Which Reminds Me

There are certain things of a personal nature that I would never discuss with you. This applies to all of you, including all of my employers and that includes Bruce Patterson, who was our publisher at one time in the past but that was a long time ago. Yes, what a coincidence of surnames, and yet now that I notice this, even so there was no reason for me to discuss anything of that nature with anyone at work. You may or may not ever hear about that but probably not from me because that would not be appropriate to say even if I were aware of that. You probably thought that I was somehow acquainted with Cheri, but actually not. I actually do not wish to be represented in any way by that evil nasty witch. It will be difficult for you to maintain that farce now that you and Max have been disqualified from further participation. Needless to say.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I too probably should feel more pity on those arrogant nasty hateful wicked rich people living in the dirty swamps of Louisiana, but I really have no reason to go there. Nobody owns me except maybe my parents, so what makes the Village Idiots think they are going to order me to go live in some backwater bayou, in a way that would make any sense to me? I really could not care less about socializing with those nasty rich girls who never had time for me in high school. Just another example of Tom's F-disqualified vocabulary.

Which Reminds Me

Why is this illiterate boor, who cannot seem to read the Treaty of Westphalia upon which his own marriage license is previously imprinted, still loitering about? Who are we to interfere with the ambitious political machinations of Europe? Does this dreary cad imagine that he is going to repeat the success of Jerome in luring the unfortunate Elizabeth Patterson to shipwreck herself on the shores of Europe, thus to reenact a ridiculous drama of America spurned by European royalty, the "Good Party"? Ha ha ha! You will not get that far with me. Yet how well you remind us how it happened that all of Europe eventually rose united to throw Napoleon out on his ear. Needless to say.

Which Reminds Me

It is not illegal in Texas to own the mineral rights for oil and natural gas on properties even though the surface of the land is owned by various others persons. This is often done in Texas where oil speculations are rampant. My mother owns three such rights deals in Texas, none of which I fully understand the details or history of, so it is hard for me to understand which deal you are talking about. There is the one involving a jumble of lawsuits and legal issues. And then there is the one in which the surface land is owned by some Arab or Moslem persons unknown to me. And then there is the family deal. So, yeah, that might or might not mean anything to me.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, you were pointing out that Becky "Sharp" if not sharply tacked on by marriage to her Mr. W. Right, might otherwise be living in some sort of choral purgatory with her Bonnie bosom buddy. Hmmmm, whatever that meant, what a way to occupy and torture my brain by making useless points about those dull and uninteresting bores who have done nothing to deserve that level of attention and upon whom my fate does not hinge in the slightest. No one expects to get something out of Mickey Mouse cartoons. They are only a fleeting amusement that soon withers and fades and loses its charm if inspected too closely. Sometimes these cartoons have other cultural meanings that only become apparent upon maturity, assuming you ever get that far, but with your attitude problem, probably not. Besides, we are barely acquainted now that their weird attitude problem has made it impossible to communicate with them.

Which Reminds Me

Hmmm..... And if you somehow omitted or neglected to sign the Devil's contract, does that make you the witch in question? Ha ha ha! So ridiculous.

Which Reminds Me

It would seem to me rather useless to trade information with that old Herringbone thing, especially now that they are all destined to be burned at the stake lest they repent. My instinct for self-preservation restrains me from jumping into that bonfire. Needless to say.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, well, excuse me for asking a silly irrelevant question about grants, there was a sign or poster on the wall, I asked if I could apply for that and there was no answer, so I assumed immediately that the answer was no and I was immediately embarrassed for having said anything because don't I know that I should be content with whatever I get from them, which is nothing, and that I ought to be more grateful that I am not so dirt poor as to qualify for any type of financial aid. Yes, of course. Obviously. And yet all these years later I notice that you are still chewing on that old Herringbone thing, always the same old stories that are the only thing they can remember. Needless to say.

Apparently that puts me on a bad list forever after. Yes, I noticed that you were continuing to whine about the first student loan as if I had never paid that off years ago. Blah blah blah. Yak yak yak. 

Nothing good can ever happen to me now that the mail is forever diverted through OK, a state of no interest to me, a state where nobody cares if I live or die, and those same financial aid office staffers who really miss being able to yank me around on a chain  are still running the show. Even if I never speak to them again, recognizing that of course they are not my personal "friends," and that they were only doing their jobs, and that I must limit my interaction to submitting the proper forms and nothing more, and never ask any questions, of course, needless to say, still I can never get to the end of that. 

Thus, I agree that it might be preferable that I not exist. 

Which Reminds Me

Yes, of course, this creates a problem, this non-existence of mine. How can I not exist, not leave any  thumbprint in the dust of high school, not hang on the gallows along with you, and yet also have my high school diploma stored away somewhere? I must somehow exist and yet not exist in your eyes. To be invisible and yet to not be invisible. This is a conundrum of existence. Needless to say

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I noticed your obsession with party politics. Your ying-yang schemata of not agreeing with whatever means that I not invited to your parties. Even so, perhaps that is a good thing. Consider it a test. If I do not exist, apart from and separate from me, are you capable of formulating an intelligent opinion, one that is not a simply ying-yang composed of not whatever I said?

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember that in college Heather was a huge fan of B.J. Thomas, an interest not shared by me, which shows how if these big money record companies want to put B.J. Thomas recordings in the stores, that some people will buy that even if I personally am not such a huge fan.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I have noticed the similarities of the flags of Mexico and Italy — green, white and red. Except that Mexico's flag has that picture in the middle of it with the eagle catching the snake, which comes from the ancient story of the settling of Mexico City, long before the Europeans arrived. Either way, that is not my country's flag. Where is the red white and blue?

Which Reminds Me

And what further dialogue is required or even possible with your clueless stoned Dutch Heather? What planet did she come from anyway, living out there in her own La-la Land. Huh?

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember that not long before leaving El Salvador, Al Snell, a friend of my family who was living there for business reasons, told us about his friend who was opening a restaurant selling panes con chumpe, to try it out, and so we did go there and of course they were delicious. How can one not like panes con chumpe? Al had many business connections there of which we know absolutely nothing. Needless to say.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, that was nice of David Stewart to pay for all of our sodas the time we went somewhere with Susie in San Salvador, on Boulevard Escalon, because I was really not quite prepared for that. Even so, that does not give "David" any special monopoly later on my life. How much do I owe you, a dollar or two?

Which Reminds Me

Yes, more than once during college the practice of "going Dutch" was mentioned, which there meant that you should be prepared to pay your own bill when going to a restaurant with a  large or small group of people, because nobody is going to pay for that. Nobody cares that much about you except maybe your parents. I see no reason to belabor such a point with this level of harassment. Needless to say.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it is quite true that I am not a huge fan of country music. There are a few good country songs, the exceptions to a field of bland sameness and hackneyed and overused musical cliches, but overall there is currently a dearth of good stuff coming out of the country music world, which is not to say that there could not be some room for improvement there in the future, but overall I really do not much care and feel completely indifferent to the fact that country music has no place for me. I feel like country music offers too many fleabag problematics to warrant further attention at this time. If country music is currently not producing what I need or want, how is that my fault? Your faulty logic is unfortunate.

Which Reminds Me

I vaguely remember explaining to Susie, that about the maid Maria, and I have never heard the end of that. Over and over again the same thing about the maid Maria reverberates throughout the land, year after year, another loopy loop. Which makes me wonder who did Susie pass that along to? All the more reason to never tell Susie anything that you don't care whether the whole world hears of. Needless to say.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember that upon reading the diaries of great-grandmother, we notice that she sometimes refers to my Dad's Uncle Ariel, who sometimes is said to be going to San Clemente for whatever reason. Not much detail is given about that, just that he was often known to stop off at San Clemente.

Which Reminds Me

Maria was the name of one of our maids for about a year and a half. She was a pretty good cook but was not as interested in the rest of her job, to echo something that my mother said. After she got a better paying job in another part of town so we had to find someone else.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely noticed that Rose was trying to create some weird personal drama about herself in which I am cast as the antagonistic villain to feed her heroine persona. Except that I do not know anything about that so what is there to say or do about nothing much? I do not consider her an acquaintance, really.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it is better that I withdraw from participation so that the sickness of Carol's empty head can be more clearly discerned and analyzed. Needless to say.

Which Reminds Me

So weird how you say that as if I were guilty of something, as if I ever heard of these books before now, as if I were somehow responsible for the contents of Carol's head.

Which reminds me that it was Kathy's idea to edit Carol's last column, even after we had been warned not to touch that, and now looking at that I do not see the text that we edited. I see some rambling rant about how Carol does not like the voice of some unnamed person, which gives me the impression that they went in later and rearranged that once again, although I really don't remember now. Oh, was I supposed to be surprised to see that Carol is once again angrily spluttering and clobbering people in her column. And if we try to tone that down they would only get ourselves in trouble, unnecessarily deflecting attention from Carol's serious attitude problem. Better for us to stand back so that Carol's attitude problem may be more correctly attributed to herself without any help from me.

Which Reminds Me

Is there any polite way to tell these little brown Gonzo dikes that I never want to touch them or be touched by them, much less hold hands with them? They are really not so fascinating to me as they seem to imagine from some book written by Lottie Moon or other single woman missionary, what was her name, I saw the book a few years back, always like they are really demonic spirits, not really human. But that would be such a mean thing for me to say and would get me nowhere to even think, no credit for saying it and no credit for not saying it. So what to say. Hmmm...

Which Reminds Me

Lied about what? Who can say what some other mentally retarded witch might do with that information? I simply cannot imagine.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I do remember that Beth herself told us about her Guatemalan boyfriend and that he was expected to arrive soon in El Salvador to be her escort at a party, the equivalent of a prom, whatever that was. So that is pretty much the sum total of everything that I heard or know about that. Only because you asked. Because otherwise I would have no reason to comment about that.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember that the editor of our high school newspaper, the "Trojan Times," Beth, was dating some guy from Guatemala whose name I cannot remember. He had performed at our high school during drama week, a monologue, and his acting was quite impressive, although it did involve smoking, which, ick. More than that I do not know, so basically I know nothing more about that.

Incidentally, Beth liked the way that I had edited her editorial column. She said that she thought that I had actually improved it somewhat, although I do not remember any specifics of that now.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I am not aware of anything of a legal nature that I would need to discuss with Jan. Needless to say.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember reading that novel by Taylor Caldwell, "Dear and Glorious Physician," which might have been one of the books that I borrowed from Mrs. Sanchez, which is a fictionalization of the story of Luke, the gospel writer, in which the novelist adds some historical background information, but also adds numerous fictional plot twists and turns, all of that clouded with a tone of modernist theological autopsy, which probably has not much to do with the gospel or even history, but everybody knows that is what fiction writers do, so who are we to argue with these rich and famous novelists? They make a lot of money doing that.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I will not be silenced or intimidated by tasteless blobs who may have the bad taste to deck themselves out in garish red. Did you spell your name Guin? I cannot find you in my yearbook that way. Perhaps you never existed, but I disdain to formulate speculative theories on such irrelevant points of no interest to me.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, we all heard the story of how Ann Niles went to Las Vegas and put money in a slot machine, and instead of the lesson that she wanted to demonstrate about how gambling does not pay, a pile of money poured forth. Of course, that would never happen for me. Even if I did put a couple of dimes in a slot machine, with my terrible luck, the odds are that I would get nothing for it. So, yes, gambling does not pay, at least not for me. So maybe that explains why I never contributed to the office pool, those guys who bet on games. I never did that. Needless to say.

Which Reminds Me

Ok, so maybe it would not be my place to say what we are going to do with these persnickety wannabe Methodist prosecutors. Even so, you were asking for some verbiage for the script, so there is some fodder for that, even if we already know that you have a malicious way of twisting that around to mean whatever you want so it is useless for me to say anything about that. Even so, you really ought to be prosecuted yourself for impersonating FBI agents. Needless to say.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, we heard about the way that the Methodist prosecuted their own missionaries many decades, maybe even centuries ago, at least eventually, for not spending money as these persnickety Methodists would deem appropriate. We saw a book about that. So with just a little money from the donors back in the States you can buy a huge estate and hire an army of servants, assuming the responsibility to feed and house them all, as if that were the point of Christianity, or rather Methodism. Actually NOT. And if you persist in this persnickety anti-missionary snit, we might even try to sell you out of our way, dumped in the same bucket as the persnickety Methodists perhaps, because, really, what is wrong with you people anyway? Don't you know anything? So gullible as to believe whatever "they" say?

Which Reminds Me

There were some high school people who left after ninth grade and I never heard what else happened to them later, such as, for example, Heather, and also Lance. One assumes that these people grew up and got married and had their lives somewhere in the United States, although the odds were slim that I would ever hear anything more about them after ninth grade. I really have no idea of anything to say about them as I was never invited to participate in the relay races held for the embassy people, and also I really don't care that much that I should be bothered to research these useless people who likewise don't care about me anyway.

The only relay games I know about were at school, and I was on the Blue team, but the Red team won, and even so, so what? Everybody already knows that. Duh!

Which Reminds Me

Strange that you would think me in some way responsible for the marital status of the Bueno maids. Not that I care very much, given that they can take care of themselves without any help from me, but even so that is entirely out of my control.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember in El Salvador once Hilda Flamenco was in our house shortly before Christmas, and she was absolutely shocked that we had a Christmas tree with lights and decorations and she even complained about that on the grapevine. I always loved the Flamenco sisters music when they sing in church but, really, what other planet do they come from that they would have a problem with Christmas? How can we have them singing in our church when they don't even believe in Christmas?

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it is quite true that I do not have any specific information that might satisfy your lurid curiosity. Actually, I had thought myself fortunate NOT to know anything more about these things, and there you are pretending that I would even want that sort of money, and urging the opposite of what common sense would dictate, as if I had ever had any awareness of that, as if I would even know what you are talking about.

You are sickly forcing me to waste all of my time feeding your sick machine, as if I did not have something better to do, such as go and get a job so as to take care of myself. Needless to say.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it is interesting to see how some people are so eager to spend my political capital without consulting me in any way, as if they knew something that I did not. Hmmm.....  As if....

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember years ago when Stacy was loudly promoting Joyce and urging me to borrow tapes of Joyce from her, of which she has a huge collection. She even brought a set of Joyce tapes for me to take home and listen to, which I did, and it was her basic testimony, Ok, so that's nice, and I gave the tapes back to her and did not borrow more of that, although I did buy a couple of her books and read the first chapter of one of them and did not care to read more of that pedantically repetitive stuff. It is difficult for me to understand why I feel this utter indifference to Joyce and whatever she does. I get the idea that she really ministers to these primitive peasant girls whose lives are utterly empty and devoid of thought processes. Even so, that does nothing for me.

Which Reminds Me

I was not aware of anyone trying to hold Whey Neen or anybody else from high school. They are dragging me down already so how can I do that even if I wanted to, which I actually had not thought of doing or would even want to.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, whatever did happen to the mysterious Dr. Yu? He was such an important a figure in the ministries at Foochow, China, working with the ministries of the ABCFM, and then suddenly the ABCFM left China when they went Communist. In fact, the ABCFM denomination no longer exists, having been merged into the United Church of Christ in the 1950s, which is somewhat of a departure from the original mission of the ABCFM. Ok, fine, but what about all those people who were relying on the denominational existence of the ABCFM? What are they supposed to do now? Who is going to remember and recognize them now that the ABCFM has gone off in some other direction not foreseen at the beginning of things? Yes, these puzzling dilemmas are not lacking in the history of the world. Perhaps the government would want to encourage other denominations to help if they can, but then again the UCC would probably not like to be interfered with, so there really is nothing that we can say about that. I would think that it would be up to the individuals to make their own memberships and attendance and tithing. I really have no clue what else to say about that.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember that one Christmas our parents had recently put some packages under the tree, and finding these, and picking them up we noticed that there was a loud ticking sound emanating from them. Our guess was clocks. The ticking soon went away but on Christmas Day we were able to wind up our new alarm clocks. Nobody ever said anything about bombs.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, whatever happened to our Chinese classmates, Hway Neen Lyou and Memo R.U. Condominium? Yes, we never really talked then so it is too difficult later to go back and figure out all of these details absent more information about that in a public setting of this nature.

Which Reminds Me

Maybe it was the summer of 1970 when, I remember that while my cousins were doing other things, I spent some time reading through my grandmother's collection of Reader's Digest magazines, which was fairly complete starting from about 1929. Interesting how the 1930s had a different tone and then the 1940s were mostly about the war and then onward to the 1950s and 1960s. Of course nowadays it is a slick formula packaged to perfection seemingly almost without the aid of human hands. But a hundred years ago there were other preoccupations, some of which are perennial and others which will never return.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I noticed that Heather was trying to shove me into some imaginary role of being her opponent or grouchy character of some sort in her imaginary drama, when actually I really don't care what those people do. God forbid that I should attempt to argue with some immensely wealthy person who has millions of dollars at her disposal with which to make my life utterly miserable. No, that would just be too ridiculous. Of course I couldn't care less. Needless to say.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember hearing Jill and Linda talking about how some people had gone to, or they were considering going to, an Anglican church there in California. I never did that, only heard them talking about that. Whether they eventually went Anglican I really have no idea because I never really checked back with them to see what happened. I do remember that people were making some points about Anglicanism being considered somewhat treasonous and anti-American due to it being directly supervised by England, whereas Episcopalianism somehow avoids that problem even though it is also considered an offshoot of the Church of England as also Methodism or Wesleyanism, which offers immunity from Catholic meddling, although I do not understand what is to fear in that regard when the AG is just another Protestant denomination, although with a certain Evangelical Pentecostal distinctive, and yet not Roman Catholic. Someone upstairs has gotten their wires crossed, obviously, notwithstanding the quadrangular punning.

Which reminds me that the high school classmates who attended the Union Church were somehow confused on this point, imagining that to be the only Protestant church on the planet and that all U.S. citizens were somehow required by law to attend only the Union Church, doubtless an unwritten law that no one ever heard of, where did they get that idea? Don't you know that my parents were AG missionaries there and that we of course attended only AG churches? Wouldn't that look sort of weird for us to attend the "Union" church there when our job is to be serving the AG churches in various ways? Why all of this ridiculous hullaballoo from clueless Tom and Tinkers? I am very annoyed with their attitudes. Needless to say. Why is it that my clarifications never get anywhere?

Which Reminds Me

Yes, sometimes we forget that the United States is really not a Christian nation in the sense of formalized government institutions for the most part, as compared to the United Kingdom, where the King or Queen is the head of the Church of England, so they have a more institutionalized government form of Christianity, and can more rightly in that sense regard themselves a Christian nation, someone was saying, whereas in the United States it is up to us as individuals and churches to make our voices heard in an individual sense, even if the government may or may not decide to be helpful depending upon the circumstances. Someone was talking about that, and yes, I suppose that is true in a way. They started sending missionaries before we did and the treaties that facilitated that in some cases were originally negotiated by them, someone was saying. Yes, I suppose that may be so. England certainly has much to grateful for even if the individuals there often fail to appreciate their own heritage and if only Americans could inspire them in that way, but then again, as in every generation, it has to be their own idea and voluntary will to live out their Christianity in a way that works for them.

Which Reminds Me

And all of this nonsense because it was Debbie's idea to make up lies to throw pestering little sisters off track. I could have told you that myself, and how I was the one that little sisters came to later for clarification because I wasn't so hard-nosed about that. But no, you just wanted to kill me first and then ask questions. So whatever. Why do I still have this photo of Debbie somewhere? We never talk.

Which Reminds Me

I have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents and sixteen great-great-grandparents.

Interestingly, one of my great-grandparents sets was Mr. Barth, a butcher of mostly German or Swiss descent, who married Miss Levines, who was the daughter of Caroline Smith and Mr. Archibald Levins or Levines, a Canadian in New York. He died in 1895. Levins is a name that I do not know very much about. Is it a French translation of "the vines" or is it some other ethnic derivation? Yes, I imagine that someone will perhaps want to make jokes about bottlers and bakers and candlestick makers. I am getting that there is more to that story than what I originally heard, but I was not there very often so I probably did not hear everything about that. How can I be expected to "do" something about that when I am not sure what else happened. Caroline was his second wife, whom he married after the death of his first wife, nee Little, mother of Esther Levens. After Caroline died, he married Margaret Mitchell. Even so, I have no idea who those people are. They never tell me anything.

Which Reminds Me

And if the Lord should have need of a Maltese donkey, what is that to you, Italian whiners? Would that be a problem for the Italian whiners if the Maltese donkey should have job to do?

But of course that has nothing at all to do with me. I have no interest or place in the internal life of Sicily v. Malta. I am neither Maltese nor Italian, nor do I have any thought of the British Traffords who maintain a house there, not exactly the castle in England where Tudors were hosted but probably a nice place to go on vacation if you are a Trafford. However, unlike the Traffords, our Strickland ancestors are very far removed from any thought of Malta or Italy, fortunately for us, having come to America in the 1600s or 1700s. Italy is the farthest thing from our minds, most of the time. Our lives are in America now.