Which Reminds Me

Yes, to be or not to be counted amongst the descendants of Alice Tempest (1520-1588) seems to be a question of the moment. Given the distinct possibility that Henry Strickland's parents were Luke Strickland and his wife Delilah Wood, that would sort of clearly make us direct descendants of William (1530-1590), the son of Alice Tempest, who married her second husband Walter Strickland (1516-1569) in 1561. Although nobody really knows how reliable are these various documents, the experts probably know, the DNA talks.

Henry Strickland was my great-grandfather, and he was descended from Matthew Strickland, who had immigrated to America in 1680 and lived and died in the state of Virginia.

Henry Strickland married Ida May, who was not really a Bell, a different story, but anyway, not much is known about her parents who died young, she was raised by her grandmother. 

My grandmother was Methodist, which has some sympathetic connection to the Church of England, although I don't quite see how that works. So, and the point of your question was?

Which Reminds Me

Yes, so you probably get all of your wrong information from that hifalutin artsy ballet dancer, Silly Chainy. So? 

Yes, and who knew back then that she was so political and are not all politicians a deadly boring combination of lowest common denominator trivialities? Spare me. I never was very fond of parties. Sometimes in life you have to go to parties, but mostly I am not fond of parties.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember years ago when we were attending a church at Oakland Park, and at that time a large number of people left, it is called a split, and they went over to Abundant Life, a non-denominational independent church, but I do not remember very much about that. I did not go with them. It was not my thing to go to claim Abundant Life as anything that I would know anything about, so it is hard for me to remember who those people were. I heard that Rosanna was one of those split-offs who went to Abundant Life. But of course you could always ask Michelle for more information. She always seemed to know everything about those people who filed a lawsuit against the church, and she even told me that she had visited them and that they still had the legal paperwork and were obsessing on that topic. I forget who she said that was. I never did keep track of those people. Sometimes if I were to see them at a restaurant, I may or may not recognize them. I really do not remember much about that. It would seem unethical for me to trouble myself about church splits. All local churches have their problems. Enough said about that.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I can easily see that you have made your point, which is to say that we cannot trust you not to make a huge mess of anything personal that we may have inadvertently entrusted you with. You only care about control. So that is a problem. Needless to say. Obviously.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I do hope that, amidst your rageaholic furies, once in a while you may find a moment to contemplate the beautiful scenic landscape of God's handiwork in creation, the stars in the sky and the hills and valleys and so forth, as per the Psalm, and also to reflect on the many strange coincidences that may occur, often beyond our awareness or consciousness, in this life of trials and tribulations.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I do think that heaven might be a more pleasant place without certain people there, but anyway, it is not my place to choose, and also, by the time we get to heaven, it might not matter there because anyway it was not about them.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it really is sort of funny, how they give me credit for strategizing in ways that I had never thought of at the time. If only I were that smart, looking back now from the vantage point of hindsight, maybe I could have really inflicted some sort of planned torture, but actually that was not where my head was at the time. 

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I think there might be a problem with the name of the band, but anyway, this particular song has nothing to do with that.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember that I thought it very odd, this obsession of yours with winning the lottery. Often you have made jokes about the lottery and betting, and even thought I told you I do not buy lottery tickets, I am starting to think that maybe I should try that, too. But didn't I point out in some article that I wrote that the odds of wining the lottery are similar to being eaten by a shark?

Coincidentally, during the latter half of the 1990s, I was singing with the Florida Philharmonic Choir and Chamber Singers, and our choir director told us that he was a graduate of the choir college that is somehow related to Princeton University in New Jersey. I enjoyed that volunteer experience very much, but anyway, although I have not sung for years now, I did so much enjoy the time that I sang with them.

Yes, I suppose that if you could qualify for admission to that choir college, you could almost write your own ticket, your career would be set for life as a choir director. Still, that would not count as a lottery ticket. That would require some hard work and study. You would have to move to New Jersey and apply there, something that I would never think of doing. But that would be something for you to think of, not me. I am done with music. 

I am done with performing as a sitting duck for your social experiments. 

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I do hope that you are not auditioning for a comic role in a comedy because you obviously have no talent for being funny, especially not in such a context. That flat and abrupt delivery leads to nowhere, especially when pounding on an overdone joke that is already worn to shreds and overdue for the garbage dumpster, so we'll just overlook that you ever said that, given that you don't really matter anyway in the scheme of things.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, isn't that interesting, your bandmate on the B-52s is a Strickland, whereas my grandmother was a Strickland. And are you also being harassed by the Baron's Recusants of Malta? Do you even care whence comes this Recusant vs. Puritan narrative? I might not have noticed that, but now that I am aware of that, even so, I wish to maintain my own distinctive identity apart from the Baron's deviating Sicilian pathways. In other words, I really don't like this way of cutting up America into little pieces, but anyway I don't always get what I want, so I can just leave. 

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I hear you saying that you are doing Number 2, which means that you will be sitting there on the toilet for up to half an hour, so if I need to do something I will just have to wait. That is what that means. 

Which Reminds Me

Yes, what was that Bible verse that I once shared, something about choice of arranging the furniture, and that did not seem to go over well so I forgot what that was. Nobody seems to care about how I would rearrange the furniture.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, that was a bit awkward, being mistaken for the reporter that I was hired to replace. She seemed to have taken dictation from the activists.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, that was sad when Steve Richey, my editor at the time, was fired, because he had written a one-word headline in huge letters, "Whitewashed," topping a story about the usual city politics, and the city insiders were complaining about his overly dramatic yellow journalism. There were some nice things about Steve but he let himself get too emotionally wrapped up in the drama of things, or better to say that he talked out of both sides of his mouth. And don't we all, but unfortunately sometimes when you belonged to that cliquey of activists they were getting rid of at the time, any mistake would be enough for their purposes.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember that we made a sort of radio program with Dogpatch David, the story line had something to do with Lower Slobovia, which now that I look at that, I see that was a Jewish state in Siberia, a sort of counterpart to Dogpatch. Oh! I did not know at that time that Lower Slobovia was Jewish. I had thought it was a story about haughty arrogant rich people, but apparently there was more to that story than I could imagine. Sorry but I have no special Dogpatch news for Dogpatch Monica. That all belongs to Dogpatch David.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, there you go again, attempting to compel slave labor without compensation, as if I should lift a finger to assist the evil child molesters of Arkansas. Forget you.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember feeling that everything that I would need to say about that has already been said anyway, presumably by others beyond my earshot, so there would be no point to rehash that over and over again. Those who have A Round Tuit, by all means, may go right ahead and do that. I am not sure that I have that. 

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I do not remember myself eve asking for or needing the help of Yukkety-Yuk Larry, that loopy idiot from Chicago. For what do I need the Yukkety-Yuks of Chicago?

Which Reminds Me

Yes, isn't that clever, how someone planted the idea of presidents and elections in various permutations, in a misleading way that gives the impression that I ever cared about what happened to Larry Kraiss. Yuk! Actually not. But in the middle of college one does not have the luxury of verbalizing all of these strangely passing thoughts in someone else's brain. Yes, well aren't you just so proud of yourself, having married the son of the college president, as if I should have noticed your uninteresting appearance in the college yearbook. We were not acquainted.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, and of course it was all the more terrifying and unfortunate that she was standing there, as if the party was all about her and I had no business being there, which I didn't, but anyway, she is likely to say any weird thing to make me feel that much more uncomfortable and embarrassed about being there. So that was all the more awkward.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, that is one of the easily understandable and foreseeable difficulties and/or perils of hosting your swanky shindig on the college campus, in a classroom where it is always quite possible that any student wandering nearby, not knowing that anything special was going on there, may suddenly make a righ tor left turn and unexpectedly encounter some persons gathered, all dressed up in fancy clothes for who knows what occasion. I really never understood what that was about.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember hearing that Mark Carpenter was fired, but that happened after I had left and who knows what else happened in relation to that. Why should I bother asking questions when, anyway, Mark was not really such a special friend anyway. Only later was it learned that he was tapping the phones, so that was how he knew what I said on the phone and suddenly appeared at my desk to comment, almost as if he had knowledge of my personal conversations. But sometimes one does not try to verbalize every stray thought that passes through one's head, sorry if that disappoints your expectations of an easy explanation.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, that was really quite lame, your attempt to match me with Rusty. He was just one of those guys at college and really did not rise beyond the level of mere casual acquaintance, so why would I be getting all of these emails about him so many years later? Haven't we all moved on beyond college and have other things on our minds now than yammering about Rusty and his stage directions and college records? I just have nothing to say about that.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember that some girls on maybe the fifth floor asked me to accompany their act, which was basically a gang of girls singing "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out Of My Hair," which is a song from the musical "South Pacific." So it was just whatever they wanted to do. My opinion was not solicited nor would I care to offer any commentary in such a context. I forget, was Rusty president of that Guild that year? I forget the details of that.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember during college that some persons created a student organization, the Musician's Guild, whose main job was to organize the annual student talent show, and for the second year of that, Karen was elected the president of the Guild, so whatever crazy act is staged by the students is ultimately her responsibility, not my problem. The Buck should stop at Karen's desk, not my problem. Needless to say. Obviously.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, how interesting to note that Rosanna Barth (died 1903), the sister of my great-great-grandfather, was married to Henry Shotte (died 1897), and they had eight children: three sons and five daughters. These facts at least may be gleaned from the public record of genealogical research. Beyond that I have no idea who these people are. To me they are simply a list of names and dates on tombstones probably. We never had much contact with Ohio.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I would imagine that I would have told you that I am really not Irish, but you were not listening to me anyway. Those wishing to play Irish ping-pong should look for some other match, not me. But it is difficult to account for how people have varying perceptions based on the stereotypical pictures of their storybook minds. 

Which Reminds Me

Yes, when it comes to name jokes, I am completely able to sympathize with the Shott dogs of Ohio, if there be any so dubbed, although the picture from over here, of their mere existence, is not at all clear.

Just because my name sounds like candy, the most seemingly sane and mentally healthy persons will say to me, "Are you sweet? Can I eat you?" as if that were funny, to say the most cruel and cannibalistic thing, especially when I was a small child, in a laughing tone, as if that were a joke. And I suppose that I could verbalize my thought on that subject, but such jokesters really do not deserve so much expenditure of emotional energy on my part. Needless to say. Obviously.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I did like that song, "The Way We Were," in which it is stated that things seemed more simple back then, and sung by Barbra Streisand, it really sticks in your mind how she sang it, not really how I sang it, or would have sung it if I had gone that far. However, I am nothing like the character in the movie, seen outside on the sidewalk carrying picket signs. No, I never do that. I just do not fit the stereotypical B-B role that you are trying to squeeze me into. That was not me. 

Which Reminds Me

Yes, how interesting is that! My great-great-grandfather William Barth's sister Rosanna (died 1903) was married to Henry Schotte (died 1907), whereas your mother's maiden name was Schacht. Wow! And how is that a connection? I am not quite seeing your point, not really a top-of-mind subject for discussion. And how would you have even noticed that?