Which Reminds Me

Yes, in fact I do remember having read the novel "Christy," by Catherine Marshall. I read it many years ago but I do seem to remember that I thought that it was very well written, evoked lovely images of life in the backwoods of Appalachia and is based loosely on actual events that happened to her mother, while not avoiding the subject of human foibles and mistakes that were made by them. Someone was telling me that there is actually a place somewhere in Appalachia where all those people still live, or at least their descendants of a century or more ago. They all know each other and know who the children were in the book. They know how their names and story facts and dates were rearranged and scrambled and compacted by the author for novel purposes, even though the rest of us members of the general public are just out of the loop as to what that was about. Ok, fine, that's nice that you, or is your name Wendy, have this personal book on which to stake your claim of being a member of the human race. That's your personal thing to keep to yourself. Personally, I don't want to learn more about that. Can you imagine how many thousands or even millions of novel fictions are based loosely on various scrambled and rearranged facts of history? Also, novel writers often like to add their own twists to matters that would likely not have preoccupied the persons of an earlier era. Anyway, I already have enough headaches without having to think about that also and trying to imagine what other curve balls might be included with that. I just have no idea what is this question you are expecting me to answer in regards to that.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I do recall that I once wrote an article about money laundering and yet I can never say that I understand exactly what that is. The law enforcement people are not going to explain to you the gritty details of how these con artists shuffle and break the records by sleight of hand or whatever trick. The actual money launderers are not going to put their names in the newspaper to facilitate the work of law enforcement. So it is just one of those things that nobody really can explain in so many words.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, of course the public records show that Almon H. Calkins actually died in Sawtelle, in California, which seems to be adjacent to Santa Monica, on Sawtelle Boulevard. A quick search of the Rosehill Cemetery records in Chicago turns up nine Calkins decedents but no Almon H. Ok fine, whatever. Why are these neurotic people obsessing on these irrelevant Trivial Pursuit questions? It just doesn't matter to us. We will make our own burial arrangements at the appropriate time, thanks anyway.

Which Reminds Me

When I was working at the South Florida Newspaper Network I remember learning that our company was owned by someone of the name of Worrell, of whom I knew nothing other than their collection of unique cars was also housed in the building. Later some in-house investors bought the newspaper from the Worrell company, and later the Tribune company bought the company from the investors. Much later than that, I learn that Worrell is also the name of a woman who was a secretary at our church. Oh, I didn't know there was any Worrell connection of that nature. I just had always thought that Cherie and her idiot son Terry were some low-class peasant trash people of no interest to me. There is nothing of a personal nature that I would want to discuss with them. But I digress.

Which Reminds Me

The relation between us and the Harvey Reeves Calkins family is very distant, truth be told. We are all descended from Stephen Calkins of Connecticut (1706-1781), a great-grandson of Hugh Calkins (1603-1690), who came to America from Wales in 1640.  So up to the American Revolution we can mostly agree that we are all descendants of Hugh Calkins, who came over from England in maybe 1640. So there is 100 years or so of colonialism in our common history. 

After Stephen, that is where our paths start to diverge. Harvey and Helen are descended from Stephen's fourth son, Justus Calkins (1741-1820), who was born in Sharon, CT, and died in New York. 

We, in contrast, are descended from Stephen's second son Joseph (1737-1806), who was born in CT, Hebron actually, but died in Vermont, in a town called Tinmouth. Well, I did have braces as a child so that name seems to fit us better than you. 

So after that our paths diverge greatly and there is nothing else that needs to be said about that. There are many Calkins in this country thanks to the migrations of Hugh and family so it is not particularly surprising to see our paths criss-crossing from time to time throughout the centuries, untold eons of time for eternity. I don't see why that has to do with anything. 

Maybe someday we could all get together at one of those reunions organized by the Family Calkins Association, if only we could all get along without playing silly mousetrap games. 

Which Reminds Me

Yes, how well I remember that when we were children, we were all over at the Bueno family's house which was adjacent to a military fortress, and the Elmer Bueno family was also there, and the Stewarts and the Calkins. And I was outside on the sidewalk tooting on a harmonica and Susie came and made it known to me that the Bueno family had heard my harmonica tooting and the loud noise I was making was really getting on their nerves and they were going to make sure that I suffer for having done that. Don't I know that Chris Bueno is really very skilled at playing the harmonica, whereas I am only making a tuneless racket? So I should in deference to the superior talents of the boys at harmonica playing surrender the instrument to them. This message really did grate on my nerves because, anyway, everything I say or do really annoys them. So whatever.

Which Reminds Me

Speaking of persons born "at sea," I seem to remember noticing that my Dad's Uncle Ben was in fact born at sea, offshore of Japan by most accounts, but both his parents were U.S. citizens so there was no doubt about his citizenship even at that early date. He had two children, Ben Jr. and Lori, of whom nothing is known, just that they lived in the Bay Area, and were thus Bay Area bees, although we have no idea of who they were or whatever happened to them in later life prior to their inevitable demise. They are my Dad's cousins and yet we know nothing about them or why we should care about their delusions of grandeur.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I do seem to remember reading somewhere about the missionary kid in China who went and made himself a Chinese warlord and was out in the bushes warring with the Chinese warlords. Yes, what a nightmare that might be for the U.S. government, having to explain how that could happen, although I suppose that it could happen. Sometimes these people drift away and forget who they are or were. What was his name? I don't seem to have any connection to him at all so why are you asking me these ridiculous questions? I have no reason to be reviewing that situation at this late date.

Which Reminds Me

It does seem strange that these Honduras hoes and/or Debbie would be so clamorously endeavoring to claim immunity from prosecution, as if we were even thinking about that. It does make you wonder what is this deep dark secret crime of which they really are guilty if you really knew how to pinpoint what their problem is.

Which Reminds Me

On the playground there was a Mexican bully who was swinging a baseball bat and screaming some national rant, a taunt of sorts against the U.S., which was a bit scary but the situation was defused by, I don't remember who, older student or the P.E. teacher or somebody, I don't remember very much about that, just that it does seem weird that the CIA would be taking sides with the Mexicans against me when I didn't do anything other than be a white person present at the time, in the third grade. Excuse me, should I apologize for existing? Weird.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I do find these "Big Stick Diplomacy" jokes rather tasteless, as if somehow I was planning to grab one of Teddy's big sticks and smash Debbie's empty Cuban head into a million pieces. Nothing was further from my mind, but I cannot let these stupid Cuban "Big Stick" jokes pass unnoticed for anything but treasonable trickle that requires some remedy, although I am not sure what should be done about that.

Which Reminds Me

The tracks point inexorably to Debbie Boone's "Surrender." What dialectical dialogue can we possibly have with some dimly illuminated Hollywood starlet long since sold off for Spanish chatterel, or for that matter with some remote colony of Kentucky vampires? It is a personal matter that they might not understand and is really not their business. Not meaning to be rude but I really don't see what that has to with anything.

Which Reminds Me

Everyone has a country by birth unless you were born at sea, which rarely happens, and even then your citizenship is predetermined before you were born. You have no say in what country I may claim citizenship of or even of your own citizenship. Thus, there is no reason to be troubling myself about your misconceptions of the meaning of citizenship and its place in the whole scheme of things. 

Oh, did Bruce marry some dreary Mexican bore? I really couldn't care less about that. I will probably never see those people again in this lifetime anyway. They only wish they could gain total control and box us into a corner but we will not be available to help them with that. Sorry. 

Which Reminds Me

Ah yes, now I remember that all the people standing on the side of the pool have bound themselves under some kind of oath not to talk about Bruce Bell's dive and the malfunction of that. But I don't seem to be included in that vow because I was down in the water and wearing a scuba mask and had put my head underwater to watch the dive from the water side so I did not see what happened before that, only remember that he did seem to be struggling but there was a huge cloud of bubbles so I really didn't see very much of that. If you really want more information you would have to get one of them to break their vow silence. Well, good luck with that. Whatever. Anyway, that is not my problem. I really don't care that much that I would want to make the effort of trying to break somebody's head open just to spill the beans on that minor incident. It just wouldn't be worth very much. You have to pick your battles and I have to pick my battles and that is not a battle that I would care to pick. Just to suddenly start screaming some national rant in imitation of that Mexican bully brat just doesn't seem that important to me in the whole scheme of things. I have other priorities that your simplistic mind could not possibly comprehend.

Which Reminds Me

Anyway, I got along well enough with Carol Long while she was my boss. It was the Hoskins who later fired her for whatever reason, because they hate women. How did it come about that these annoyingly Irish tavern slobs came to pass themselves off as upper crust? Yes, I suppose that money covers over many imperfections that we would otherwise not tolerate.

Which Reminds Me

Theoretically speaking, there really ought to be a wall to protect me from the idiotic rantings of these ridiculous Faulkner bimbos, but on the other hand I really don't want to be bothered. I don't want to have to inform Faulkner of my whereabouts or doings. Faulkner will just never know because it is really none of her business.

Which Reminds Me

As I told Bruce Bell, I really didn't see anything, just that his dive created a huge splash and so he was surrounded by a huge cloud of bubbles. Later I learned some other factoids. Apparently I missed seeing something else above ground. Oh, I didn't know that.

Which Reminds Me

Some people who I met in college include Lori Way who married Al Moore. Even so, I fail to see what that has to do with the price of tea in China.

Which Reminds Me

For my birthday party in Mexico, and also my sister's who was born five days after me plus two years, my parents purchased a piñata, but did not notice that the candy was contained in a clay jar. No matter how hard the children hit that piñata with a stick, the clay jar would not break, so the parents had to get a hammer and smash the clay jar and then the candy was disbursed for the children to gather. Hmmm.... It occurs to me that this is one of the very few factoids contained in the otherwise empty and vacuous head of Judy Thomson. So to your mind it is just all about Judy, even though there is almost no connection between us and Judy. For us it is just a completely different story.

Which Reminds Me

And then there was someone online reminding us that Saxony, a province of Germany, is a source of the Anglo-Saxon race, so we are sort Anglo-Saxon in a way if you also remember that the British monarchy has also often been sourced from Germany rather than tap into the feuding British nobilities. But, anyway, no one can say that was supposed to mean, I suppose.

Which Reminds Me

Most of our ancestors came from the British Isles, but someone is reminding us that our Barth ancestors were from Germany. They came to America in 1850 and most of the documents say from Saxony, although in one place it says Baden, which is a town in East Germany, so I am not sure how we would ever know one way or another whether they were from East or West Germany, it was just one Germany before and after, so I don't know why this point matters now.

Which Reminds Me

Anyway, we don't need Winifred Hughes' Lazarus book to prove that we are descended from Hugh Calkins. Now that we've done our ancestry research, we see that there is obviously a direct line to us from Hugh, no surprise there.

Which Reminds Me

To what can we attribute all this ridiculous hubbub? Let me guess. Have the Methodically Honduran Hoes gone and boxed themselves into a corner? Again? Well, whatever, that is no concern of mine. You were trying to throw me to the Methodicals by virtue of my grandmother's having belonged to such a church. But I am not my grandmother. I am the daughter of my mother who didn't get saved until she left the Methodicals and went to the AG where they explain things more clearly and have revival services from time to time. So we now know better than that. The old Strickland family cemetery in Texas was at one time located next to church grounds, but they tore the church down long ago and the only thing left there is a cemetery which some family members take care of. Some relatives of ours are buried there although not my grandparents. So I am not aware of anything that I would need to discuss at this time in regards to Methodicals.

Which Reminds Me

The divorce has been final for quite a long time now so don't act so surprised when we always ignore these ridiculous letters from our mentally retarded Aunt Linda. Demanding respect for being my aunt and yet having been divorced by my Uncle for such ridiculous behavior leaves you outside of the family loop. Sorry but I do not wish to get involved in the divorce warfare even for the children's sake. The Sights family will hopefully stop trying to involve us in some ridiculous game of Blindman's Bluff, a huge distraction of pointless stupidity. I do not take my orders from some slobbering idiot named John Sights. We already know that any chip off the stupid old worthless Linda tree is not worth any special notice just for being stupid, needless to say. Your branch is no longer attached to me so no claim of relatedness can stick here. Bye.

Which Reminds Me

What is all this chatter about leaks? I am a civilian and have never had any contact whatever with clandestine operations and spies so I don't know what you are talking about. Don't my parents always tell everybody everything without any thought that perhaps these people are really not my friends and are not entitled to be usig that weapon against me later? I don't particularly like my sister's stupid friends Tony and Conchi and yet she is always inviting them to hang out with us and there is nothing else going on for me to do but hang out with them, unfortunately because there is something annoying about them. But whatever.

Which Reminds Me

It is not really surprising to hear that nobody likes me. I always knew that. My own diary is full of that and other matters of adolescent angst about what I am going to do with the rest of my lfie. Perhaps you have even read my diary. And if you ever find that missing diary notebook that I cannot seem to find, perhaps you could mail it back to me someday.

Which Reminds Me

I do remember that when I was in Virginia one of our classmates, Machelle Bush, was talking about how she had walked over to the studios where she was gossiping and exchanging scuttlebutt with various employees that she found there loitering near the entrance or front door. She thought that was very amusing or interesting but the details of that are just blowing in the wind it would seem. I really don't remember very much about that because I did not accompany her on that tour, only remember hearing what she said to a group of people. But we are not here to get involved in that type of thing, at least not me.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, we see how confused Elizabeth is that she would mistake me for Susie. Elizabeth is often heard to be grasping for words to fill the empty spaces in her empty life, which is a sad story of which I am sure that I don't know the half. Sorry but I can't help with that. I never lived in South America, Nicaragua being the southernmost point of my travels in America thus far.

Which Reminds Me

During the time that I was studying journalism in Virginia, I remember that I was conversing with some girl who was in our program or similar, and she was talking about how her family is in the archaeology business, her father publishes an archaeology magazine, and she was talking about how it is a rather insular affair, this one of archaeology, not many opportunities for generalists such as myself, very limited to the highly trained Ph.D. males who are willing to go out there in the boondocks and dig around to find all these artifacts. So that was an interesting conversation that I had with someone whose name I cannot recall at this moment.

Even so, this is a strangely belabored way of reminding me of that minor incidental conversation. I would only be guessing if I were to suppose that you are seeking a reenactment of that in order to provide free advertising services to renowned archaeologist Heidi O'Farrell, oh but that was before she married the Baker. We did attend the same college and yet never talked. I recognize the face but sorry cannot provide free advertising without knowing how all these points got stuck together in a massive blob.

Which Reminds Me

No one in our family is Jewish that I ever heard of, but I did hear that our third cousins imagine themselves to be Jewish. I am not sure how they came to that conclusion because there certainly is no documentary evidence of that that we are aware of. But sometimes these stray people named Elizabeth or Beverly wander away from the Christian fold and marry Jewish men and, well, there is nothing that we can do about that. It certainly does blur this picture to have them out there throwing things at us but they chose their own paths and there is nothing that we can do to prevent them from following their chosen path to its logical and/or legal conclusion, even though, given our personal freedom, we would prefer not to choose that for our own personal lives. We as Christians believe that the name of Jesus is the only name under heaven by which we can be saved. But if you think all these documentary records are going to accomplish some useful purpose, well, that's a job that some trained professionals can be hired to do. I always find archeology to be a very interesting thing to read about in magazines but  perhaps I am not so well qualified to accomplish some archaeologically forensic purpose. It would help to know what the question was.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it really complicates matters that someone has assigned to me this role of getting a very well-paying job as a single woman role without really knowing anything about me and the obstacles I would have to overcome and not caring about how that is my worst nightmare. And how am I supposed to succeed with all these overly expectant dogs yapping at my heels, everyone trying to find fault with me and pull me down to the bottom level. I can hardly make any progress with finding myself tripped up at every turn. How easily they can throw darts at me, always expecting the worst for me and the best for themselves, while I, on the other hand, am not allowed to expect anything but the worst possible scenario for myself and dare not throw darts at them without dire repercussions for not doing whatever they want. So this whole thing it twisted to my complete disadvantage, so that I myself, as you were saying, wholly deserve to be suicidal because there is just nothing for me. I might as well be dead.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I wonder what makes these people think that I would know the story of Joe. Actually I don't know the story of Joe. And given all these strange hints perhaps I don't want to know the details of that. Are you talking about my Dad's Uncle Joe, whom I only saw once in my entire lifetime when he stopped in at my grandparents' house for a few minutes. We were all sitting around the dining room table and talking about something, I don't remember what. That is the only thing that I can remember about Joe. Of course, after you read the diaries you would have learned much more about Joe than I could begin to explain. Strange that you should be so interested in learning more about Joe. I really can't help with you that, however. The only Joe I can think of was my Dad's uncle who has long since passed away and there is nothing that I can tell you about that.

Which Reminds Me

Of course they have caved in. They always did bring their social ties with them to the U.S., as does everyone. What they are saying in my case is that because I am a single woman with no husband I have no place in the U.S., even though I am a natural born U.S. citizen and a daughter of such. They, in contrast, are foreign born women who do have place in the U.S. because their husbands are U.S. citizens, because in their thinking all place is derived from the male. If you are a female without a husband you have no place to be claiming to be "in the know," even if you are a U.S. citizen. So this leaves me on the outside looking in, or rather stuffed in a cave like a redheaded bear and left to suffocate, because I have no husband. So that is their way of stabbing white girls in the back side, at least in my case.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I don't know how you expect me to get a job after you just spent 10+ years splattering my brains all over the walls. And for what? For nothing. It was probably just a filly-buster, to delay me so long that I'll just be dead and without any possible remedy. So it won't matter later that you were a liar because I'll just be dead and no one will ever know the difference. I always knew that is your strategy but I am powerless to do anything about that, needless to say.

Which Reminds Me

What is all this chatter about Napoleon? The famous French military hero, long since defeated at Waterloo, has been dead these nearly 200 years now so I don't see why I should trouble myself about Napoleon. I can't see what that has to do with anything. If you are Italian you might well be Napoleon's cousin of some degree but I would have no way of knowing that in the ordinary course of events, so I don't appreciate being called to account for something so far away from being of any concern to me. Unless you imagine that you are going to replicate his success, in which case you could be a danger to yourself as well as to everyone else. But somehow I don't think that is the case.

Which Reminds Me

What is all this about someone being fired from their schoolteacher job? I only know that it wasn't me. Otherwise, I don't have enough information to even know who they are talking about in regards to that point.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, how could there possibly be any dialectical dialogue with these methodically amalgamated flame-throwers, to whom we never had any connection whatever and to whom we never had any desire to be connected? We were Pentecostals and we had escaped the tyranny of those dry bones formalities that had already consumed your earlier diversities. You are the brittle old bags who could not adapt to the new wine of the Spirit that was flowing well enough in the first part of the 20th century, and now you come here trying to pretend that it was the other way around. Ha! If you wanted to join us, you would have to follow our lead, which perhaps would be too much for your enormous pride to swallow.

Which Reminds Me

Whence comes this nonsense about myself being assigned to be the "The Governess" of the children? There was some talk about my being the oldest girl on the field making me responsible for all the nefarious activities of the little brats. But that was mostly a fiction. In this modern age we have no need for governesses nor can our families afford such a thing. Besides, down there they had hired help, maids to spoon the food into the mouth of the littlest Bueno brats, so there was nothing that I needed to do about that. I considered myself unfortunate to be stuck in this limited social sphere with almost only those little brats for company. There was just no one to talk to.

Which Reminds Me

One gets very tired of all these false accusations about Ouija boards. Well, there was a party that I attended in maybe the 5th grade to which someone brought a Ouija board and was explaining that and it was discussed briefly but then it was decided, at least by myself, that you could spell anything with that gadget and no one could say that it was anything but the product of your own very overactive imagination. And that was the only time I ever saw one of those things. Who would remember that? Hmmm....

Which Reminds Me

How could it be that I did not leave a forwarding address behind when I left California? What was I thinking? How suicidal could I be? Do I really want all those people to be calling me later after I have long since escaped from all their nonsense? And do I want all those people to be handling my personal mail that is none of their business? Aren't there any laws protecting me from these mail fraud hucksters? Unless you are a postal worker, in which case you would just simply forward the bill to sender. But don't go postal on that account. Just let the post office workers do their job without sticking your nose in where it doesn't belong. Sappy songs about letters that cross in the mail just won't cut it.

Which Reminds Me

I remember hearing that Sharon married someone from Ohio, which fact is of no interest to me. Since when do we care about the people of Ohio? My great-grandparents left Ohio shortly after the turn of the century, meaning the previous century to that, so it has been more than 100 years since any of us resided in Ohio that I would know of.

Which Reminds Me

And what possible dialectical dialogue can there be between myself and the mental retarded brats who were tutored by Hazel? That was a completely different school in a completely different place, only coincidentally under the same name. There is just nothing that they would be able to understand given a nearly entire lack of context.

Which Reminds Me

Ah yes, who has not read Plato's 'Republic,' if you have ever taken Philosophy 101 in college, which I did at SCC, a class taught by Professor Baldwin, who has long since passed away. Plato's 'Republic' occupied maybe half of our class time so it obviously was a very important starting point if you want to understand the philosophical building blocks of civilization. There ought to be a starting point found somewhere before we can get into the heart of the matter, but I digress. And we suppose that there are those who wish to contrast Plato's train of thought from the Hebrew origins of the Christian Bible, which argument contains some good points in a way, and yet neither can the Bible fill in all the blanks of math and science. The Bible is said to contain the essentials of what we need to know, and yet there is more that we can learn from the disciplines of college learning, unless you are one of those high school dropouts who think that you can be a self-made man and study whatever you want unhinged from academic rigors. Ok, whatever, good luck with that. I cannot say one way or another which way is better, but there are benefits to finishing a college course that may be helpful later in life. Anyway, you will understand more later if you play the game by the rules now, take it one step at a time, because later on it won't be so easy to go back and rewrite the class schedule plan. Time is short. [And as I said to my Platonic classmate, Tim Cederblom, one day, wasn't that lecture that Dr. Baldwin just delivered nearly identical to the one he had delivered the previous class, as if no one would notice that? But Tim is a bore and never says anything worth repeating.] 

So why are we talking about Dr. Baldwin's Philosophy 101 class now? I suppose that you want to make some snarky points about whether his daughter Sharon possesses a hereditary advantage in the expounding and interpreting of Plato's philosophical ideals, given that her own father has a Ph.D. in the subject and teaches the college class dealing with that subject. Building on that point, you will next argue that the daughter of a missionary does not have any hereditary advantage in the expounding of the plan of salvation, which point would seem nonsensical, a comparing of apples to oranges, since all Christians are missionaries in one sense or another, and ought to be equipped for such service if called on to do so, while recognizing that it is not always possible to do that. 

Thus we see Sharon clutching greedily the tin-plate tiara she won on Homecoming night, a trifling advantage of little value or interest in comparison to some weightier matters of eternal life. Dr. Baldwin was a very good teacher, and yet sadly his family was among the Kansas invaders who ruined the California district. Will the AG ever get smart and drop California off the map? Who needs that Honduran outpost for anything? 

Which Reminds Me

Ok, fine, so I forgot to mail in my traffic ticket before the appointed court date so I had to go there and make arrangements with the judge, to contritely confess that I was caught driving too fast and could not possibly pretend otherwise in the face of all this laser gun data. Ok, fine. Even so, I fail to see why you are so overwrought on this point. It was as if later my data got merged with someone else's police report and now I am not sure who I am talking to anymore.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I suppose that all of this really grates on Bobby's nerves, him having to lose this round of Yahtzee to a girl. Ick! But anyway, it's not about him so he will just have to understand. It's about all people everywhere who may inadvertently and innocently make some small language mistake and then find themselves maliciously slandered and lost in translation. Wrong! That is not a proper way to deal with these translation matters. And who would want to tackle such a snarly matter? Why am I stuck with this thankless job? I could just quit and go somewhere but then this problem would never get solved.

Yes, we all took swimming lessons together in childhood, but my aquatic talents were not such as to merit such an overwrought calling from the Olympic aspirants of swimming school. Everyone should learn how to swim in case someday you are thrown overboard or something, the better not to drown, but we should not be throwing ourselves into such dangerous positions just to tempt fate, because it might not work out the way you want. There are no guarantees about that.

Which Reminds Me

I have no connection to whatever, nor any interest in Czechs. I know nothing of Czechs nor why I should care about Czechs. The only thing that I would care about is checks.

Which Reminds Me

When we were living in Central America, I remember that the Sawords, Goatleys and maybe one or two other families attending our MK school were from the Plymouth Brethren, which is a somewhat exclusivist group. They are a very small group and consider themselves to be exclusive knowers of everything, plus they have no use for us because we are Pentecostals, which is, OK, fine, sometimes we have to agree to disagree because we can never agree on all of these points. We have to part ways with the Sawords and the Goatleys at some point because there are some points on which we can never fully agree, and besides there are some things they cannot know about us given our limited contact with them and vice versa. So to prolong this discussion would be a pointless and fruitless exercise in futility, needless to say. When I get home to the U.S. I don't want to be seeing David's 7th grade face at every corner, needless to say.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, that was a very heavy curse put on me by David Goatley from New Zealand, who always hated me no matter what. It is not like I could ever do or say anything right as far as he was concerned. But there is nothing that I can ever do to change that. David hates me, David hates me, David hates me. Ok, fine. Whatever.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, how many times do I have to remind you that there is no U in my name? So all this nonsense about taking away the U is meaningless to me, because there is no U in my name. The Caulkins Olympic swimmer cannot be found at this address. Perhaps you have been spending way too much time "Home Alone," but where is your "S"? U are not S, needless to say.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it was rather insulting to be myself an honors English student in high school, and being placed for Spanish class with a pack of dummies. In Spanish class everything has to be done in groups, which is a miserable situation where I am usually grouped with a pack of dummies who just sit there chatting about personal things and nothing ever gets done and no tasks get assigned. Or else they all just sit there blankly waiting for this stupid white girl to fall on her face, as if I am going to open my mouth prematurely and make a huge mess of everything. One does get the idea that they do not want us white people gaining access to the national literary secrets. Yes, without a deeper understanding of the local history it is very hard for a white person to make much sense out of 100 years of solitude, a ridiculously exaggerated tale of a mostly nonsensical and weird nature. Perhaps we could just leave this book on a shelf and let an army of ants carry it away, oh but that can only happen in South America, not really here. We could also go to the library and copy something out of a book, but that wouldn't have much originality and the teacher would not approve. So there was some confusion about these literary books and how they should be approached.

Which Reminds Me

That was weird, all this high school fanfare about the name of Tony. Antonio was a friend of ours from church, but I don't see why I should be particularly impressed with that after he was dragging us around into some odd situations that were not very helpful. I don't really care if I never see them again.

Which Reminds Me

Who is this little brat who runs around saying that I wanted to run for president? Well, I never wanted to run for president, truth be told. I never had any idea of running for president. I don't involve myself in such political races. There is the idea that when you are very young your mother should tell you that you can do anything when you grow up, not to be limited in your thinking, even to entertain the idea of being willing to run for president. But I never really wanted to do that so it just gets very annoying to hear that scratchy broken record playing over and over again. And what if I did run for president? Well, I certainly couldn't be a worse candidate than her, so that doesn't really mean very much to me.

Which Reminds Me

I seem to remember that someone was telling me to go to New Orleans to hang out there with Denny Duron, a football coach who was fired from Evangel College for whatever reason, and his wife Candy. Which is ridiculous. I never even met this person and don't really care so much about football that Jim Mazurek (MK-Chile) should be needling me on the subject of football players. Another reason not to go to New Orleans is that I was never that close to to Irene. In high school there really were two separate classes of people, the Dummies and the Honors class, and I remember Irene as being probably near the bottom of the Dummies class illiterates, which is probably why I never had any class with her, because there really was a separation for the most part, with economics class being one of the few exceptions to that rule. The Dummies class people are in high school mainly to be socialized, not because they are expecting to learn something by reading books. They just want to chattify and so they have a grudge against persons who are seriously interested in collecting As on their report cards. The Dummies class people have abandoned all hope of getting As on their report cards so they spend a lot of time passing notes or playing hookey because they think that social networking is the only thing that matters. So hopefully that helps to explain the Dummies class rift.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, that was a rather annoying experience to be attending a choir rehearsal at the Sangio home and there they are calling to the dog, "Candy, Candy," and they think it is so funny to see me turning my head as if they were talking to me, a knee-jerk reaction on my part one would easily imagine. So that was weird. What sort of "friend" stages such a sick demonstration as that?

Which Reminds Me

Yes, there you go again, making that same old joke about Barbara Wilder's D-size feet. She also was flat-footed due to fallen arches. We haven't seen the Wilders since the 6th grade when they were attending the MK school, Barbara who was my age and her older brother Jeff who was in the 8th grade. They weren't around very long so they really wouldn't be able to understand very much about the rest of that.

Which Reminds Me

I don't quite remember when it was, maybe during my senior year of high school there was a choir rehearsal one evening at the home of our choir director. During that event, it was interesting to learn that the name of their family dog was Candy, although the spelling was not determinte. What kind of idiots would give such a name to a mere dog? And during that time, Raymond walked down the hallway and out the front door spewing F-bombs the entire time. I can hardly wait to return to the United States where I can dump this boring people in the forgetfulness category.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I suppose that someone is attempting to make some very bad joke about the name of Merry Zoe as meaning "Happy Life," as contrasted to Can-D for Death or Miserable Me. Which is actually ridiculous because nobody really cares that much about some smart-alecky provocateuring jokester living on the fringes of civilization who really has nothing going on in his empty head. Why all of this is hullabaloo about nothing much?

Which Reminds Me

It was not my job to recruit these people to go to the United States. My parents were missionaries so obviously our job was to help build up the local people so that they can take care of themselves there after we are gone. The mission was completed and they no longer need us for anything so in that sense we were very successful. It all goes back to how you measure success. There are those who think that when they are there, they must be collecting interesting specimens to be mailed back to the United States, but that was not really our plan. This idea of recruitment seems to focus mainly on rich people whose money goes with them to be spent in the United States. But that wasn't our idea of what we were supposed to be doing there. Yes, one would think that we should be able to explain the plan of salvation to everyone but some people lack ears to hear. Salvation is not really a matter of geography. It is a matter of ears to hear. So we can only do what we can do and the rest is up to God.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it is very hard to tackle these difficult subjects without accidentally stomping on the toes of some innocent bystander.

We Americans are not so familiar with the geography of Spain that we would easily recognize the manner of warfare employed by them, the Spanish, for centuries to battle against the invading Moors. We are not Moors, not even Moores, so we don't see the point of all this primitive nonsense. These are very low class Spanish people with no aristocratic privileges, but we can imagine that if they are able to seize the land and return it to the Spanish crown, to raise the flag of the Spanish Netherlands, they are expecting that the honors of European nobility might be accorded to them in future generations. Which would seem to tell us that they are really not of us. They pretend to be of us, to share our vision of Democracy, for the sake of expediency and convenience, but they know that the present is a fleeting moment soon passing away. A future of their own making is what they really want. But of course no one can say what the future holds. So we think they are overly exaggerating their own self-importance, because we all want to control the future and we all think we know better, which is an ordinary circumstance of being human, but especially so of being a U.S. citizen, not one of these illegals scrambling for a loaf of bread and some aristocratic baubles, perhaps a plaque to hang on the wall or expensive jewelry. But these things will not satisfy them in the long run. But whatever. I won't be here so it won't be my problem.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I think I did hear the Pope talking online, saying that he thought this whole thing unnecessary, so I don't think that this is about him, at least not directly. Maybe they wish to justify themselves that way, but I don't really care about that. I already know that my salvation does not depend on them. David wishes to impress us all with his Roman Catholic power plays behind our backs but even so we are just all bored of his ostentatious display of bad attitude. Next.

Which Reminds Me

I am not claiming to know anything about the firing of Raymond, but even so I can easily imagine that it will be useless for him to protest that he was only speaking upon papal orders back then. Needless to say, he obviously lacks a vocabulary of English words able to fill in the F-bomb blanks, so that excuse cannot hold water, never mind about the idiotic rantings of Lee-land Bee-Mint who was from maybe Oklahoma.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I also wouldn't want to put any stock in the idiotic rantings of worthless idiot Raymond. He is unable to speak even one complete sentence without inserting two or three F-bombs, regardless of an entire lack of context. I am a Christian girl so I just have to ignore these stupid F-bomb idiots as being the worthless blanks they are, obviously no intelligent thought ever having existed in their empty minds, which probably explains why Raymond was fired.