her own free will, which my mother really appreciated when she was retelling this story on various occasions.

Nobody was planning to break into your house for the purpose of smashing the tasteless dime store bric-a-brac lining your shelves. But to hide behind the excuse of "art" is a bit ridiculous. I am just saying.

Yes, I think that I might have touched on the subject of idolatry in a term paper I wrote for my theology degree. I would refer you to Owen Barfield's book, "Saving the Appearances," for example, but, anyway, that is a very deep subject for shallow minds.

Which Reminds Me

When I was at Evangel College, I remember that Dean Best made his own name the school motto, "Be the Best." He even distributed buttons and banners or something with his "Be the Best" motto imprinted on it. And yet I seem to remember hearing later that he was fired due to an indiscretion the details of which are not clear to me, which is sad because his daughter was a friend of mine. So apparently just having the name of "Best" does not guarantee a place at the top of the world. I would not want to have to pay Dean Best's baggage fees. And wouldn't I look ridiculous crowing about myself being the "Best"? Too much pressure. There always will be someone better than me at the game of tiddlywinks. I am so out of practice when it comes to that game. Why should I try to pretend otherwise? Similarly, why should I be required to answer the phone for Rose Schott? Rose is just one of those distant Ohio connections, a cousin many times removed, whose name appears in genealogy charts somehow, but of whom actually nothing is known, just that they are players, obviously, of some insane game that means nothing to me, otherwise why would their names recur in the most irrelevant places. So just because my name sounds like candy, that does not mean there is any sugar money in me. And just because your name is Good, that does not make me Bad. I am just saying. Get real.

Which Reminds Me

I don't know how you expect me to win this game when I have no Trump card in my hand. The Trump cards don't belong to me, obviously. Duh! I have no idea what this game is about. No one ever gave me a copy of the rules. So?

Which Reminds Me

Yes, how well I remember how the Stewarts are so proud of themselves for knowing who everybody is and knowing everything there is to know about their people and being able to describe their concerns about the sheepy people situation in such eloquent words. But I was never able to get a handle on how they do that. I can't do that. People don't perceive me in a way that would enable me to do that. I can see how when you are so tall and blond and weigh about 400 pounds and have such a royal-sounding name, you can easily command the respect of the sheepy people while cleverly avoiding the backside kicks that those sheepy critters may deliver. But I don't have that type of leadership capacity in my portfolio and never claimed to have that, so I would prefer to avoid any position of responsibility over these stupid dreary sheep who are always so mean to me. It is interesting to listen to them monologuing about various people but I don't see where that comes from. You must have confused me for one of the Stewarts, not that I would know what you are angling for.

Which Reminds Me

It does seem odd, all these references to Anita Stone, of whom nothing is known, just that she was there in high school, and seen somewhere reading a Bible in public, although she is really maybe a Unitarian, I'm not sure. We never really talked. So she was there but I can't tell you her story. I don't know enough about that to explain what was going on with her.

Which Reminds Me

I never knew anything about the maples in the pictures. And I never knew anything about the I-Vannah game either. I never had the slightest connection to those pathetically stupid Rocky Wood Brothers of Atlantis. I would rather forget about those clueless idiots, but life is short. It's a Small World, after all. Duh!

Which Reminds Me

Yes, that was so nice of the City of Coconut Creek to come and plant free trees in our front yard. The new trees replaced some other trees that were knocked out by a hurricane. Strangely, these are maple trees, which would seem an odd choice of tree species for South Florida. Don't they have something more native to Florida? But the maple trees were given to us free so we really can't complain about that. I just wonder if those scraggly things will ever really thrive in the climate here.

I don't know why I am starting to get the notion that those maple trees would really flourish and thrive if transplanted to some other location, perhaps Baton Rouge or Atlanta. But here in our front yard, they are not doing very well. Anyway, I never actually knew anything about maples so there really is no reason for me to comment. I always think that planting trees is a good thing for the planet.

Which Reminds Me

Truth be told, I really don't care that much about tracking down other people's money. I currently do not hold a government-related job that would require me to gather unavailable information about offshore money accounts so I fail to understand why I should care about their money. We may have overheard something indicating that they keep their money out of the country but beyond that there is nothing new that I can say about that. That is just the way it is. Their private money is really none of my business. If the government had wanted me to investigate my high school classmates' offshore and/or Swiss bank accounts, they would need to give me an appropriate job and salary. Otherwise, I really don't care that much about the money.

Which Reminds Me

It's sort of like I never had a cousin named Erin. What is that, Erin? Mostly just an obnoxious little twerp in the background. Mostly just a flood of green water that was never so good to drink. I see no way to make such bitter water palatable. It's just a huge mess.

Which Reminds Me

That was horrible listening to Cori saying all those nasty things about Korean people. But then again we have to remember that Cori herself is a no-class piece of garbage so just borrowing the tribal lore of Japanese warlords is not going to excuse your serious Japanese attitude problem. I am just saying. Only because you asked.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, we realize that our high school classmate from Japan may have mixed feelings about the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as he was explaining in his oral report. And yet we U.S. citizens consider ourselves loyal to the very government that authorized the use of such immense violence against Japan. We did not bomb Korea. We were bombing Japan, obviously. Why would we authorize such violent measures against Japan? I don't know. It was a war thing, obviously. I was not the person authorized to push the violence button, clearly, but certainly I can't say that it what was right or wrong. Given the circumstances of war, maybe it was just the lesser of two evils. I wouldn't know anything about that. It wasn't my problem.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I can see where the primitive Duron dogs may be highly impressed with the idiotic rantings of Collette. It would be very easy for me to just ignore all these crazy people, if I had my druthers I would just shrug off this junk, if little sister hadn't gotten herself so highly amalgamated with those idiots. It makes it hard for me to go somewhere else. I tried to escape but wherever I go they somehow find me. Not only that, but our own church denomination grants such great esteem and credentialed credibility to that. Who are we to argue with church authorities?

Oh, did Collette have a brother named Chuck Smith? Not the famous Chuck Smith. He was a different Chuck Smith.

During college, I played piano accompaniment for some voice students, one of whom was Chuck Smith, MK-Japan. We know that you don't have a choice about which country, but I would prefer to ignore Japan's prejudice against Koreans, unlike Cori. We should studiously avoid taking sides in those internal ethnic conflicts going on inside the various countries that we serve. You could throw something out of whack, maybe the balance of justice, by adopting their stupid Japanese attitudes, not the Christian message we were commissioned to take, which is why we mostly loathe and disavow the stupid missionaries of Japan, not that we ever got a chance to say what we really thought about that.

FYI: Chuck Smith's songs included "Fussreise" by Hugo Wolff, Debussy's "Beau Soir," Handel's "Where'er you walk," aria from "Semele," and Somber Wood, which is Lully's "Bois epais" sung in English. So? I don't think that defines who you are. I imagine that everyone has junk in their old college notebooks unless you were too illiterate to take

Which Reminds Me

Yes, what sort of pagan parents would name their daughter Dagon? I can see why you might want to sue your own parents for that. Someone will argue that a rose by any other name is still a rose. Yes, but a name does at times evoke other impressions in the minds of listeners, whether good or bad. Even so I never met you and I never knew anything about that so obviously your name problem is not my name problem. I don't know anything about it. Having a name problem does not make you my friend. Basically, I don't want your name problem. I have enough problems already without your empty head bouncing around all over the place.

Which Reminds Me

Oh, are you a foe of the Seitz? Do you dislike the Seitz? However that may be, even so, either way that does not make you a friend of mine. I don't know the first thing about Seitz. Basically, all that I can say about the Seitz is that they are Cindy's problem, not mine. Life is short. I don't have the time to bother about Cindy's many in-law problems.

Aren't you getting tired of these Eyesore jokes? You could omit the S and then you would have Eeyore. Wasn't that Christopher Robin's donkey? If we are going to be smashing elephants, animals with long memories and lots of water in their trunks, I think that we ought to give equal time to the smashing of donkeys, cantankerous and illogical creatures that kick and bite.

You cannot just rewrite history and then expect not to have a train wreck when I withdraw my tracks from your artificially jerryrigged Rael Road. I am taking myself out of your lousy game because that was not what I signed up for. I really don't care that much about your lineup of talking heads with attitude problem.

We know who the Apostle Paul was, but who this other clown Paul was I have no idea. I think that I probably could live without television, ultimately, if I had to, but I doubt that I could live without books. I always did love to read.

Which Reminds Me

Interestingly, in our researches we learned about Earnest Elmo Calkins, about his rise to fame in the advertising world, and how after his death in 1964 his advertising agency was merged into the Inter Public Group of Companies, a huge conglomerate of media companies of which nothing is known, just that you can read about this on Wikipedia. Just because my surname also happens to be Calkins, that does not constitute any link between us and them. I don't know anything about it. Even so, there is no law barring any future Calkins from rising to fame in the advertising world, assuming they got a proper start in that business, which I didn't so obviously I never had any illusions about New York being a place for me. Going there would mean for me to be eaten alive and discarded like yesterday's garbage. Don't I have somewhere else to go than New York? What kind of state song is that? I am just saying.

It's the principle that counts.

Which Reminds Me

So you are saying that really bothers you, the pictures of the sugar-making process down south, and how white people consider themselves more refined just automatically, by default. You are thinking that you brown people are going to turn the tables on us and start teaching us white people some lessons. So that's your opinion.

Which Reminds Me

I am often reminded of the photographs that my parents took of the process of sugar making, how the yoke of oxen go around and around in circles to activate the gear that crushes the sugar cane and grinds it into first molasses, then brown sugar, and then maybe, if refined further, white sugar. So that was used to illustrate the primitive living conditions that my parents first encountered in Central America, but of course that was in the 1960s. Probably they are much more advanced now, but still the photos don't lie. That was just how it was back then.

Which Reminds Me

How well I remember the strange antics of the Five of Oakland Park, a clique composed of five boring people of whom little is known as mostly we were were not invited to their private camping trips/gossip sessions. So it is odd that some other person would be confused about that, attempting to mingle me with their cliquey milieu. I am guessing that you wish to triangulate more information about that but there is nothing new to say about them, at least nothing that I would be able to tell you. They are all gone out to pasture now and won't be returning to Oakland Park probably ever.

Which Reminds Me

Ok, so my blood type is not so marketable as you might have liked. Even so, that is a very rude way of pointing this out to me, when actually this could be a good thing. This gives me a break. It means that I am left off the hook, without the big hassle of having to try to sell myself on the open market to the strangers from Baskin-Robbins. So, ok, fine, you can take this job and shove it, or however the saying goes.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it is a bit of awkward, all these stupid Lee hookers screaming at me, as if. There is actually nothing that they need to tell me. I already know about my own blood type and what that means. And even if I could, why would I want to sell my body to some creepy ethnic whiner who actually hates me, never mind about money in the bank? If you want to do that, fine. But don't be expecting too much, just a crown of thorns.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, how ridiculous, what are all these private cheaters screaming about? They would complain if I were to put them on a guilt trip in regards to all their private cheats, and believe me we learned from Cori about all those beer cans in their off-campus refrigerators, so they are not fooling anyone. And then they make me sign some paper that would make me feel guilty if I had done that in a public way. I am confused. So there is something wrong with this picture. If people are just going to be private cheats run amok, whatever happened to the rules about Canons? I am just saying.

Which Reminds Me

It seems to me that the Bells do protest too much. That wasn't the word, or else that wasn't the context, that would apply in this situation. The Bells know very well about their own politicking, how they laboriously promote themselves at my expense. So?

By their Catholic definition you are only a Christian if they say you are.

Whereas we in our evangelical circles say that you are a Christian if you know and have experienced Jesus in your heart.

So if you are going to use the Tribe of Asher wrench from the Lost Books of Eden to say that only one can be true, then the other must be false, well that wasn't the Biblical Canon that we agreed to, so you're just out there on your own. Don't except me to get too excited about your gangster mythology.

Which Reminds Me

One year at our college there appeared a girl who had previously sung backup for some rock band and also had her own album. I never actually met her and don't remember her name but I do remember that she was talked about. It was Barbara Kraiss, wife of the college president, who pointed her out to me and told me these things and made some scathing commentary about her. But I suppose that is what college presidents are supposed to do, part of the job to make catty remarks about all the little student underlings. Who am I to argue with the college president? I don't anything else about that.

Which Reminds me

How many times do I have to tell the same story about how I declined the opportunity to meet with a Hollywood agent? Tana asked me to drive her there but I said no. I can't remember whether I loaned her my car to go there without me or what. I only remember that I did not go with her. She later talked about being there looking at the many photos of the wannabes on the wall of the agent's office but obviously my photo was not there. Why would I want to be listed amongst the rank and file of wannabes? The scorn of wannabes is severe. And what would an agent do for a poor wannabe? Nothing, obviously. They just want to be paid, obviously. But they never did anything for me so I don't think that I owe them something. I am just saying.

Which Reminds Me

All of this commotion proves only one thing, that Kathy is actually an insect, not really a human being. The way she natters on so about nothing of interest may impress these pathetically stupid dummies, which only proves that they too are actually insectoid creatures. Nothing is really going on in their empty heads. So?

Which Reminds Me

My great-grandfather's passport application was signed by Samuel Sokobin, who, coincidentally, was a Jewish man representing the United States of America, not to be confused with Ho Feng-Shan, a Chinese diplomat at Vienna, Austria, during World War II, who has been credited with saving the lives of 3,000 Jewish refugees by issuing them visas for Shanghai, against the orders of his commanding officer.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I did notice an odd coincidence in the paperwork. Most people are never going to notice which particular consular official signed their passport application. It's just thank you very much for the U.S. passport, which gets me almost pretty much anywhere I would want to go.

Interestingly, my great-grandfather's passport application is signed by Samuel Sokobin. I don't know why I noticed this. The man from Singapore, his passport application occurs directly before that of my great-grandfather, in terms of the stack of passport applications. That of a mysterious single woman appears shortly after. Oh, is there something magical about this particular stack of passport applications, that it should be dubbed Solomon's pool or some other significant appellation? I wouldn't know how to describe that or why it matters.

Even so, I doubt that my great-grandfather could have been involved in the shooting incident. Mr. Sokobin and another man, Charles Coltman by name, were traveling together in a car in the northern part of China or Mongolia where Mr. Coltman was shot and wounded. Some accounts say that the shooting incident occurred at the Kalgan Gate of the Great Wall of China, where they were accosted by Chinese soldiers attempting to prevent them from passing through the gate. Mr. Sokobin's account differed from that of the Chinese authorities but what actually happened I have no idea. It seems that Mr. Sokobin was not charged in the matter, but somehow escaped getting shot. Anyway, I only know what I found on the Internet. My information on these matters is not complete.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, that was so rude of little sister to verbally comment in the stairwell on the "manly" woman who was nearby. I wonder if someone overheard that. And then you accuse me of saying that, and then how do I extricate myself from her mess while defending myself and my family also? My life would be so much easier if I could just kill myself and end the game now, but then again maybe God still wants me here for some reason that isn't apparent to me or you. I just have no idea.

Which Reminds Me

Why are you asking us to choose between you or them? We don't see any difference just at a glance. We probably don't know the half of it. Not to insult anyone's trustworthiness, but why can't we look at both sides of the equation, given that both have their places in the schemata of world history? I just don't even know what you are talking about. No one ever explained this to me in so many words.

Which Reminds Me

Sorry Miss Lee but we cannot rewrite 150 years of world history just to accommodate your face on the cover of Singapore. Shanghai is maybe the closest that we can get for you. My great-grandparents also spent some significant time in Shanghai. There is a photo of a woman who was their house maid or domestic servant. Oh, was that maybe an ancestor of yours? I never would have guessed that. You don't look anything like her. We were not planning to track down these unknown people for indentured servanthood. We don't do that here in America. Sorry if that does nothing to encourage your aristocratic notions of royal lineage but it wasn't just all about you. If you want to go to Singapore before and after fine, just don't expect to drag us there with you. Anyway, everybody understands about the social upheavals that occurred in the past century. You don't need to kill us just to flatter yourself.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, was that La Simo or Kathy or someone else eloquently declaiming on the subject of Vesuvius and its petrified victims? I can't quite remember who said what. It was just something that I overheard.

Which Reminds Me

All this yapping about narratives makes me curious about Helen's never-published book about her childhood years in India about 100 years ago. What could be so controversial about that? I have never had the chance to see that but I can't say that I wouldn't read it if given the opportunity of getting my hands on an actual copy of that.

Which Reminds Me

My great-grandparents were missionaries in the 1910s in China, actually Kowloon, which is next to Hong Kong. No one ever said anything about Singapore. Just because there is a photo with a name on the back, "Lee," that does not constitute a connection to Singapore. I would imagine that is a very common name. Even so, I don't know anything about it.

Which Reminds Me

That is sort of lame, trying to draw comparisons between slavery and mineral rights. For one thing, a slave is a human being whereas a mineral right is only a rock or oozing crud underground, an inanimate object. Also, the owner of mineral rights is a helpless pawn of forces out of control, quite similarly a slave of the government, rather than in control of the governing of that. And then you would add insult to injury. It just isn't fair.

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Why all these mutterings about a mysterious unnamed captain who died in a war, or whose son died in a war, and maybe someone thinks he didn't get enough respect? I don't know who these specific people were. Did this happen before I was born? How would I correctly frame any commentary when I have no idea who they are? It is always a very sad story when a son is killed in a war. Millions, maybe even billions of people have lost sons in wars, defending their country's honor and glory. It is always awkward to know what to say because words alone can never fill the empty space of a missing loved one.

Which brings us to the subject of John Birch, a Baptist missionary who was not really so much a missionary as working undercover for the U.S. army during World War II. While traveling in China he was shot and killed by Chinese Communists. He was only 27 years old. So young. There was no time for him to get married and have a family.

If only John Birch had surrendered his gun to the authorities, then perhaps his life would have been spared after a short time of imprisonment.

But as it happened, John Birch's stubborn reluctance to surrender his gun to the Communist authorities led to an angry exchange of words and finally to the shooting death of John. So sad.

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Truth be told, I cannot remember that other girl's name. If I could remember who she was, I might be persuaded to help Tim with the strangling of her, but I cannot remember who she was. But then again, no, I wouldn't want to spend such serious time in prison. It just wouldn't be worth it.

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I might have forgotten about Tim being a liar if he hadn't continued to make such a serious fuss about that, as if I owed him something. Actually I don't think that I do. There is a time and a place for a good story, but also some other times those guys are just too much. Show some humility for once and admit that you were just being obnoxious. Don't dump your garbage on me.

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Yes, I do remember during college, when I called Tim Cederblom a liar. I was tired of him pulling my leg with his tall tales and so I returned the favor. It just wasn't funny after the umpteenth time, being told some far-fetched story that just gets weirder and weirder until finally it becomes obvious that the whole point of the story is just to make me look like an idiot for being so gullible. If these Viking whiners are going to take that so seriously, then, well, you figure it out. I don't want to hear more of their Viking garbage. I want the truth.

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You were talking about the Trapp Family Singers, and the Captain who fled Austria to escape the spreading Nazi influence before World War II. Yes, I did see the movie more than once but it is hard to imagine now what they were going through at the time. The German costumes in the movie belie the fact that the Trapp family was very connected to English aristocracy. Yes, I am sure I don't know the half of it. I actually read the book, which is actually more interesting than the movie, but probably I still don't know very much about it. I am not planning a ski vacation to New England any time soon so I don't know when I would see that if ever. Still, the book was very interesting. So?

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Sad that the obnoxious Captain Hills is worked up about the effects of his own lame hacks. He goes around pretending that Iowa was the center of the universe when actually we never had the slightest connection to Iowa and couldn't care less about this other fictional captain. What are these Iowa idiots crowing about anyway? It takes 50 states to make a United States. Iowa is only a tiny part of the story, so why should I care about some fictional captain who never actually existed? If there ever was a captain of historical interest, then find some intelligent way to explain this to the public, don't just run around screaming like idiots.

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So I was never on Edna Long's household staff, Cori's neither, so obviously I don't take orders from that gang. I mostly disliked Gale so why would I want to communicate with her trashy stupid dog Jenna, of whom I know even less than nothing. Jenna has no place to be barking orders at me, confined as she is to her TV chatterbox.

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That is just so lame, dirty tricks Cori trying to pass herself off as a respectable adult. Don't I have something better to do in this life than to spend all my time tyrannized by this horrid Cori monster? I would rather kill myself.

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Yes, I will never forget that time when we went to the missionary house and there in the living room was Miss Murphy sitting in the lap of and cuddling with that most repulsive and loathsome of toadies, Mr. Benner. Yuk! She must be out of her mind to gush over such a disgusting creature as that. She was the one with the missionary appointment, not him. So I suppose that was part of the attraction for him in dumping his wife and mother of his children to run away with Miss Murphy, which allowed him to pose and masquerade as a missionary when actually he was nothing, just a businessman with some deep pockets. Running an orphanage gives them something useful to do, a way to spend his extra money, for the rest of their lives because certainly they are not qualified to teach the church something.

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And why should I care about Edna Long's travel itinerary? I was only starting 10th grade that year and wouldn't know anything about her. Is that the only thing that you hackers can produce, mostly some tantalizing references to documents that can never be directly accessed due to national security concerns? Just replicating the index to the National Archives doesn't get you very far. And yet there you are, raking in the millions of dollars in donation money.

And here I am educating the public in this most helpful way without benefit of millionaire funding, and nobody cares. So life just isn't fair. I am just saying.